Stop calling food addictive | Kima Cargill

But our processed foods are full of highly engineered additives. Let's call them drugs. And these really are addictive

Many of my colleagues - researchers who study overeating - now routinely use the term food addiction, and advocate for its recognition as a psychiatric diagnosis.

It's true that rats, monkeys and humans show addiction-like behaviour when exposed to highly palatable, calorie-dense foods, sometimes even preferring them to drugs such as cocaine. But I've come to see that nearly all the foods that elicit addictive behaviour share one thing in common: they have been significantly altered or enhanced through manufactured flavour chemicals and ingredients - also known as drugs.

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