Eat Happy

Have you ever felt out of control with your eating?  Like you just couldn’t stop even though you wanted to and knew you should? 

If so, you probably felt a certain amount of guilt, or even shame, about how much you eventually did eat.  That guilt made you feel bad about your own ability for self-control, and that, coupled with a food-hangover, made you feel pretty terrible in general.  Physically and emotionally.  You wouldn’t be alone if this turned into a destructive cycle that brought you back again and again for that very same food, followed by guilt and depression.  Perhaps this even happened with seemingly healthy or “diet” foods.  Even worse!

A fascinating article came out recently in the New York Times Magazine called The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food that explains why it’s so hard to put down the snack bag – and it’s NOT your lack of willpower.  I just want to say that again, and in obnoxious all-caps: IT’S NOT YOUR LACK OF WILLPOWER. 

It’s been known for quite a while that sugar and fat are addictive – this article in Scientific American describes how rats, given access to high-fat foods, “showed some of the same characteristics as animals hooked on cocaine or heroin–and found it hard to quit even when given electric shocks”.  In non-technical terms, when you eat high-fat and high-sugar foods, your brain releases chemicals (neurotransmitters) that make you happy.  This makes you more likely to eat that food again.  After a few times you become desensitized to that food “high” and need more to get the same level of satisfaction.  Therefore you eat more and more.  It works just like drugs, with the lovely side effects of becoming fat, nutrient deficient, and probably depressed.

Food manufacturers, however, don’t just leverage high levels of fat and sugar to hook you on their food, although that’s part of it.  Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent by giants like General Mills, Kraft, and Nabisco, to create food products (I can’t call it food) that encourage you, the consumer, to eat as much as possible. They have actually discovered ways to bypass the body’s natural regulation systems that would normally tell you to stop.

Here’s an example, as described by food scientist Steven Witherly:
“‘[Cheetos are] one of the most marvelously constructed foods on the planet, in terms of pure pleasure.’ He ticked off a dozen attributes of the Cheetos that make the brain say more. But the one he focused on most was the puff’s uncanny ability to melt in the mouth. ‘It’s called vanishing caloric density,’ Witherly said. ‘If something melts down quickly, your brain thinks that there’s no calories in it . . . you can just keep eating it forever.’”

In this way food companies are maximixing pleasure while minimizing satiety.   It’s the perfect storm for you, and the perfect money-maker for them.   Which, let’s be honest, is the primary goal of a large food product company – to make lots of money, keep share-holders happy, and continue to grow. 

The important thing to realize in all of this is that 1) these food products are not real food and 1) your body does have a beautiful regulation system that will work, if you eat foods that are real.  Have you ever over-eaten bananas?  Or oatmeal?  Probably not.  Because when you eat these foods your body will naturally tell you when it’s time to stop.  You will feel pleasantly full and satisfied.

If you have a food addiction, realize that it is an addiction that will have to be broken.  And the cure isn’t so unpleasant, as it’s to focus your diet on real foods that are naturally satisfying.  It takes a little time, and can benefit from a few tricks during the process, but it’s well worth the effort.  You’ll feel freedom you haven’t felt in years. 

If you’d like support in breaking a food addiction and discovering real food, please contact me at alissa@eathappynow.com.

I thought about that title for a while before publishing this post, believe me.  But I just can’t get around how true it is…and I’ll get to my logic in a minute.  First the background: a couple weeks ago Congress changed parts of a bill that contained nutritional requirements for the National School Lunch Program.  In an effort to slow down the devastating increase in childhood obesity and diabetes, the law had several proposed changes, essentially amounting to more vegetables, less salt, more whole grains, and fewer french fries.  Congress changed it back: eliminating or delaying these updates.  Why?  Because the frozen foods, potato and salt lobbies wanted them to ($wonder why$). 

Most public schools participate in the National School Lunch program: 

“The National School Lunch Program is a federally assisted meal program operating in over 101,000 public and non‐profit private schools and residential child care         institutions. It provided nutritionally balanced, low‐cost or free lunches to more than 31 million children each school day in 2010.”   (Italics are mine.)

 This is a tremendous amount of food: 31 million children x 270 school days per year = 7,440,000,000 meals (that’s nearly 7 and a half billion).  To receive reimbursement a school must follow nutritional guidelines established by the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture).  Those regulations currently mandate a certain number of vegetables and fruits and provide general quidelines around numbers and percentages of calories (from fat, carbs, protein, sugar, etc).  Even children who don’t qualify for free or reduced price meals participate in the program, as their meals are still reimbursed, just at a lower rate.

Those all seem like pretty reasonable guidelines.  So why does school lunch frequently look like a piece of pizza, side of potatoes, and chocolate milk?  Because currently legislation allows 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, the amount on a frozen pizza, to count as a vegetable.  Pizza is therefore one of the two vegetables on the plate.  French fries are the other. 

Presumably, nutritional guidelines were originally instituted to ensure that these millions of kids are fed nutritious foods that enable them to thrive, vs. junk foods that make them prone to illness and sluggishness.  Well it doesn’t take a nutritionist to know what is healthy and what is not: fresh fruits and vegetables are healthy, processed foods like pizza and french fries are not.  These guidelines aren’t protecting anyone but industry, whose interests are at odds with the very kids they were supposed to protect.

Congress made the decision to backtrack on better nutritional guidelines because of industry pressure – specifically the potato, salt, and frozen foods industries.  The updated guidelines would have required them to spend more money to change their products and use higher-quality, fresher ingredients.  Can’t have that. 

This is effectively choosing the interests of powerful lobbies over the interests of children.  This makes me upset, largely because children do not have a legal voice.  They can not vote.  They need responsible adults to help guide them so they can meet their potential.  And in this case, the adults who are supposed to be looking out for them have consciously enacted guidelines that promote harm, not health.  This is very, very sad. 

“What harm does a little pizza do?”, you might be asking yourself.  Perhaps Congress justified their actions with the same light-hearted thought process.  I like pizza, too – as a treat.  The problem is that pizza, french fries, and other ultra-processed junk food have become staples, not treats.  Halloween candy is great too – on Halloween.  Birthday cake is fantastic- for birthdays.  But all of this stuff that we know (intuitively, if not consciously) are “treats”, have become 95% of the meal, vs. the 5% they should be.  Birthday cake every day for breakfast doesn’t make sense, and neither does the daily junk-fest for lunch.  The result of this lack of common sense/imbalance is unprecedented obesity and diabetes.  All preventable and reversible with diet and lifestyle choices.

Child abuse is a pretty serious allegation.  But when adults knowingly do something that harms a child, I call it child abuse.  What causes obesity and type II diabetes?  Too much junk food and not enough healthy food.  Obesity causes diabetes, diabetes shortens life span and dramatically reduce quality of life, and that is tangible, serious harm.  Again, all preventable.

To tell your congressperson or senator that this bill is unacceptable, write or call.  Get involved in your local school’s food program.  See what you can do.  Today’s kids have a shorter life expectancy than you do.  This has to change.

A new study of over 61,000 women in Sweden shows that high calcium intake did not lower the risk of developing osteoporosis or of having hip or other fractures.  Only women who consumed less than 700mg of calcium experienced higher rate of these problems.  In fact, the highest consumers of calcium actually had a higher rate of hip fracture:

“Dietary calcium intakes below approximately 700 mg per day in women were associated with an increased risk of hip fracture, any fracture, and of osteoporosis,” the study authors conclude. “The highest reported calcium intake did not further reduce the risk of fractures of any type, or of osteoporosis, but was associated with a higher rate of hip fracture.”

While it’s not a good idea to have low daily intake of calcium, the US recommendation is to have as much as 1,200mg daily (while quite beneficial to the dairy industry)  appears to be rather high. 

For the healthiest sources of calcium, make yourself a serving of one of the following vegetables (info was taken from this cool website).

This article hits close to home for me, as I have serveral close friends who work in healthcare.  If you or someone you know is a nurse, pharmacist, doctor, or other healthcare worker that mixes, administers, or otherwise handles chemotherapy drugs, take the time to read this article in the Seattle Times about “secondhand” chemo exposure.  Chemotherapy drugs are known to be highly toxic – they’re actually descended from the deadly mustard gas used in WWI – and are themselves carcinogenic.  Yet the federal government does not require safety protocols that protect workers from contamination.  With approximately 2 million workers in the US who actually mix and dispense chemo, this is a huge public health concern.  Chemo drugs are increasingly being used in vets offices as well, opening up the potential harm to another huge population of people.

The article outlines the health dangers associated with secondhand chemo exposure – multiple cancers as well as miscarriages and birth defects, as well as others.  These health dangers aren’t a new discovery – in 2004 the CDC issued extremely strict guidelines and safety precautions for workers who handle chemo.  However, the guidelines are voluntary.  And the high costs associated with the “chemo gowns, double-gloving, use of sophisticated “closed-system” devices and specialized ventilation hoods, face shields and respirators” that they recommend certainly aren’t speeding up their adoption. 

Workers who handle these drugs have gotten cancers as early as their 20s.  Sad.  If you know anyone who could be affected, pass on this article to spread the word.  This is a public health issue and changes in federal regulations can be hastened by increasing awareness and demanding change.