Hey and welcome to The Upgrade, the podcast from the team at Lifeacker, where we help you improve your life one week at a time.

I'm Jordan Calhoun, editor-in-chief at LifeHacker, and

joining me today is LifeHacker's parenting editor, Megan Walbert. How's it going, Megan?

Pretty good, Jordan. How are you? I am doing great, and Megan, today we're conquering our

junk food addictions, right? Which, I mean, do you even have any junk food addictions, Jordan. I suspect you're a pretty healthy eater.

My parents took joy for my life a long time ago. I do not. Yeah, that makes sense.

I do, however, know a lot of people who do struggle with such a thing, and I think our guest

today can help them out with that. Yes, our guest today is journalist Michael Moss.

I actually became totally convinced that in some ways these products, food products,

are even more trouble for us than cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs.

And one of the fundamental ways is that they're tapping into our own basic instincts,

our biology that we evolved for millennia.

Michael's an award-winning investigative reporter and author. His 2013 book, Salt, Sugar, Fat,

was a number one New York Times bestseller and won both the Pulitzer Prize and the James

Beard Foundation Award for its investigation into the processed food industry.

Michael's latest book is called Hooked, Food, Freewell, and How the Food Giants Exploits Exploit Our Addictions. And he joined us to talk about some of the science behind what drives

food addiction in the first place and how we might be able to circumvent these pitfalls.

So, Megan, what are your junk food vices? Do you have any?

Like, what came to mind for you when you were looking into Michael's book?

Well, I think for me, I've recently gotten back into hot pockets.

You remember these, right?

Yes.

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