For food cravings, sugar wins against fat says a new article in the NY Times. Sugar has been called a poison, an addictive substance and many of those who cannot control their consumption of simple sugars, breads and pasta's included are often overweight. Many artificial sweeteners also seem to cause those same cravings, which is why many people who drink diet soda may not lose weight because they often feel the urge to snack when consuming those type of sweets. New evidence now suggests that sugar is responsible for a huge part of our obesity epidemic. Check out the NY Times article here In Food Cravings, Sugar Trumps Fat By ANAHAD O'CONNOR What makes a milkshake so irresistible? Is it the sweet flavor that our taste buds are after? Or the smooth and creamy texture? Or perhaps it is the copious blend of fat and sugar? An intriguing new study suggests that what really draws people to such treats, and prompts them to eat much more than perhaps they know they should, is not the fat that they contain, but primarily the sugar. The new research tracked brain activity in more than 100 high school students as they drank chocolate-flavored milkshakes that were identical in calories but either high in sugar and low in fat, or vice versa. While both kinds of shakes lit up pleasure centers in the brain, those that were high in sugar did so far more effectively, firing up a food-reward network that plays a role in compulsive eating. To their surprise, the researchers found that sugar was so powerful a stimulus that it overshadowed fat, even when the two were combined in large amounts. High sugar shakes that were low in fat ramped up the reward circuitry just as strongly as the more decadent shakes that paired sugar and fat in large quantities, suggesting that fat was a runner-up to sugar, said Eric Stice, the lead author of the study, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health and published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. read more