Robert Lustig's new book
 

Interesting interview (more of a talk than an interview) about what drives our behavior. Really made me stop and think about how I spend my time. His perspective encompasses food and eating but a whole lot more. He differentiates between pleasure which leads to addiction and happiness which leads to contentment and says we confuse the two.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKkUtrL6B18

Jean

Agree, it was a thought provoking interview.

I think there's a danger of drawing a line too cleanly between pleasure and happiness, though. A happy life will include pleasure and the pursuit of pleasure, it's hard to imagine one that didn't.

If somebody thinks they'd enjoy a small piece of cheese, eats a small piece of cheese and is satisfied, that's not really a problem. It's when they keep eating, even to the point where it actually becomes unpleasant, that the problem arises. The devil's advocate could also ask where contentment ends and complacency starts. An olympic gold medalist is likely to be very hard to satisfy, how do we judge that lack of contentment?

The semantics of "pleasure" versus "happiness" as definitions, like all attempts to define an idea using language, can be a bit of a challenge to pin down exactly what is meant, but that the one ("pleasure") stimulates the neurotransmitter dopamine leading to specific results including potential addiction and that the other ("happiness") utilizes serotonin with a very different physiological result caught my attention. Regardless of what words are used to label them, those are two very different processes going on with very different results. And Lustig's explanation on how to tell which one you're experiencing: I had some and makes me want more, need even more next time to get the same effect, versus: I had some now I'm okay, don't need more right now, don't need a bigger hit next time. I found that very enlightening.