I have a fairly extensive “The Best…” list called The Best Sites For Learning About Nutrition & Food Safety.

Today, The New York Times published a fascinating article titled Is Junk Food Cheaper? It’s not accessible to English Language Learners, but it includes a lot of important information that teachers might want to modify to share with students. Here’s an excerpt that particularly struck me:

…the engineering behind hyperprocessed food makes it virtually addictive. A 2009 study by the Scripps Research Institute indicates that overconsumption of fast food “triggers addiction-like neuroaddictive responses” in the brain, making it harder to trigger the release of dopamine. In other words the more fast food we eat, the more we need to give us pleasure; thus the report suggests that the same mechanisms underlie drug addiction and obesity.

I’m adding the article to that “The Best…” list.