Link to Food Reward Hypothesis

Hi everyone!  It has definitely been awhile...  I am deep in my graduate program and seem to have less time to research food and health.

I wanted to share an amazing link from the Whole Health Source, a blog by Stephan Guyenet.   Even over the past few months, my ideas about what is healthy and natural have changed.  Dr. Guyenet is a proponent of the Food Reward Hypothesis, which the link discusses in depth.  It's a bit long, but it is definitely worth the read.  From what I understand, the more "rewarding" and the higher the palatability of foods, the more likely we are to eat them in excess, which in turn causes us to gain weight through excess calories and metabolic disruption.  It is a very interesting hypothesis, and I'm starting to believe it more and more.  These types of foods would include all processed foods, sugar, flour - basically anything that has chemicals added to increase the flavor, or any food that has been processed down so much to make it easily digestible so that one can consume thousands of calories without blinking.

Here is the link again: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/10/case-for-food-reward-hypothesis-of_07.html