Might as well face it: You’re addicted to junk

There may be a lot more truth to the phrase “junk-food junkie” than anyone ever imagined.

The latest research finds that snack cakes and other bad food can be every bit as addictive as crack and heroin.

Think about that next time you pick up a package of Ho Hos.

In fact, chocolate Ho Ho cakes were one of the very treats used in this study, which is expected to be published soon.

Neuroscientist Paul Kenny worked with three sets of rats. Some rats got healthy food… some got healthy food but were
able to sample a little junk… and a third group got to eat as much Ho Hos, cheesecake and cheap sponge cake as they
wanted.

And here’s what happened: The processed-food pests lost all control. They ate and ate and ate until their rat bellies
bulged.

Pretty much like many humans.

Then, the rats were given electric stimulation to the pleasure centers of the their brains. The rodents were able to control their levels of stimulation by running in a wheel.

And the junk-food rats ran harder than the others – indicating that they needed more stimulation to get the same amount of pleasure as the other rodents.

The same thing happens to drug addicts, which is why they need more and more of their drugs to get the same high… and why so many end up overdosing. Now, we know that junk-food addicts overdose too – just on snacks instead of smack, and Coke instead of coke.

Then, to really show how important junk became to these rats, the researchers began sending shocks to the feet of
the rodents who ate the stuff. Those who had only eaten a little of the snack food quickly decided it wasn’t worth the trouble and moved on.

But the addicts? They kept on eating, shock or no shock.

The scariest part to me is that it didn’t take much at all for the rats to reach this point – just five days on the snack-food diet turned them into full-blown junkies.

Researchers say this is the first study to find that junk food can be a powerful addiction, but is anyone really surprised? The fast-food joint White Castle even has an advertising campaign called “The Crave” that plays on the idea that their greasy little burgers are addictive.

Maybe in retrospect, this wasn’t just a clever slogan… but a rare bit of truth-in-advertising.

Now that we know the true power of these foods, maybe it’s time to start treating them like the dangerous substances
they are.

And if you get the urge to binge, just remember: Junk food might make you giddy… or, let’s call it what it is now – high… for a moment or two.

But even as it fills the belly, it will always leave you empty.