"Tend to Your Own Rat-Killing"

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It is so easy to point to others and feel very self-righteous because one is not “doing what they are doing!” The emerging research on foods with addictive-like behaviors reminds me of hearing my little French grandmother say, “Tend to your own rat-killing.” This phrase would pop out whenever she perceived someone was officiously pointing the proverbial finger of disapproval about what someone else was choosing to do. In adulthood, I asked her about that phrase that had stuck in my memory and she remarked that ‘housekeeping begins at home. My brain's opinion is that emerging research could serve as a wake-up call to brains around the world who rather complacently think: "I have no addictive-like behaviors—it's all those other folks. How dreadful." My guess is that every brain has some type of addictive-like behavior: something it does to trigger the brain reward system and make the person feel better. After all, addictive-like behaviors are addictive-like behaviors be it tobacco, alcohol, street drugs, food, sex, gambling, pornography, anger, or you name it; they all trigger the brain reward system, although they may differ in the type of undesirable consequences. Before we get too vocal about what another brain is doing, it might be a good idea to check first on what one’s own brain is doing.