The article appears to be discussing hunger as a force which drives us, and in that respect it is a negative. We need food or we'll die, and while eating the fo

The article appears to be discussing hunger as a force which drives us, and in that respect it is a negative. We need food or we'll die, and while eating the food may be pleasurable once you obtain it, it's not merely eating the food that is pleasurable. It's filling the gaping hole that hunger has caused so you can go back to your default "not hungry" state. A little further down the article they mention: "The answer is straightforward: somehow, we are unable to experience pleasure, and we therefore confuse pleasure with mere satisfaction." In light of this point, it is very easy for us to mistake "unpleasure being reduced" for pleasure. The lack of unpleasure feels pleasurable in a relativistic sense, but that's not the same thing as being truly pleased with something. There may also be something to discuss regarding eating being pleasurable -- biological processes have incentivized us to eat, and to eat things our body finds desirable. Therefore what appears to be a pleasurable desert is our body rewarding us for loading up on fats/sugars as they are calorie dense. Even if it feels pleasurable at the time, is that pleasure just satiety? When you start adding cultural layers to it, it begins to break down a bit. Birthday cake at a party is pleasurable to eat, and you eat it because you are at a celebration, so it's not really the same as someone eating their daily loaf and gruel for sustenance.