Hooked: Food, Free Will, and How the Food Giants Exploit Our Addictions

by Michael Moss

But these drugs have reason to be so forceful in hitting the brain, Volkow said when I interviewed her at the drug abuse institute in Bethesda, Maryland. They need to get the brain really excited in order to override our concern that abusing drugs is too dangerous. If we obtain the drugs illegally, we run the risk of being arrested or getting a batch that is so strongly concentrated or contaminated it will kill us. In order to surmount these sizable risks, drugs have to maximize the initial cravings, and then follow that up with some exceptionally great feelings of pleasure as a reward, or we wouldn’t bother with them. By contrast, processed food is a shoo-in to get us to pounce. It’s inexpensive, fast, widely available, and generally safe, at least in terms of its immediate effect on our health and social well-being. We tend not to think about the long-term consequences. It doesn’t have to shock the brain to get us to eat. A well-placed murmur suffices. The other thing that food has going for it is the power of repetition.