Food companies aren’t calling it addiction, but rather Cravability. It is making foods taste as good as possible so people will be allured to buy and eat more. In the end, more profit for the company. I wanted to share some key tips from the Doctor Oz episode on “The Big Food Cover Up” on how companies are keeping you addicted to processed food as well as what Cravability really means…

Cravability sounds like a fancier word, but it really means that your body is dependent on a substance and unable to function without more of it. That is what is happening with our bodies. You know how you feel when you get a craving for sugar, salt caffeine etc…. Your body just doesn’t function as “normal” until you give your body what it is thrirsting for. Take any of the words below and that is what your body wants:

Commanding
Requiring
Asking
V – coVeting (Wanting)
Alluring/Attracting
Begging
Imploring
Longing
Thirsting
Yearning

From the Dr. Oz Episode
1) Sugar – It makes food taste better, helps food stay on the shelves, make donuts fry up bigger, makes cereals look nice and toasty. There is a “bliss point” when you consume the right amount of sugar. Companies know this and find this optimumum level of sugar to create the cravings.

2) Salt – the most magical ingredient. Salt is used to make products last longer, add crunch to crackers, add colors to foods and lastly to create a terrific burst of flavor. Dr. Oz did a visual representation of regular salt verus kosher salt. The hollow salt (kosher salt) showed how bubbles burst with flavor. Kosher salt looks like snow and sticks to foods better because it is hallowed out on the inside, so saliva gets to it quicker for an ultimate flavor burst to the brain. Also when you reheated foods, the fat oxidizes and salt is the one thing that companies use to mask the flavor.

What is the #1 food on the gateway to obesity. The Potato Chip – Salt hits the tongue first, flavor burst, then hits the brain, starch in potato converts to sugar in your body. It is drowned in fat and fried to a crisp, covered in gobs of salt for the explodsive flavor burst, then sugar gets released (from the starch) and absorved into your bloodstream, but you feel that bliss point.

As consumers, once we become educated on what is happening in the industry, we can now get ahead of the problem. The industry is as hooked as we are. They are stuck and don’t know what to do. If we as consumers keep buying the products, companies will keep making them, but if we STOP buying their products, they won’t be worth making any longer.

What can you do when shopping in a grocery store?
– Be aware of what to look for
– Shop on the end aisles
– Purchase fresh fruit and veggies
– Look high and low on shelves (to find items least amount of sugar & “Bad Stuff” – Stop buying the Bad Stuff with all the added, sugar, salt & fat(The processed foods)

If you didn’t catch the Dr. Oz episode, you can check out this quick PBS video on how companies are using this new buzz word to lure you in. http://video.pbs.org/video/2220818296/