Why are we craving food more than ever, and how do we overcome it? Mark Schatzker, journalist and author of The End of Craving: Recovering the Lost Wisdom of Eating Well, chats with Dr. Casey Means about the dangers of food cravings. Look for multiple new shows per week on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations about metabolic health and how the Levels startup team builds a wellness movement from the ground up in the health and wellness tech industry. Sign Up to Get Your Free Ultimate Guide to Glucose: https://levels.link/wnl 🎙 What Mark Schatzker & Dr. Casey Means discuss: (04:08) - How our brain defines cravings (08:55) - Our brain controls our body weight (20:28) - How evolution taught us to respond to uncertainty (27:11) - An experiment with gerbils (36:11) - The difference between American and Italian diet (56:35) - Eat food that tastes what it really is (57:03) - The hedonic therapy (1:14:33) - Cooking is an essential skill (1:15:00) - Get vitamins from food (1:20:11) - Fixing a relationship with sweet food Transcript & Show notes 👋 WHO WE ARE: Levels helps you see how food affects your health. With real-time, personalized data gathered through biosensors like continuous glucose monitors (CGM), you learn which diet and lifestyle choices improve your metabolic health so you can live a longer, fuller, healthier life. 🔗 Helpful links: Watch the conversation: https://youtu.be/tJGFYL289q0 Find us on YouTube: https://youtube.com/levelshealth?sub_confirmation=1 📲 Connect: Connect with Dr. Casey Means on Instagram: https://instagram.com/drcaseyskitchen Connect with Casey on Twitter: https://twitter.com/drcaseyskitchen Connect with Mark Schatzker on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkSchatzker

There are two dominant theories as to why Westerners have gotten increasingly obese in the last fifty years. One is that we're eating too many carbs and carbs make us fat. Another is that our primitive appetite — which is wired to gorge on calorically dense foods as a survival mechanism — is misaligned with a modern landscape in which food is available in an overabundance.My guest today says that there's too much evidence which contradicts these theories for them to completely explain the problem of weight gain, and forwards a different and quite surprising theory as to what may be going on instead. His name is Mark Schatzker and he's the author of The End of Craving: Recovering the Lost Wisdom of Eating Well. In order to arrive at Mark's theory on the rise in obesity, we first unpack several pieces of the puzzle, each fascinating in its own right. We discuss how the body, rather than having a natural propensity to gain weight, actually typically wants to stay at a healthy set point, the difference between wanting and liking and how obese people crave food more but enjoy it less, and why it is that humans take pleasure in eating. We then get to how food additives, like artificial sweeteners, and, strangely enough, even certain vitamins, may be shifting the body's set point, increasing people's craving for food, and triggering weight gain. We end our conversation with Mark's counterintuitive call to fight obesity by thoroughly enjoying truly delicious food.Resources Related to the PodcastDr. Kevin Hall's study on high fat vs. low fat dietDr. Christopher Gardner's study on high fat vs. low fat dietDr. Michel Cabanac on the role of set point theory in body weightDr. Kent Berridge's study on wanting vs liking and research lab write-upDr. Dana Small's study on the metabolic effect of beverages sweetened with both sugar and sucraloseAoM Article: Why Carbs Don't Make You Fat Connect With Mark SchatzkerMark's Website

Mark Schatzker, author of 'The Dorito Effect,' discusses how flavor scientists are manipulating our food. Topics include the significance of our biology in nutrition, dilution effect in modern agriculture, and the connection between nutrients and flavor. Schatzker also explores how nutrient-rich foods are losing out to processed foods in taste.