The "So What Are You Addicted To" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Snacking on a bag of potato chips that are made a few miles away in Lancaster County.  Chips seem to go with just about any lunchtime meal as well as a snack when you're watching TV in the evening.  It's such a fantastic snack that it made the list of 7 most addictive snacks or foods in a recent online survey.  Follow along and check out all the snack food that tends to be addictive.

1. Potato Chips - This snack is best known for two things: salt and fat.  Studies have shown that eating salt triggers the release of dopamine which is a chemical messenger that controls your brain's pleasure center.  Once your brain gets a signal from that first chip, you and your brain are hooked.  Herr's Potato Chips are made in southern Lancaster County.  Carol and I made a trip to the factory and we ate chips the entire way through the tour.  Then, when we were ready to depart, there was a big display of their chips for sale.  Just had to buy one.  So did most other people.  When we travel to the Caribbean we sometimes find Herr's products on the shelves of stores on a variety of islands.
   
2. Cookies - The "pleasure center" of your brain responds to cookies just as it responds to medicine.  The brain's nucleus accumbens reacts to a chocolate chip or snickerdoodle cookie the same way it would if you had just taken cocaine or morphine.  Actually, that could cause some major health implications if not held in check.  Maybe if drug counselors told people to eat cookies instead of shooting drugs into their system they might be doing their patients a favor.  I have so many varieties of cookies I love that my list would be too large to place here.  My one prerequisite for a cookie is that you can dunk it in milk.  If the cookie can't absorb milk, pitch it!
   
3. Sodas - Some call them sodas, I call then soft drinks.  Call then anything you want, but I drink way to many of them.  When I go on the weekly shopping trip to the grocery store with my wife, I stand in front of the entire aisle of soft drinks, trying to decide which one I will buy.  Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Rootbeer, etc., etc., all are part of my diet which I know isn't good, but it's a simple pleasure I can't stop.  It's addictive!  And the reason it is so addictive...caffeine.  Soft drinks are nothing more than carbonated water, flavoring and caffeine.  Caffeine is the world's most popular psychoactive drug and it's said to be a part of 80% of humans diet every day.  And, sometimes multiple times a day in my household.
   
4. Pizza - It's a party food, a lunchtime or supper meal and a snack.  You can buy then in the box, at the store or make them yourself.  And...it's addictive!  Great when you're in front of the TV, at the beach, on the boardwalk, at a party, etc.  And...it's addictive!
   
5. Chocolate - We have a store a short walk from our house that makes chocolate treats.  That's not fair!  That's why it is addictive in our household.  The sea salt, chocolate covered caramels...oh my are they good.  And, expensive!  I also live close to the Hershey plant so that's another reason I eat so much of the stuff that contains both sugar and fat and is often used in studies of food addiction.  It is very similar to taking drugs as far as the brain is concerned.
   
6. Ice Cream - I should have put this on the top of my list, since I crave ice cream more than any other item on this list of 7.  The No. 1 driver of my ice cream craving is its sweetness, naturally.  Good ice cream tends to max out at about 18% milk fat which can come from milk, cream or butter.  Ice cream cones, ice cream sandwiches, ice cream soda, ice cream this and ice cream that.  I love them all.  My favorite flavor...I guess vanilla since I can mix it with anything, including scoops of another flavor of ice cream.
   
7. Fries - I tend to call them French Fries, but were they really invented in France?  I'm not sure and I guess it depends whom you are talking with when you want to know the answer.  They contain MSG which increases appetite by inhibiting your brain from registering that you're satiated.  In one study on rats, MSG increased their food intake by 40%.  I used to eat fries quite often, but I put it on the bottom of my list today because I could live without them more than any of the above items.
   

So, what's on your addictive list.  Perhaps everything listed above plus more?  And, can you control yourself when eating these addictive food items.  I can't!!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.