And in vaguely related news, LA is considering a two-year moratorium on fast food joints being built in poorer South LA.
Chocolate Is The Most Widely Craved Food, But Is It Really Addictive?
Chocolate is the most widely and frequently craved food. People readily admit to being ‘addicted to chocolate’ or willingly label themselves as ‘chocoholics’. A popular explanation for this is that chocolate contains mood-enhancing (psychoactive) ingredients that give it special appeal.
Evidence and logic, however, find little support for this. Substances present in chocolate which have been highlighted as potentially pharmacologically significant include serotonin, tryptophan, phenylethylamine, tyramine and cannabinoids. However, many of these compounds exist in higher concentrations in other foods with less appeal than chocolate.
Professor Peter Rogers, from the University of Bristol, UK, explains: “A more compelling explanation lies in our ambivalent attitudes towards chocolate — it is highly desired but should be eaten with restraint (nice but naughty). Our unfulfilled desire to eat chocolate, resulting from restraint, is thus experienced as craving, which in turn is attributed to ‘addiction’.”
A further observation is that the most widely preferred chocolate is milk chocolate and chocolate-covered confectionery. These contain a lower amount of cocoa solids, and therefore a lower concentration of potentially psychoactive compounds, than ‘dark’ chocolate which is not so widely craved.
It is therefore far more plausible to suggest that a liking for chocolate, and its effects on mood, are due mainly to its principal constituents, sugar and fat, and their related orosensory and nutritional effects.
The evidence as to whether chocolate can really become addictive is examined by Professor Peter Rogers from the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, Uk.
This is stoopid. Nobody thinks chocolate is addictive. Just a combination of marketing hooks and lack of responsibility/guilt over pleasures, for one’s actions==often when no responsibility or guilt is required.
#1 – If you think chocolate isn’t addictive, you have very little actual experience with women 🙂
As for me, I am actually not very interested in chocolate, which makes me feel conspicuously like an outcast sometimes. My addiction is BBQ Chicken.
Yea, I believe that as much as you have a Jones for Mustard.
#3 – What do you not believe? That Chocolate is addictive? That I have fallen for the dreamy Mustard Man? Or that BBQ Chicken is addictive?
And WTF is up with KFC? When I was a kid, they served BBQ chicken. Today they just serve those damn BBQ popcorn chicken bites. That ain’t right!
4–You got all three. Don’t believe any of it.
Seems to me the chicken strips at KFC are pretty good, and almost healthy, still relatively speaking. Can’t believe they still don’t serve dead chicken skin on a bone anymore. They did a year ago anyway.
I thought chocolate had caffeine in it, which is, trust me, addictive. However, choco would have that in small quantity anyway, not like the pots of coffee I drink. As for chocolate addiction, I think it’s a psychological addiction like cocaine or marijuana, rather than a physical addition like heroine or nicotine.
All I know is that it has horrible side effects. It makes me break out in fat all over.
I think it also defies conservation of mass. 3 ounces of chocolate can easily cause a 5 pound weight gain.
#4 – OFTLO,
I just lump KFC in with McDs, Disney, and Vegas as places that get millions of people I don’t want to meet to go somewhere I don’t want to go. I know the line is getting a bit tired now. But, it’s really true.
who cares?
#6 – I think it’s a psychological addiction like cocaine or marijuana,
Ummm… Hold on….
Cocaine is physically addicting, and marijuana isn’t addictive at all, psychologically or otherwise.
Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ smothered over chicken quarters and sizzled up on a grill, on the other hand, will send me into a furious frenzy.
#7 – WAIT! What’s wrong with Vegas? I know its not the same since the mob got muscled out, but its a really cool town. I love Vegas, and I don’t gamble so much as a dime… …except at the poker table, but never at a casino…
#9 – OFTLO,
I’m having trouble finding references. It appears there’s some confusion on whether cocaine is truly physically addictive or just highly psychologically addictive.
#10 – OFTLO,
I lump Vegas with the others. It’s just my opinion. I don’t assert it as the one true opinion on the subject. You’re entitled to enjoy Lost Wages if you choose. Some people even like Disney. For me to go to Vegas, I’d probably drive out to the desert to see what cool wildlife is there. I might even check out the solar array.
I’d also be as likely to stay at a Motel 6 outside of town as to stay in a casino. It’d probably depend on which was cheaper. (The motel might also have the added chance of seeing wildlife, perhaps a scorpion in my room.) If the casino took the bet that I’d gamble and so, gave me a dirt cheap room rate, I’d take it and laugh. I’d also come home saying I won in Vegas, without even hitting the casino.
>>I thought chocolate had caffeine in it, which is, trust me, addictive.
Not for me, it’s not.
And chocolate has tiny amounts of caffeine (nothing like a cup of coffee or tea, though). Present in greater amounts are theobromine (a mood-elevating methylxanthine compound), phenylethylamine (related to amphetamine), and tryptophan.
REASONING:
1. USA chocolate ISNT choclate. There is more milk and sugar in USA chocolate then any other nation. And we sell the bars for ALOT more then any other nation.
2. Addiction is interesting. As the doctor was giving me NON-addictive pain meds, and I asked him…IF they stop the pain, and I LIKE NOT being in pain, and IF’ I stop them, I would BE IN PAIN, wouldnt I WANT them like an ADDICTION?? and Tolerances are just as bad, with any drug.
PS,
go try some real chocolates, from 60-90%…And pay thru the nose for it.
Also chocolates have different flavors… Just like coffee.
Different people get addicted to different things. I quit booze and pot without any problems, but tobacco withdrawal was nearly lethal. A co worker quit tobacco with no problem, but cannot lay off the booze. Another co worker quit tobacco and booze with no trouble, but went through hell quitting pot. And another quite horse and booze with no trouble, but could not quit tobacco.
And I have not had any decent BBQ chicken, pork, beef, or dog since leaving the deep south. What the damyanks call BBQ? BLEH!
ECA,
Couldn’t agree with you more on quality chocolate. Always watch where the beans are from. If they’re not talking, they’re forrestal. For the most readily available good chocolate, try Valhrona. If you can find them, check for some of the single bean origins from Valhrona, Michel Cluizel, and others. Dark chocolate need not be bitter. It can be fruity or floral. Good beans will also have much longer lasting taste.
#6
HUSH! Or we’ll see those poorly drawn Above the Influence commercials doing stuff about chocolate.
OhForTheLoveOf – good one about women and chocolate… I’ve known a few like that myself.
It looks like they’re trying to say it’s not physically addictive. The problem I see with addiction is that it’s a mental thing just as much as it is physical. I’ve tried to quit smoking three times (on third try now) and the 2 relapses I had were both brought on by great stress from life events (Hurricane Rita bearing down on Texas in ’05 and then the death of my best friend in ’06). Each time I had beaten the physical but it was the mental that drew me back in to the behavior.
As far as chocolate goes though, I really have cared that much about it since I was a kid.
This is about as hilarous as when the tobacco industry went before congress and said cigarettes are not addictive.
of course chocolate is addictive!