Ever been elbows-deep in a jumbo bag of potato chips, telling yourself just a few more, but stopping when only crumbs remain? Ever bake a pan of brownies and shaved just a few millimeters from the edge every time you walked into the kitchen? Ever go to the movies and just had to get buttery popcorn? It’s not your fault (really!)—some foods legitimately make us lose control. We like to call these trigger foods … And they suck. But the first step in breaking their hold is understanding why they hypnotize us in the first place.
For starters, it’s basically encoded in our DNA to binge on salty, fatty, and sugary foods or on various combinations of the three. Back in the day, foods with high levels of these nutrients (and ergo, lots of calories) were rarely found in nature, so when our hunter-gatherer ancestors discovered them, they ate them to completion to ensure they wouldn’t, you know, die of starvation later. (Lose up to 15 pounds WITHOUT dieting with .)
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Unfortunately, that same instinct now primes us to binge on junk, says Gary Wenk, PhD, author of Your Body on Food. Whenever you eat supersugary, salty, and/or fatty foods, the dopamine neurons in your brain become very active, producing feelings of pleasure that encourage you to “eat that again!” These also happen to be the neurons that are activated after someone takes cocaine or meth. Yikes, right? That makes those brownies legitimately addictive. (Stop a binge before it starts with these handy tips.)
But what are the absolute biggest trigger foods? Foods that combine salt, sweet, and/or fat, like pizza (salt-fat), donuts (sweet-fat), and peanut-butter pretzels (sweet-salt-fat) will lead to the most cravings and tendency to overeat, says Wenk, noting that these flavors work synergistically to enhance each other’s addictive properties.
MORE: 10 Slimming Smoothie Recipes
How to break free? The key is to snack on something that captures the essence of what you’re craving, but that’s far less addictive—that is, the food doesn’t combine high levels of sugar and fat or salt and fat (or all three). That might mean opting for plain roasted nuts over salted roasted nuts, apples sautéed in a little coconut oil instead of apple pie, a square of 70% cocoa dark chocolate instead of half a sheet of double fudge brownies, or a coffee with almond milk and a dash of cinnamon instead of a pumpkin spice latte. (Check out this healthier pumpkin spice latte recipe that’s sure to satisfy your craving.) These help at least partially satisfy the itch without setting you off on a junk food bender.
MORE: 15 Teeny Tiny Changes To Lose Weight Faster
One thing to take comfort in: Our brains are very plastic, or adaptable to change, and learn to crave the molecules they’re exposed to on a daily basis, says Wenk. In other words, the more you make your new healthy snacks a habit, the more you’ll crave them and the less you’ll fall victim to druglike trigger foods.
Through this article, we hope to help you understand Best food to binge on
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