Dose, delivery, and quick absorption of food scientist manipulated processed ‘foods’ are the purposeful design that make those foods addictive.
Crystal(line) sugar is not a whole food. To get it to the table sugar state, it has been highly processed. It may be ‘natural’ at its source. But it has had the nature tortured out of it.
Sugar and carbohydrate addiction are not recognised conditions in the current addiction manuals used by medical practitioners. So, does it exist?
So many foods are addictive (for someone). Probably all food can be that.
I can train and get results but I probably always will be somewhat addicted to food. Processed is usually safe as I instinctively eat little of it but the good kind… Often hard to resist. But well, that’s why I go for OMAD, that helps with that a lot 
It’s easy to resist when well-fasted and determined or just not really hungry yet.
I don’t understand people and their extra desire for clearly subpar food, on every level in my eyes. I mean, there are food I wouldn’t want to touch even in need and people like it, wow. (Okay, okay, tastes differ but still!) I do know not good but tempting and even maybe enjoyable food, I don’t say I only have desire for the right things all the time… But wanting just the wrong things all the time? Must be super tough. And many people seem to do that. Well it’s one thing. They still could notice and fight it. I don’t even have self control regarding food according to my definition and I still could train myself to eat better. As I care about my health (actually, it’s maximizing joy but being as healthy as possible with extreme things is vital for that). People… Don’t seem to value health.
I watched a video about healthy eating a few days ago and the commenters were devided. NOT because they had different definitions about healthy eating (but that was true as well, of course) but because some people thought they need to take effort to eat healthier and live better and longer - and way too many thought “eh, we will die anyway, let’s eat whatever I want”. Oh my. Not even “okay, I did these easier steps and am careful with amounts when it comes to something clearly bad”, no, they just don’t want to change a thing. Not even if they get sick and die. Main thing they will stuff themselves with their favs until they live.
It’s so super weird to me. I don’t sacrifice food joys for my health - but I would if it was needed. Health and principles are above joy and joy is highly important for me and pretty much controls my decisions (as they rarely clash with the mentioned 2 even more important things).
I listened to the video a bit… So they don’t think one can be addicted to banana? 
(Ask the chimpanzee who ate 70 in one sitting… Though maybe it wasn’t addiction just challenge or something.) I was. Super tempting, hyper palatable (whatever it means, it fits. not just extremely delicious - people say the normal kind isn’t, well it’s one of the tastiest things I can imagine, sadly - but one can eat 1, 2, 3, 4… there may be a satisfaction and ability to stop but it’s weak with banana and past me), I may have been doing low-carb since a decade, I still couldn’t resist. I needed training. And thinking. And the reality that my house almost never have banana (beyond what I keep in the freezer but it’s very different mentally and portion wise. frozen banana is pretty safe despite being super good, tasty and creamy and a start of a wonderful, satisfying dessert). If my SO brings home 10 bananas, some will be mine, no way around that. (I am sure I could resist it now if I wanted but no way I could want it. It’s banana, super wonderful thing except it’s very high sugar, I would be a bad hedonist not to eat some.)
I had an even worse case with dates though. I ate it until any was present. And I didn’t want to. I didn’t even like it very much. But it was triggering. I had no power at all, it was scary and sad when (again, a decade into low-carb) I inhaled 500g dried dates. Only that much because I had no more.
If it’s not addiction, IDK what is - except I never suffered in its absence. I call it soft addiction. I have almost this with coffee as if I have no coffee, I am fine (maybe I miss it a bit but nothing serious). I just can’t resist coffee when it’s near me. Or couldn’t until lately. I am a bit better now and don’t always start with 10 coffees in the morning.
I don’t think I have the addiction where I can’t stand life without the substance - except for water, air and other such things, obviously. I would surely miss some food though but as long as I could get my nutrients from other tasty sources, I probably would be okay.
What IS addiction now I wonder… Because not being able to resist something, I have or had that with all kinds of food and many kinds of activities. I couldn’t stop writing on this forum when I really tried, for example.
Maybe hedonists have a natural tendency to be addicted to many kinds of things. The most joyful ones. While some people just don’t get addicted to food at all. And it’s lucky if one only has problems on the wrong diet (and able to follow the right one).
What about it? There are many kinds of food texture and I love most of them… Many of them can be replicated on my diet though. I had the problem that I bought something not quite good just for the texture but I did my best (or almost… I still can’t make proper wafers but it wasn’t a big problem) to make my own versions for it. IDK how important texture for other people, it’s highly important for me. I couldn’t follow a diet without crispy, crunchy things, for example. Without extreme training and feeling a bit miserable even after.
Is there some texture only bad food can give us…? Probably not. Food making techniques and all the available items on most people’s good diet are powerful. Of course, it’s easier to grab something than trying to make an alternative… But at least for us who are willing, there is hope. Textures can be irresistible and addicting in even a hard way. If I don’t eat crispy baked goods, I probably show some withdrawal symptoms… Not a physical one where the body needs the stuff but I do miss it way too much. It’s a theory, it’s not like I go for days without crispy baked goods, you see. At least not nowadays but I probably never skipped many days. And this is non-negotiable. I WANT that, I get that. I just use good ingredients.
You might enjoy this book. The author has a direct, humorous writing style.
This is another one of his books, which is also very good.
I’ve always wondered how much of this is genetic or possibly how these are eaten (eg, what time, how). For instance, my wife’s niece just went to Belgium:
She’s a vegetarian, so she ate a ton of carbs (and does all the time – yet she’s thin).
How can Belgians eat what is on (most of) that list, yet remain thin?
How can Italians eat pasta and remain thin?
French fries and pasta - The few times I’ve eaten these in the last 10+ years, I can eat these and eat them and eat them…There’s no off switch. And I made my own fries one time using high-saturated fat tallow I made myself There was no off switch. We (my wife and I) ate ALL the fries I made, and that’s while having burgers too.
Some popular Hungarian dishes have horrifying macros… And we are fat alright (well, not everyone, obviously)…
My SO eats lots of sugar, lots of fat and remains slim. He is very prone to get fat very quickly - if he overeats. He simply eats little enough and exercises a lot (motivation is his vanity and probably health consciousness). He messes with either part and he gains fat surprisingly quickly. I will track his food today and tomorrow again, I am curious though I guess nothing changed and he has this diet since long. Since I tried out carnivore the first time, specifically as we eat meat since. It changed nothing about his macros, by the way. But his macros are all over the place as far as carbs and fats are concerned, it depends on the day. He gets satiated by a wide range while I don’t (I mean, if various levels of overeating doesn’t count).
I think some people have some built-in instinct to know when they had enough. My SO definitely feels something and he manages to get very similar energy intake every day as far as I know (I tracked it several times but usually not), he just can’t eat when hungry and until satiation every time. Meanwhile I have a good built-in instict to eat 130-250g protein (100-150 on OMAD and it’s off on fat fasts and true fasts). If 130g protein brings 250g fat and 200g carbs, so be it. But the protein intake is must be met. I have experimented a lot and I can’t break this even if I really try. (Surely it still happened a few times in my whole life but only in extreme circumstances). To eat only 130g protein (100 on OMAD), I need to choose my protein well too. Food choices matter a lot to me and I would be fat on any diet that isn’t high protein and it’s just the beginning.
I know that many people have this to some extent, they just keep eating if they hadn’t enough nutrients… But people usually manage to get satiated by a very tiny amount of protein (compared to what I eat at once). It can be convenient sometimes but some people manage to undereat protein and that’s a problem.
Sometimes I look at Hungarian cake recipes… A ton of fat, a ton of sugar… And wonder how anyone (anyone normal. so people who eat many slices at once. or a huge one. there are super dense cakes even among the fatty ones…) can fit it into their diet regularly (we like our happenings with tons of different homemade cakes here as I experienced. and IDK about others, Mom made desserts very often, we didn’t need an occasion for it. oh and once I saw some desperate “oh look how free I am” diet plan with desserts 5 times a day. so sweets are probably super close to the hearts of very many Hungarians). As I wrote, many of us are fat but not as much as I would expect seeing those recipes… Maybe they balance it out with good instincts. My SO and I tend to eat the same after a high-cal day, our intake doesn’t drop. My stupid protein intake doesn’t drop after a 250g protein day, not even when I really try 
Average, what is that? New day, new targets.
I can’t even eat my homemade tiramisu properly now if I don’t want to overeat. And that’s fatty, not (particularly) carby. I eat half a portion, that’s tiny, only 500 kcal. I probably will feel unsatisfied (I felt that after a whole portion in the past. portion= half what I make using 240g mascarpone and 10 eggs, mostly the yolks) but it’s nothing a rich creamy coffee can’t help with.
And now I go look at what the Belgians eat. I hope they will be pretty
EDIT: They are - and many are very low-carb (unless they did something they shouldn’t have)! I could taste many without problem I mean, there are some carby ones where the carb content per portion is small, even tiny… Like, you have one thin cookie with your coffee. If they don’t bring more, I wouldn’t eat more. (That helped me never buying even the most tempting cookies, even occasionally. 200g - the usual package - is too much for me to inhale on even my carbiest day.)
What if they could eat a lot but not gain weight? In rereading Gary Taubes’s Good Calories, Bad Calories, he goes through overfeeding studies, where some people gain very little to no weight, and others gain a lot of weight. Maybe they can eat high carb and it won’t go into fat and instead make them burn more calories through things like walking more or fidgeting, etc.? (Which is actually what I think SHOULD happen when someone “overeats”.)
I’ve given up trying to figure out why people gain or lose weight.
I almost never gain weight when I overate to a high extent (or super slowly but I never ever could gain at my current weight. in my last years on seriously overeating high-carb, I maintained this very weight I have now). I am fat though. I won’t expect maintenance with massive overeating when I get slimmer - but I don’t want and won’t massively overate so it’s quite fine. I wouldn’t be happy with wasteful, burdensome overeating, no matter my fat mass.
I have read quite many people are like me, not gaining easily. It’s not rare albeit it’s the minority.
I think the body notices the potential problem and wastes energy to avoid getting to a worse state. Makes sense to me even if it clearly doesn’t work for most. It would be a tad odd if most people’s bodyweight would wildly fluctuate (or they would gain and gain or lose and lose) just because their diet isn’t perfect and they don’t eat the right amount of food. And it makes sense to feel what is enough but apparently many of us don’t have that at all. My satiation and my energy intake have a very weak correlation. There is some, even carbs can help with satiation (but it has conditions and a cost, it’s usually a bad deal) but on the wrong diet, my energy intake is wildly off. I could feel very starved on a very high-cal low-carb diet with the wrong items, I had such days. And it wasn’t low protein as I can’t eat like that.
Sometimes I wonder how this is with animals - but we know they tend to overeat too if the diet is wrong (but studies make things SUPER wrong… it’s one reason I don’t trust many studies. it’s one thing I am no mice but no way I would eat like THAT)… And some probably don’t gain easily even then.
Makes sense but I can imagine some can be wasted too. Well if one quickly eats a very big amount, it probably doesn’t absorb so well… I saw some experiments (N=1 though) where extreme overeating for a short while resulted in no gain and it could be a valid reason. Poor deep sea(?) creature who can eat bigger prey than it is simply gets rotten food in its stomach, get gassy, come up and die… I just felt sorry for it, my SO expressed his gratitude for our ability to release gas Not like we eat a ton at once, not even “successful” competitive eaters are as good as that creature - and they are unbelievably good.
But it’s probably mostly getting a higher metabolism, I agree. I didn’t notice any change when I overate and didn’t gain, no extra heat, no extra energy or wish to even exercise more… Can one’s metabolism quicken without symptoms? But what else could have happened?
I recently watched some YouTube thing about why the Japanese population isn’t fat, given rice is a staple in seemingly nearly every meal of their diet. What struck me was that what they seemed to consider a reasonable portion of food was Tiny. “Rice” was maybe 1/3 of a cup, a ball smaller than a peach, not the packed mountain that comes with a typical fast food Chinese order and expands to 2 cups or more on the plate. Perhaps this is the simple case for most mysterious “high carb” cuisines with slender diners - it’s not anywhere near the amount we imagine? “Pasta” is not Olive Garden, “rice” is not a fluffy field the size of a dinner plate, steak frite is not three russet potatoes at a go?
Most people are probably not obese due to some rice… More like all the sugars in their diet and too big amounts. And fat and everything, really. Lots of modern food people are into has lots of starch, sugar and fat at the same time and they may be low protein low nutrition and that doesn’t help.
My SO eats rice every day - except when it’s the rare millet or bread. It doesn’t make one fat, not even one with a tendency to gain fat easily. It may “help”, sure, even a lot but this alone… Almost everyone eats rice or bread in very many countries (probably most considering how wide the definition of bread is) and it doesn’t make those nearly everyone fat. I know ketoers seem to be super biased against carbs but just look at the world, it’s not quite like that…
And don’t forget not everyone is the same when it comes to carbs. If one gets well satiated with bread (maybe not alone… IDK if that works for anyone normal) instead of getting hungry, that is a very different situation… My SO’s body doesn’t seem to mind. If the calories are enough (and it’s not INSANE macro percentages like 100% carbs, only 90…), satiation arrives and stays for very long (I only can get satiated for that very long on OMAD! I get hungry quite soon after a non-OMAD meal). And being nicely satiated helps a lot with fasting even if we are very uncontrolled when even a bit hungry (or not but not satiated anymore). Yes, we humans have temptations and habits and comfort eating and whatnot - but it’s way easier to resist when well-fed, satisfied and perfectly satiated. I put much though, experimenting and effort into ensuring I am in that state almost all day as it was the only way for me to avoid overeating. Now I can go (really) hungry too but I shouldn’t push that too much as it’s mentally tiresome. So, we need to find the right food and timing if we want easy enough success. I don’t want to be “strong” and force hard things so that is my way (and training if my normal self doesn’t want the right things enough. but I have limits, I don’t try to train impossible things, just something I KNOW good and easy enough for me).
And the ideal diet easily may include rice every day for someone. And others should stay away from it. I never liked plain rice but it got exotic and very mildly desirable after 10+ years on low-carb. Now I can eat it any time I want to. Okay, I don’t want to want to eat it often so it’s 1-2 times a month, maybe? I usually eat 10g or maybe a tad more, raw weight. it’s a little mound, plenty for me next to a bunch of fried pork (lean pork as fatty pork is perfection alone, the lean stuff is a bit boring and rice makes it way more interesting, don’t ask why, we eat plain white rice cooked with only salt and water and it has about no taste. maybe it’s the texture or the looks?). Of course as I do low-carb since ages, I look at most carbs differently… But if I can do this, someone with much smaller meal sizes totally may eat little rice. I don’t even understand why anyone would eat a ton of the stuff… My SO eats more rice in one sitting than I do (okay, everyone eats more than me…) but he needs the calories and carbs. And even his portion isn’t huge though not little either (but it’s his side dish for his main dish, it must be substantial). 40-50g at once sounds right…? That’s below 200 kcal, he easily can afford that in his 1000 kcal meals. I see no problems there. He lost fat eating like this. Oh he eats lots of mochi every day too, that has rice flour and raisins. As long as he doesn’t start to eat over ~3000 kcal or stop exercising, he stays slim. He eats very much sugar (from fruits. he probably eats 5 Williams pear today, it’s season and his breakfast contained 3 big ones), high starch, high fat, moderate protein. But his high suits his needs, it’s not a ton of everything all the time. He has 3 meals and that’s it. And he gets hungry when it’s not mealtime, he is hungry. And he easily gains and was a fat child. Some people are just slim all their life for different reasons.