In the last article, "How to Quit Sugar (Part 1): The Brain Factor", we have discussed the brain roles in sugar addiction and the reason why the signal to eat sugar sent by the brain is not a healthy life choices. Insulin, Leptin and Hormone Sensitive Lipase are an important compound that have been discussed and if you haven't read it yet, you can read them by visiting the link below.
How to Quit Sugar (Part 1): The Brain Factor Article
Link: https://steemit.com/health/@n4zriofficial/how-to-quit-sugar-part-1
This article will explain the environmental factor which cause an individual to eat sugar and why is it so hard to resist.
Source: http://c7.nrostatic.com/
The Environment Factor
There is an interrelation between the brain and environment which stimulate an individual to eat sugar. We knew about sweet sugar product such as chocolate, candy and product which contained refined sugar sold in the market, but did you realized the temptation of having to eat those product will multiply by a certain factor if you are actually thinking about it. This is one of the marketing strategy used by food companies which they applied on their advertisement on television, internet, billboard etc. When we saw an advertisement or any kind of food packaging that we like, our brain will release dopamine, which will prime the brain; thinking that you will be having that food. This is why, the temptation to buy something increases when the product is within reach or something you can see (in case on online shopping).
Source: http://c7.nrostatic.com/
Our brain can respond early to prepare you for any events that it thinks will take place. A car speeding towards you can jack up your heartbeat even though the car stopped 20 meters away and a mother can start to lactate when she hears her child crying. In this case, when we see and smell food, other than dopamine which will act on our brain making us excited; expecting us to get food, the brain will release cephalic phase insulin (pre-insulin secretion) to prepare us for digesting food. The sweeter you think the food going to be, the more insulin will be released by the pancreas. The accumulation of pre-insulin released by the pancreas makes you hungry which will encourage you to buy and eat food. This is why it is so hard to resist food on direct encounter.
Virtually all of the companies around found that, they can add some sugar, salt and fat to optimizes palatability. This can be represented by the graph below:
Source: http://www.adjuvancy.com
Bliss point is the point at which the product is the sweetest and tastiest before adding any sugar will make it too sweet and disrupt palatability (Just the right amount). This is why 80% of the product sold in the market contain sugar and sometimes it is in the food that you wouldn't expect to be sweet; it makes them tastier than without sugar. It is important to take a little bit of effort by reading the nutritional label on each food to see how much of sugar does the food contain.
Nowadays, there are a lot of food advertisement which sometimes hired an actor to eat those food; make it seems delicious. If you restrict your food consumption, this can be hard on you as your brain will sometimes got confuse. We think the food is desirable and pre-insulin was secreted but we are not planning to eat those food which makes you ravenously hungry and increase your craving.
Source: http://c7.nrostatic.com/
In order to stop this brain response from associating advertisement or food packaging with eating food, you need to train your brain by adopting a healthier eating style. For example, if you are in the market, you see a real food, check whether they are fresh or not, buy food, cook and eat, this can influence the time at which your brain will expect our body to eat food rather than see food packaging, buy, open packaging and eat food. We are trying to program our brain not to associate food packaging with eating which will cause reduced cephalic phase insulin induced hunger and craving. It will takes some time but when you successfully program your brain, you will find that quitting sugar is easy.