Comment by musicale | Hacker News Reader

Comment by musicale | Hacker News Reader

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> If your parents didn't stop you, would you be able to choose and have only 1-2 servings of your favorite sugar snack? or if left alone would you go through a long process of rationalizing just one more and before you know it the entire bag is gone.

"You can't eat just one." Fortunately I seem to be able to easily resist the lure of potato chips/crisps and actually feel full after eating a few of them. I think the greasiness or fat content helps. I can enjoy the hyper-palatable salty, savory and spicy versions but a 200kcal bag is really overkill.

But some hyper-palatable foods are so well optimized that they can be really hard to resist; they press all of the buttons of deliciousness while making you hungry for another one.

I used 'sugar' for a reason, comparing it to potato chips is an apples to oranges comparison. We are talking about addiction, and how the brain at young ages can't really perceive or moderate highly addictive behaviors.

Sugar is provably addictive and has been compared to cocaine, heroin, and other opioids for the flood of dopamine it causes.

Those optimized foods you refer to often simply have a lot of sugar processed into them.

I wonder if children can actually metabolize sugar better than adults? They certainly seem to have more of a sweet tooth, and sugar cereals seem to be more popular with children than adults. Adults are far more likely to complain that something is "too sweet."

But hyper-palatable foods aren't just sweet - they're savory, spicy, tangy, salty, fatty, all sorts of delicous! They also smell amazing. I recall reading that simply smelling pizza can be enough to cause your blood sugar to spike, presumably in anticipation.

Paradoxically artificial sweeteners can apparently raise blood sugar as well, as can black/unsweetened coffee.

Children's palate is still developing, that's why they like different tastes than they would as a adults. It literally tastes different to them!

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