Food Addiction

Addiction is defined as engaging in a particular behavior that is compulsory even though you acknowledge it is detrimental. There are many forms of addictions, such as alcohol, smoking, endless variety of drugs and food addiction is just as biologically ingrained.

In this week's episode, my guest, a Harvard graduate, and recognized author shared her personal memoir of food addiction. She made it clear of what is really happening when someone suffers with habitual overeating. The human brain becomes chemically dependent on highly appetizing so-called foods such as processed sugar, saturated fat, flour, and salt; therefore, we develop a physical longing for these foods.

​What is so insidious, food corporations engineer these synthetic foods where they omit any real nutrient and add chemicals that induce brain hormones. Particularly, dopamine, the) happy) hormone of which gives us a clue of a deeper seeded issue we must address, if we want to overcome this destructive behavior.

We must ask ourselves, why is there a drug epidemic and why is it growing exponentially?

Drugs comes in many forms and the net result is the same, it affords you the opportunity to escape from reality, it comforts, and gives someone a false sense of joy much like a tub of ice cream will. Let me ask you, how do you feel after you overindulged in ice cream?

It is a matter of a paradigm shift of food, even demonizing it. Would you have eaten that tub of ice cream if it were melted?

My guest suggested that we find real joy in life and to be grateful for it. Is it possible? Absolutely!

Several years ago, we hosted a luau party of around fifty people, we excluded any kind of alcohol, and after the gathering ended, one of my guests came to me and said, "this is the first time I had fun without having to drink alcohol."

He enjoyed himself, and we can similarly enjoy life without any kind of a chemical inducement.

My guest on the show kept asking a rhetorical question, what brings you joy and gratitude in life? What brings you joy and gratitude in life?

She extrapolated that the lack of joy and gratefulness is the cause of misery, depression and lend itself to pacifying oneself with food addiction not to mention every harmful vice. We just do not experience enough happiness and appreciation in life; thus, we tend to fill that void with food which is just as addictive as cocaine.

I asked her, is it possible to break food addiction? She emphatically answered, yes!

She explained that we must be more mindful of our environment, the context in which we exist and not to allow it to control us but for us to oversee our personal world in which we live. We must be mindful of savoring life like we would savor the bright appearance of an orange which is telling you "I'm ready to be eaten", the fragrance, and the burst of sweetness that lies within, and it is naturally wrapped for you when you get ready to enjoy it.

I could not agree more of what she mentioned about taking incremental bites of what brings you real joy and crowding out the damaging pseudo happiness that synthetic foods are guilty of.

Speaking of harmful, when my grandson was about six-years old, while sitting in the back seat and looking out the window as we drove by a fast-food place, he says "let's stop and order some diabetes." As to where he got this sarcasm, do not look to me for the answer. The point is, even kids realize the result of a horrible diet.

I am confident that we all have a degree of joy and appreciation for things in life, why not build more on that and I guarantee you, you will experience a dissipation of any injurious entrenched behavior. The time has come to get off the proverbial hamster wheel!