No Fast Food

According to an article in Psychology today when McDonald's began advertisingits $1 menu featuring the Big N' Tasty burger, some franchise owners were forced to sell them at a net loss; the popular item cost $1.07 to make. How could they afford to do this? Because McDonald's already knew that you were going to buy fries and a Coke—products with big profit margins. It costs pennies to fill up a large drink, but you're charged more than a buck for it. This is a great deal for them and not such a great deal for us, but we can't help ourselves, because sugar lights up our brain's reward pathway. 

Many recent neurosciencediscoveries about food's effects on our brains and how we make decisions about eating are actually gold-standard trade secrets from super-chains such as McDonald's. With billions and billions served, they must be on to something. Here are 7 things they know, and that you should, too:

1. Sugar is addictive.

Nearly everything on fast food franchise’s menus contain some sugar, from the drinks to the ketchup to the hamburger buns and fries. They know that most people are going to shell out an extra dollar for a soft drink because sugar is addictive. Just as you can develop a physiological and psychological dependence on cocaine, you can become dependent on sugar. 

Recent experiments have shown that sugar offers the hallmarks of addiction—bingeing, withdrawal, and craving. Researchers kept rats from eating for 12 hours, then gave them unlimited access to food and sugar water for a brief period, then took the food and sugar away again. They repeated this schedule for a few weeks. The rats formed a cycle of bingeing when given access to sugar, and, over time, increased their intake to twice the amount from when they started. When researchers stopped offering sugar or gave the rats an opioid blocker, which prevents the high by blocking some of the pleasurable effects in the brain, the rats showed signs of withdrawal, such as teeth-chattering and body tremors. 

2. The push of convenience.

The fact that you can go to almost any city in the country and find fast food within five minutes of driving contributes to the likelihood of compulsive eating. It’s fast, it’s easy and you don’t even have to get out of your car to get it. 

3. The Value Meal taps the brain's economy.

Low prices minimize the pain associated with parting with your hard-earned money. 

4. Our brains prefer high-calorie foods.

," our brains evolved during a time when food was scarce, so we became adept at choosing foods that packed calories. 

In one recent experiment, scientists used genetically engineered mice that were missing sugar receptors and therefore unable to detect sweetness in food. The researchers then gave the mice free access to two water dispensers, one with sugar water and one with regular water. Initially, the mice showed no preference; sugar water tasted just like regular water. However, after several hours, the mice shifted to drinking almost exclusively from the sugar water dispenser. To ensure that the mice preferred the calories, but could not detect the taste, the researchers offered them water sweetened with sucralose (e.g. Splenda). The mice didn't take it. 

When the scientists analyzed the mice brains, they found that the mice released dopamine in response to sugar water, even though they couldn't taste it, but not in response to regular water or sucralose. Our brains can tell the difference between high calorie foods anddietfoods even if they taste the same and our instinct for survival pushes us to seek out the calories even though in our world calories are not scarce or in danger of not being available.

5. Speed has addictive properties.

The closer you can pair a stimulus with reward the stronger the drive to obtain it. Fast food provides a quick fix for hunger. You don't even have to get out of your car to pick up a burger, fries or soda. You place your order at the drive-thru and within two minutes you can take the first bite as you drive home. You can hardly get a pan hot enough to fry in that time. The sooner you have the burger in hand, the sooner it can trigger the release of the cocktail of rewarding chemicals in your brain. 

6. Brains like branding.

Just as Pavlov was able to get a dog to salivate at the sound of a bell, The sign advertising your favorite fast food place gets your juices flowing anytime you hear their jingle. Pavlov showed that if he rang a bell before giving food to a dog, eventually the bell itself would whet its appetite. 

Across the nation, Fast food franchises provide a consistent experience every time you enter their doors. The employees recite a scripted greeting, the menu looks the same, and the same images and logos are posted on the walls. The more consistent the experience, the more strongly your brain associates the brand with the desired experience. The brain's reward chemical is dopamine, a molecule that's released when you experience something you enjoy. However, one of the brilliant aspects of the brain is its ability to learn and make predictions about the world based on past experiences. When the brain learns that a certain cue is associated with a reward, dopamine neurons learn to fire whenever the cue appears, even before the reward is given. Dopamine does more than simply reward you; it also motivates you to seek the pleasure again. As soon as you see the cue, your brain begins to anticipate the reward. The anticipation is part of the pleasure. Would you like fries with that? 

7. McNuggets stoke your memory.

In a recent study, researchers gave children chicken nuggets in an unmarked container or in McNuggets packaging. Not surprisingly, kids preferred the ones that resembled a Happy Meal. Neuroscience research has shown that a big part of the pleasure of eating stems from memoriestied to the food, not taste alone. 

In a brain-imaging study of the Pepsi Challenge, Read Montague at Baylor College of Medicine first gave participants a blind taste test of Coca-Cola and Pepsi while in an MRI scanner. The subjects preferred Coca-Cola and Pepsi equally, and both of the sodas caused brain activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, a region involved in pleasure and reward. However, when the subjects were told they were drinking Coke, they shifted their preference. Now, 75 percent preferred Coke. What's more, their brain activity changed. The hippocampus, the brain region crucial to memory formation, lit up with activity, suggesting that drinking Coca-Cola, rather than a generic soft-drink, stirs up your memories of Coca-Cola.

Similarly, eating a McNugget not only sates your appetite for chicken (and the glue that holds the McNugget together), it also reminds you of your childhood, the cool Transformers toy you got in your Happy Meal, and the first time you were big enough to order the 10-piece instead of the 4-piece. 

What can we do?

You guessed it ladies this week’s challenge is a NO FAST FOOD CHALLENGE. For every day that you do not eat at any fast food franchises you earn 5 points for a total possible bonus challenge points of 35. 

And yes I know that some fast food franchises offer somewhat healthy choices. But for this week we will abstain. And we will define fast food franchise as places with pizza, nuggets, burgers, fries and sodas in most instances anywhere that you can drive through and buy food while seated in your car.