• RobotToaster@mander.xyz
    461·
    4 hours ago

    The same reason people will logically understand that crack is bad for them but crave it like crack

  • Manjushri@piefed.socialEnglish
    21·
    3 hours ago

    There is a chemical in your brain called dopamine which is an important part of how we feel pleasure. Use of recreational drugs and alcohol causes a rush of this chemical and that is part of the pleasure we feel from using them. The problem is that regular use of such chemicals causes us to have lower levels of dopamine when we are not using them. We end up feeling a desire for the drug or booze to get our dopamine levels back up.

    Diets high in sugar, salt, and carbs also causes a dopamine rush. When you eat that food regularly, it lowers your normal dopamine levels, just like drugs and alcohol do, if not to the same level. That is why you feel that craving. Eating such food occasionally is fine, but if you do it to often, you can literally get an addiction to it.

    Edit to add -

    You mentioned that fast foods are low quality and bad for you. That is true, but but only in high quantities. Fats and sugars were high value foods to our ancient ancestors. Fats are very high source of energy. You get more than twice the energy from a gram of fat than you get from a gram of carbohydrates or protein. Sugars are easily digested making them a source of quick energy compared to other carbs, fats, or proteins. Eating these kinds of foods gave us a survival advantage over those who didn’t, at least until we learned the agricultural skills to make them easy to acquire. Now, many or most people can get such foods any time they want and though they no longer give us an advantage, and eating a lot of them is actually harmful in the long run, those ancient taste preferences still remain in our evolved programing.

  • theneverfox@pawb.socialEnglish
    0·
    44 minutes ago

    Because your diet sucks. A few months of eating only unprocessed food and you’d probably eat McDonald’s exactly one more time in your life

    And I do specifically mean McDonald’s… It’s uniquely disgusting, even among fast food. It tastes like it’s reconstituted food scraps doped with sugar

    • paraphrand@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      17 minutes ago

      As someone who is trying to climb out of this hole, I can back up your sentiment.

      Being acclimated to shitty food, and thinking flavor is just sharp strong sensations in your mouth is what perpetuates over consuming fast food. Your brain gets trained to crave the dopamine rush that the sensations of fast food briefly cause.

    • JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.socialEnglish
      2·
      3 hours ago

      Don’t forget loads of salt!

      Like-- every step of the way, fast food places have an opportunity to aim for ‘healthier’ or ‘more delicious’ choices, overwhelmingly with profit-making in mind. That’s the main thing to keep in mind.

      IIRC, McD’s and various other chains even design venting and such to get the smell of the cooking food (chemically enhanced) in to the surrounding area. You know, so that more people can pay a fortune to get a food rush that doubles as a health disaster.

  • Devial@discuss.onlineEnglish
    1·
    2 hours ago

    Because fat and sugar are drugs. People don’t usually think of them like drugs, because of the widely accepted, but very wrong, attitude that only illegal substances can be drugs. Sugar, fat, caffeine, alcohol or tobacco are all drugs. They all trigger a desirable chemical reaction in your brain, and all have addictive potential. At least 2 or 3 of them are also significantly more harmful to you than several types of actually illegal drugs.

    And in general, though perhaps most strongly for drugs, many people suffer from the cognitive bias of “illegal=bad & legal=good. Automatically and by default”

  • amino@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    75·
    4 hours ago

    fast food isn’t bad for you, unless you eat only fast food for years. if you wanna recreate the MCD taste at home, try sprinkling MSG on your food.