what's more addictive cocaine or sugar you'd think the sweet stuff found in cakes breads sodas and chocolate would be easier to give up than a substance so dangerously addictive that it's illegal right well you might be surprised in 2007 researchers at the University of Bordeaux conducted a study where they equipped rat cages with two levers one lever gave the rats an intravenous hit of cocaine the other gave them 20 seconds to drink sugar water before beginning the tests rats were allowed researchers gradually increased the cocaine dose when comparing the brains of food addicts to cocaine addicts side-by-side the similarities are undeniable MRI scans of the brains activity reveal a massive but consuming them releases the same feel-good chemicals in the brain like dopamine and endorphins the problem however is that it takes more and more of the stimulus to get the same amount of pleasure but your cravings actually increase craving makes sense from an evolutionary perspective if we hunted down a delicious wild boar and feasted upon its succulent flesh we would get pleasure from eating it but if the cravings for that sweet sweet boar meat never returned we die of hunger in our modern world you're much more likely to have too much of something than too little this cave man's brain told him to crave sugar for a good reason food was scarce in prehistoric times and anything high in calories like sugar or fat was very rewarding to the caveman brain in a world where calories were harder to come across but it doesn't make sense now these days sugar and refined carbohydrates which are basically the same thing are in everything like bread ready meals pasta sauces sodas and of course candy the food climate changed but our brains didn't we're designed to crave high-calorie foods but the problem is they're everywhere can you imagine the problems if cocaine was this accessible this constant exposure to high calorie high sugar foods messes with our hormones unlike the cavemen whose eating schedule was one of feast or famine we are allowed to constantly graze which puts our hormones out of whack we produce more insulin which causes food to be stored in our fat cells furthermore when we are constantly eating we never give our body a chance to get in a fat-burning state making us fat so what can you do to cut down on sugar the most important thing is to cut down on processed foods most processed foods contain high amounts of sugar as it's the easiest and cheapest way to mass-produce something that doesn't taste like cardboard what counts as processed food if it has a list of ingredients its processed real foods don't have ingredients they are the ingredients so try to eat like the caveman if you need a snack nuts are very healthy and if you still can't kick the sweet tooth then fruit should do the trick but doesn't fruit contain sugar yes but fruit has natural fiber which prevents the sugar from being metabolized too quickly and messing around with your hormones which is why sugar is so unhealthy in the first place not to mention the calories of course if you're feeling really brave you