Ep. 362: Why You Eat When You’re Not Hungry — and How to Stop with Dr. Jud Brewer

So, um- Well, let's just bob and weave through, through, uh, some, some questions related to your book and, and, and, you know, your, your practice and what you've discovered.

Let's just start here, and then I wanna learn a little bit more about you.

But let's say that tonight at 8:30 PM, I am, like, elbow deep in a bag of Doritos.

Uh, are you telling me that this is not a character flaw, and this is pure and simple brain wiring, and I should not feel shame, but, uh, it's, it's due to science? Is that right?

Yeah, it's 100 percent.

It starts with the science of all the Doritos engineers.

You know, my favorite peer review journal, The Onion [laughs]

Right, yes

... right, they had a headline that says, "Doritos celebrates its one millionth ingredient."

[laughs]

[laughs] So yeah.

Yeah

Those things are perfectly engineered.

The orange is on purpose.

There's a reason that same orange is on Cheetos.

Yeah.

You know, there's a reason there's this m- particular mouth crunch and feel.

You know, if you look at Cheetos, for example, they have this, uh, basically this diminishing, you know, this, this evaporating caloric density thing where you put it in your mouth and it disappears and your brain says, "I didn't eat anything" [laughs] you know? All these things are engineered to get us addicted.

And, and I know you go into this in great detail, but is that what we call the bliss point, effectively?

Yeah, in a nutshell, and there's been really good research on this.

I think Michael Moss wrote a book on this over 10 years ago now, um, around, you know, how all these things are designed to be addicted.

But the bliss point is really the sugar, fat, and salt s- sweet spot that kind of hits all three at the, just the right proportions to get us really, really addicted.

That's why ice cream is so particularly addictive for a lot of people.

Mm-hmm.

Well, [laughs] and the also thing about ice cream is, I mean, are you really masticating it or are you just kinda like...

So, um- Well, let's just bob and weave through, through, uh, some, some questions related to your book and, and, and, you know, your, your practice and what you've discovered.

Let's just start here, and then I wanna learn a little bit more about you.

But let's say that tonight at 8:30 PM, I am, like, elbow deep in a bag of Doritos.

Uh, are you telling me that this is not a character flaw, and this is pure and simple brain wiring, and I should not feel shame, but, uh, it's, it's due to science? Is that right?

Yeah, it's 100 percent.

It starts with the science of all the Doritos engineers.

You know, my favorite peer review journal, The Onion [laughs]

Right, yes

... right, they had a headline that says, "Doritos celebrates its one millionth ingredient."

[laughs]

[laughs] So yeah.

Yeah

Those things are perfectly engineered.

The orange is on purpose.

There's a reason that same orange is on Cheetos.

Yeah.

You know, there's a reason there's this m- particular mouth crunch and feel.

You know, if you look at Cheetos, for example, they have this, uh, basically this diminishing, you know, this, this evaporating caloric density thing where you put it in your mouth and it disappears and your brain says, "I didn't eat anything" [laughs] you know? All these things are engineered to get us addicted.

And, and I know you go into this in great detail, but is that what we call the bliss point, effectively?

Yeah, in a nutshell, and there's been really good research on this.

I think Michael Moss wrote a book on this over 10 years ago now, um, around, you know, how all these things are designed to be addicted.

But the bliss point is really the sugar, fat, and salt s- sweet spot that kind of hits all three at the, just the right proportions to get us really, really addicted.

That's why ice cream is so particularly addictive for a lot of people.

Mm-hmm.

Well, [laughs] and the also thing about ice cream is, I mean, are you really masticating it or are you just kinda like...