Page 83 - Summer 2017 Journal

All Thumbs Book Reviews
The Hungry Brain: Outsmarting the Instincts that Make Us Overeat
By Stephan J. Guyenet Flatiron Books
Why is it so hard to turn down tasty foods? Why, once we lose weight, is it so hard to stay at a lower weight? What changes in the Ameri- can diet made a lean, healthy nation so rapidly change into an obese, unhealthy one?
For those who enjoyed Denise Minger’s Death by Food Pyramid, Stephan Guyenet’s The Hungry Brain is an enjoyable follow-up. Whereas Minger focused on changes to food and agriculture and shenanigans at the U.S. Depart- ment of Agriculture (USDA) and other places, Guyenet focuses on the science describing the impact of these changes on our brain’s various food-reward and fat-regulation systems. The Hungry Brain then traces the influence of these changes on our ever-expanding societal waist- lines and the explosion in degenerative diseases.
Chapters three through five of this book were some of my favorites, exploring the com- plex connections between food reward, palat- ability, industrial food, obesity and ill health. The three chapters are full of exceptionally interesting information, such as charts on car ownership (correlated with less physical activi- ty), food spending allocation over time and sugar and fat consumption. One of the most troubling topics addresses the top calorie sources for US adults and children, namely processed grains, corn- and soy-fed chicken and sugar-based pseudo-foods.
These chapters highlight a few things that Wise Traditions readers are already familiar with, such as the rising consumption of veg- etable oils and refined sweeteners (especially high fructose corn syrup) and their impact on our eating habits and health. Guyenet also adds useful information and offers a perspective on how these changes to our diet affect our brains
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and eating habits in ways that most people are unaware of. Guyenet describes the transition to vegetable oils as follows: “Added fat intake has doubled. The type of fats we use in our cooking have also changed profoundly—animal fats, such as butter and lard, have largely been sup- planted by refined seed oils (vegetable oils) such as soybean oil. Rather than getting our fat from whole foods like meat, dairy and nuts, we now get it primarily from oils that are mechanically and chemically extracted from seeds. These liq- uid oils are cheap and convenient to add to foods that would otherwise contain little fat, creating such food reward masterpieces as French fries and Doritos.”
Guyenet similarly discusses sugar and its use in creating hyperpalatable, high-reward industrial pseudo-foods that wreak havoc on our brains. In fact, this is what sets The Hungry Brain apart. Whereas most comparable books focus on the impact of processed, industrial foods on our bodies, Guyenet is able to show how these foods derail the complex and sub- conscious brain systems that oversee how we relate to food.
Throughout the book, Guyenet discusses a number of traditional groups such as the Hadza, with sometimes surprising observations. For instance, many hunter-gatherer-type people are amazingly healthy in spite of diets that are almost completely devoid of low-calorie green- matter-type foods (sorry, Whole Foods and your “nutrient-dense” food grading system!). These groups also can engage in feats of feasting that modern people can barely fathom. For example, Ache men can eat “five pounds of fatty meat each in a sitting,” drink “one and a half liters of pure honey,” or eat “thirty wild oranges similar to the fruit we buy in the grocery store.” The Hadza drink honey “like a glass of milk.” De- spite the fact that these groups “guzzle fat and sugar when available, neither the Hadza nor the Ache have obesity.”
If chapters three through five focus on the
The top calorie sources
for U.S. adults and children are processed grains, corn- and soy-fed chicken and sugar-based pseudo- foods.
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