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Why do we love eating pizza so much?

Have you ever wondered why you always want chocolate or pizza over any other dish?

The answer to this lies in the composition of these foods that make us simply become addicted to them and want to eat more and more of them.

So what's inside?

Tags

• Sugar

• pizza

• Sugar weaning

Roni Singer and Noa Avraham

Tuesday, 04 May 2021, 07:16 Updated: 07:19

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Hmmm pizza.

Pizza Gif (Photo: Giphy)

When was the last time you craved a cucumber?

When did you feel like "getting off" on a package of almonds?

One can guess that this has never happened, certainly not as you crave crispy pizza or fine chocolate.

You're not alone.

Most humans, and animals of course, prefer food that they perceive as "tastier" and crave it.

The craving for food alongside the global obesity epidemic, and with it the diseases that accompany it, have led nutrition researchers to repeatedly explore what makes us want to eat certain foods.

The question that led to these studies was whether it was really a food addiction and not just a craving?

And if so, what are the most addictive foods and why?

More on Walla!

7 foods that contain much more sugar than you think

To the full article

In 2018, a comprehensive study conducted at the University of Michigan was published among 518 participants and joined several dozen studies conducted in recent years on the subject.

The study constructed a not particularly surprising list of foods that were claimed to be addictive.

At the top of the list is pizza, followed by chocolate, fries, cookies, ice cream, hamburgers, sugary drinks and cakes.

Despite all this, opinions are divided as to whether food can cause addiction in terms of its composition, as drugs can, or whether it is primarily behavior that results from emotional rather than physiological elements.

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As far as physiological impulse is concerned, all the studies that have examined the subject return to the understanding that high-sugar foods affect the activity of the hormone dopamine, which is responsible for pleasure and reward in our brains.

This hormone is released respectively rising and increasing as we consume more and more sugar.

It tastes good to us, we crave it and want more from it and when the quantity is not enough we want more and "increase" consumption.

Without going into the nuances between the researchers, all the studies that have been done show that the food that is repeatedly rated among the experimenters as craving it is processed and high in sugar or based on white flour.

The brain wants more and more sugar.

Brain Gif (Photo: Giphy, Sprogell)

Why is it at all important to know if food is addictive? Because the obesity epidemic is a real struggle of most countries in the world. The economic and health burden of the consequences of obesity is high, and the aim of most studies is to try and see if it is possible to lead to more accurate government nutrition recommendations and information that will point to certain foods as "possible for addiction."

Therefore, when it is clearer than ever that there are foods that if you eat them you will want more and more, even if you do not "addict" to them, you can try to adopt a sugar-reduced diet that can get you out of the sugar addiction cycle and even bring great relief from craving certain foods.

Try to take a month where you do not eat added sugar.

Start reading a list of ingredients to make sure you have not eaten sugar that you did not know existed until today and it is in foods that you usually eat.

Replace a bad habit of cake with coffee at four, with a good habit of a few almonds next to the coffee.

People who cut sugar for a period of time are surprised to find that after a short period of craving, it fades and with it the urge to eat more and more sweet.

Leaving the sugar cycle does wonders for the good feeling, for the facial skin, for the sugar levels in the body, and of course for the weight.

Roni Singer and Noa Avraham, a dietitian, are the founders of "Refeed Challenge without Sugar"

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