Liberation Wellness

It’s come to my attention that the medical establishment is finally seeing some results from animal studies, studying eating behavior patterns in particular, and concluding that our current obesity problem may be akin to an addiction of sorts. I say “of sorts” because some doctors are still hesitant to stand by such a bold statement, saying that addiction is a “loaded” term. I’m sure it’s not the first round of studies, but it IS significant that they are being published in public places where medical information interfaces with the community online, http://www.azcentral.com/health/news/articles/2010/03/28/20100328junk-food-addiction-may-be-real.html. Even more importantly, the former head of the FDA, David Kessler, is going public about this very important issue in a book coming out at the end of next month. He is not hesitant at all to admit having been a overeater, with a suit for every size. Becoming more inconspicuous these days are the “magic formulae” of the Food Industry of salt, sugar, and fat, devised and manipulated such that the junk food will be the most addictive to those so predisposed.

Fat still gets a bad rap. I don’t mean fake fats; I mean fats from real food like butter, liver, etc…the best possible sources of natural vitamin A, D, and Activator X. The fats involved with junk food are generally denatured vegetable fats, loaded with sugar and/or msg. Always, in the animal studies brought to the public in these articles which have gotten my attention, sugar is the number one addictive element. To be fat-phobic is generally accepted these days. However, if you want to take a look at eating disorders, REALLY, not only the compulsive overeaters that have lost the battle long ago of trying to hide their disease and are chronically ill, but the talented bulimics and mentally powerful anorexics who die sooner untreated, one might finally start to see that fat is not the culprit at all. Lack of the real thing in the diet, perhaps, is a strong factor. Refined sugars and grains, chemicals, vegetable oils that are industrial waste(cottonseed, rapeseed/canola/, corn and soy oils) and msg are more likely culprits than grass-fed lard, real butter, or the natural fats found in organically grown and grass-fed foods, that your body needs.

Sugar in the body edges out some important vitamins and their absorption. I am not an organic chemistry expert, but it doesn’t take a rocket-scientist either to figure out that, if you eat a lot of garbage, your body is going to crave the fats that make the absorption of vitamins and minerals possible. My compulsive eating career began when I was fourteen, and I am now forty-two, almost forty-three, and I am symptom-free as long as I do not make a habit of indulging in sugar or fake food. Fake food’s toxicity makes you crave more food! Your liver depleted and tired of processing more toxins needs your body to have more fat available! This has been my personal observation of myself and several other people on the path to healing naturally. I’ve been on every diet in the book, and from various eating disorder clinics and the one thing I’ve noticed is that I simply cannot indulge in sugar without certain consequences, whether they be a simple thought pattern, a feeling in my body, my emotions out-of-whack.

I’m absolutely thrilled that we are finally seeing, collectively, that this compulsive eating thing just may very well be an addiction! For years the only place I felt I could understand the desperation I saw in others that I felt in myself was in Alcoholics Anonymous, though I had not yet exhibited any alcoholic or “substance” abuse behavior. There were times that just the thought of whatever my binge-food was, at the time, would cross my mind and I WOULD ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO GO GET IT NOW. Insane! Totally insane. I am so blessed today that I am free from that and so many other self-destructive thoughts and behavior patterns. 25 years ago, though, I was painfully aware that there was nothing the medical establishment could do for me. I did have the feeling that my participating in their programs was somehow legitimizing my fight, though it was a dead end. The spiritual component or “part” of their programs was the only thing that kept me going, to be honest. And, to be honest, it is only there that the answer lay for me. I was dismayed in reading the above article, the link above, at the point where I clicked on one of their links that seemed to have more information about the subject; it sent me to a fancy clinic that I’m sure no average person could afford, but the medical establishment and insurance companies would be ecstatic if one could.

Kessler himself, in his book, “The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite”, examines in a scientific manner the chemistry of the brain and certain combinations of sugar, fat and salt that the food industry completely exploits. What he is examining is the process of addiction in the brain, except that we are not talking about illicit drugs, or alcohol even; we’re talking about cheap “foods” for which the public is constantly bombarded with advertising. Though we have people dying from obesity and it’s many, many complications, it’s still socially acceptable to eat this junk. Kessler was involved in the anti-cigarette and the food labeling campaigns during the Clinton years. What the food industry is doing seems to me to be worse than what many have complained the tobacco companies have done in the past. Control the food, you control the people, their thoughts, their decisions. His purpose with this book seems to be to make the public more aware of the problem and to provide a simple system whereby one might once again gain control over oneself if the “conditioned overeating” problem is affecting one’s life. I say it’s all because of fake food, and if you haven’t read Kevin Brown’s “The Liberation Diet” yet, you need to.

For information on the release of Kessler’s book, go to:

http://addiction-dirkh.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-junk-food-works.html

Keep thinking for yourselves,
Janet Demeter LWE, CPT