The 5 Levels of Empty-Calorie Detox
Awakening, Upgrading, Governing, Designing, and, for the truly committed among us, Abstaining
If you live in the Western World, your likelihood to be addicted to illicit drugs is about 2%. Softer addictions like alcohol and nicotine are more common at around 20%.
But there is another category of addictive substances that affects most of the population: all those irresistible, nutrient-free treats rich in refined carbs, saturated fats, and salt, collectively known as empty calories. The science is now becoming clearer on how these substances lead to consumption disorders and addiction, especially sugar.
Basically, these hyper-palatable foods stimulate the reward centers in the brain (like all other drugs), encouraging more consumption even when safe limits have long since been crossed.
This response comes from our evolutionary history where food was scarce, and binging was important for survival. In today’s world of caloric abundance, this outdated survival instinct has quite the opposite effect.
“Food addiction” remains a contentious term, mainly because empty calories are obviously much less…
