#308 - Why Some Foods Are So Hard to Stop Eating | Dr. Dana Small & Mike Haney

Why do we crave some foods the more often we eat them? Are we addicted?Dr. Dana Small’s research suggests that food craving reaches far beyond taste or willpower, and that “addiction” isn’t a helpful descriptor. Every time we eat, unconscious signals from the body teach the brain which foods deliver useful nutrients, and train us to want more of those. In other words, we don’t eat crave foods because they taste good; foods taste good because our body craves them.Understanding that means we can rethink overeating. It’s not a matter of addiction or self-control; it’s our body behaving the way nature intended it to, but in the setting of foods not found in the wild, like those high in both fat and carbohydrates. But we may also be able to train our brain away from these cravings.Free course: Improve your metabolic healthGet our free email course on how glucose, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and measurement can help you build habits that support better energy and long-term health: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://levels.link/wnl⁠What We CoverTaste vs. flavor, pleasure, motivation, and food rewardHow gut nutrient signals teach the brain which foods to seekWhy fat + carbs produce an unusually strong reward responseWhat eight weeks of high-fat, high-sugar snacks did to the brainHow GLP-1s may cut food wanting while preserving pleasure🎙️ About the Guest:Dr. Dana Small is the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Metabolism and the Brain and a professor at McGill University, with appointments in Neurology and Neurosurgery and Medicine. She directs the Modern Diet and Physiology Research Center, and her research examines how sensory, metabolic, and neural signals interact to shape food reward, eating behavior, and metabolic health.📍What Dr. Dana Small & Mike Haney discussed:02:44 - Is food actually addictive?05:02 - Taste and flavor are different senses08:21 - Why “hedonic” vs. “homeostatic” eating is misleading10:42 - The reward from sugar begins after you swallow it22:32 - The “high road” and “low road” of food reward27:41 - How scientists teach the brain to associate a flavor with calories38:30 - Why combining fat and carbohydrates produces more reward47:34 - How beliefs about food can change physiological responses50:02 - Eight weeks of snacks changes how the brain responds to food57:51 - What this science means for people trying to eat differently1:03:50 - How GLP-1 drugs may change food wanting1:07:30 - Can GLP-1s help retrain eating behavior for the long term?🔗 Helpful Links:Habitual Daily Intake of a Sweet and Fatty Snack Modulates Reward Processing in Humans (Cell Metabolism, 2023)https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36958330/Supra-Additive Effects of Combining Fat and Carbohydrate on Food Reward (Cell Metabolism, 2018)https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(18)30325-5Integration of Sweet Taste and Metabolism Determines Carbohydrate Reward (Current Biology, 2017)https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28803868/Rethinking Food Reward (Annual Review of Psychology, 2020)https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31561741/In Defense of Pleasure: We Need to Rethink Food Reward and Obesity (PLOS Biology, 2025)https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3003497Mind Over Milkshakes: Mindsets, Not Just Nutrients, Determine Ghrelin Response (Health Psychology, 2011)https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21574706/Watch the conversation: https://youtu.be/lXlCqNqjgHYFind us on YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://youtube.com/levelshealth?sub_confirmation=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠👋 Who we are:Levels helps you understand your metabolic health with personalized data, expert guidance, and tools that connect your daily choices to measurable changes in your body. Our goal is to help you make better decisions about food, exercise, sleep, and long-term health.Look for new shows every month on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations with thought leaders about metabolic health.