Hooked

When Sam and I met Kyle, the kayak instructor, yesterday, he said, "My job is to make sure that by the end of the day, you're hooked."

It didn't take that long.

I was hooked in less than one second after my boat hit the river.

Which was about half a second after Kyle shoved me (in the boat) off a rock they call Seal Point, which sits about six feet off the water. If you try something new, you might as well make a grand entrance.

But let's back up a little bit.

Sam and I woke up in the glorified parking lot that is the campground at the Nantahala Outdoor Center. What it lacks in scenery, it makes up for with convenience, so we had a 30-second drive to the meet-up spot.

We were early.

There was a donut truck.

And that's where the train went off the tracks.

In 2024, I've nearly eliminated sugar from my diet. Here in America, where 73% of the food at the grocery store has sugar purposely added to it, that's no easy task.

Despite being tantamount to poison, it's in everything, and I was disappointed in myself for not taking the time to pack lunch for Sam and me.

I knew it would be a sandwich on sugared bread and come in a box with a bunch of other processed and sugared crap.

So, when I saw the donut truck, I rationalized my desire by turning it into an experiment.

I would eat the SAD diet for a day - that's the Standard American Diet - and see how I feel.

The donut was OK.

Just OK.

But the sugar on the donut, well, that lit my brain right up. And even though it was a little too crunchy outside and a little too doughy inside, I ate the whole damn thing.

I remember thinking, "Meh, this isn't all that good," as I dunked another chunk of it in my coffee.

Then, I had a buzz.

A buzz!

Three hours later, I was starving despite having had three eggs and some fruit back at camp.

STARVING.

Even though I regularly fast until noon, I was ravenous by 11, so I was thrilled that Kyle suggested lunch.

Seated where we could watch a Class III rapid, I opened my box. My sandwich was peanut butter (loaded with sugar) on whole wheat bread (full of sugar) with jelly (which is just sugar).

Like the donut, the first bite lit up my brain, and I scarfed the whole thing down in about a minute.

Then, the bag of chips.

Then, the bag of goldfish.

Finally, the twin pack of Grandma's chocolate chip cookies. Like the donut, they weren't all that good, but once I started eating them, I didn't stop.

The buzz was back, but I was starving again an hour later.

Had I been anywhere other than on a river, I would have been searching for more food.

Back in the truck, on the way to Johnson City, TN, I munched on anything I could reach for the entire drive.

In Johnson City, we hit a pizza joint. It took me three-quarters of the medium pie (with sugar in the dough and toppings) before I was finally full.

I considered ordering dessert to complete the experiment but threw in the towel.

It's 6:10 AM the next day as I write this. I've been awake for about half an hour, and I'm starving.

That's unusual for me - I never wake up hungry.

Make no mistake about it.

In the same way that Kyle engineered my day to get me hooked on whitewater kayaking, Big Food has engineered the food (and the ingredients used to make the food) to get me hooked on eating more and more of it.

The only difference is that Kyle was honest about it, while Big Food uses confusing labels, alternative names for sugar, fancy packaging, and every other trick in the book to hide their fundamental objective: getting us hooked.