dopamine.

I was at my regular physio appointment last night. I'm a runner and was injured last year, I'm slowly (literally!) getting back into the swing of things but to avoid re-injury I need to pay for pain on a regular basis.

Knowing that he believes the same as me, that fat is healthier than sugar, I talked to him about my 3 month plan (between screaming and swearing as he cracked my back, loosened my itb and kept my achilles loose). He told me something interesting.

Apparently nearly all food releases dopamines in our brains which causes us pleasure from eating. The only food that he knew of which doesn't have this affect is broccoli! This is why most kids don't like it - of course 50% of my kids do.

Anyway, if we eat food regularly the quantity of dopamine released becomes lower which encourages us to eat a balanced diet. We look for new foods or food that we haven't eaten recently in order to get a bigger dopamine release.

However - the release of dopamine doesn't decline with sugar consumption meaning that we never get sick of these foods and that includes many pre-packaged 'savoury' foods which are packed full of sugar too.

It's certainly something else to think about. And reminds me about a complaint I once had about mother nature not realising that we had invented the supermarket. Why couldn't we evolve away from the need to overeat.

This helps me to understand that it isn't about needing to evolve - it's about our reliance on crap food.