Health & Medicine

Are ultraprocessed foods truly addictive?

These highly engineered foods can create powerful pulls on us, similar to those of alcohol, nicotine or opioids

a photograph of different types of foods, seasonings, oils and food dyes on an orange background

Gummy worm ingredients (shown) may hold less appeal than the final processed treat.

Photo by Eschliman Studio; styling by Kaylan Love; retouching by Blinklab

By Laura Sanders

When I sat down to write this story, I remembered the gummy worms in the snack drawer of my kitchen.