Ep. 92: The End Of Craving with Mark Schatzker
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Low-fat, sugar-free, zero carb….oh my! Society has come up with every diet imaginable in our journey toward living healthy, but rates of obesity continue to rise. Food journalist Mark Schatzker argues that tampering with the food we eat has harmed our ability to properly feed ourselves. Medcan Director of Food and Nutrition Leslie Beck chats with Schatzker about his new book, The End of Craving, what’s so bad about manufactured additives, artificial sweeteners, and the puzzling paradox of Italian cuisine.
LINKS
Check out Mark Schatzker on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. See his website here.
Schatzker’s new book is The End of Craving: Recovering the Lost Wisdom of Eating Well. Buy it on Indigo and Amazon.
Buy his other books:
The Dorito Effect: The Surprising New Truth About Food and Flavour
Steak: One Man’s Search for the World’s Tastiest Piece of Beef
See some scientific studies mentioned in the interview and Schatzker’s book:
This 2020 study in Cell Metabolism shows how artificial sweeteners can reduce insulin sensitivity and blunt brain response to sucrose
This 2017 study in Current Biology suggests how artificial sweeteners disrupt normal physiological responses to carbohydrate ingestion
This 2011 study in Trends in Cognitive Sciences used brain scans to show the difference between an obese person’s brain and a non-obese person’s brain at the sight of food.
This 2008 study in Neuron shows mice with blocked sweetness receptors still preferred sugar water
This research from the 1960s shows how diets are ineffective against the body’s natural weight setpoint
Read Schatzker’s recent opinion piece in The Globe and Mail: “Don’t blame fat. Don’t blame carbs. Blame your brain for your weight-loss troubles”
Check out information on Italy’s obesity rate here.
Learn more about Canada’s permitted food additives and how they are regulated here.
Read about FDA food ingredients and packaging regulations here.
INSIGHTS
The stigma against people with obesity is that they are overindulgent or weak. “This is absolutely wrong,” says Schatzker. Instead, the brains of obese people respond to food differently. For example, at the sight of food, research has shown that obese people experience a spike in dopamine levels in their brains’ reward centres. “The difference,” says Schatzker, “is one of craving.” [9:25]
Our brain analyzes everything we eat, to know what nutrients it’s getting and to predict what it will get in the future. Scientists speculate that we think high-sugar and high-fat foods taste the best because they contain the most energy for our bodies. In one fascinating study, scientists engineered mice that were unable to sense sweetness levels of food—and the mice still preferred sugar water to plain water. The reason? Researchers believed that it was because the mouse brains were able to sense the sugar water provided more calories. [12:23]
“We always thought that sweetness is this indulgent, enjoyable sensation,” says Schatzker. “It’s actually like an instruction manual… for how much energy we’re getting.” When our food contains additives like artificial sweeteners or fat replacers, it tastes like it should contain more sugar or fat than it actually does. “When there's this mismatch… the brain doesn't know what to do,” Schatzker says. “It kind of throws up its hands.” The uncertainty of how much energy we’re getting leads the body to want to eat more, just to cover its bases. Which explains the obesity crisis in North America, where so much of the diet is processed (a.k.a. mismatched) food. [16:55]
“We tend to think that our appetite is primitive and unhinged, and that there’s something wrong with food,” says Schatzker. As a result, we’ve been adding things to our food to change its taste, texture, shelf-life or caloric content, and these additives have been directly altering our brains and the amount of food that we’re driven to eat. To make matters worse, these additives are difficult to spot on ingredient labels. They’re often called things that sound healthy and natural, like citrus fibre or milk protein (both fat replacers). [28:58]
“If delicious food is a guilty pleasure, you would expect that Italians would be the heaviest people in the world,” says Schatzker. In fact Italy has one of the world’s lowest obesity rates, and he credits that to Italy’s cultural attitude toward mealtime, home cooking and savouring. “Eating is meant to be deeply pleasurable, so don’t be afraid to enjoy real food. That’s the way it’s meant to be eaten,” he says. [32:33]
