Food Addiction
Food Addiction is a Major Problem
We haven't always lived in a world of plenty. For most of our history, our ancestors lived in a world of scarcity where food was hard to come by. They didn't have easy access to rich, highly caloric foods that assaulted their senses with overpowering flavor.
Now the world is different, however, and in the developed world highly flavorful food is readily available everywhere. Our bodies were designed to reward us with pleasure-inducing chemicals in the form of dopamine whenever we found salty, fatty, sugary, highly-caloric food because normally it would be very rare to find. But now in this brave new world, this reward mechanism captures us in pleasure-traps that addict us to our food.
What makes food so addictive in the modern age and how can we avoid it?
Fat
Fatty foods can be extremely addictive due to their caloric density. In the natural world, calorie-dense food is rare and difficult to come by, and so our brains are wired to find them extremely rewarding. Of all the macronutrients, fat is by far the most caloric per gram, causing our brains to seek it out in our food. You'll find this in fried foods, oil, cheese, ribs, steak, etc.
Sugar
Refined sugar is one of the most addictive substances in the world. In fact, Coca-Cola used to be made with actual coca leaves (used to make cocaine) for it's stimulating and addictive quality but when it was outlawed, they found sugar to be a worthy replacement.
Sugar is everywhere, too. It's in all of our soft drinks, snacks, processed food, bread, baked goods, fast food, and more. The Standard American Diet is absolutely saturated in sugar, which again, is not a plentiful resource in nature. Sugar is readily converted via glucose into energy to be used by our cells, and excess is easily stored as fat in the body. This mechanism works great in the natural world, but haunts us in the modern world.
Salt
Salt is an essential nutrient, without which we can't continue, but when artificially added to food can act as a force multiplier as to how much food you're willing to consume. Try eating a bowl of quinoa without salt until you're satisfied and don't want anymore, then later try that again except add salt to the quinoa. You'll find yourself eating SIGNIFICANTLY more when salt is added to the equation. If you're struggling with addiction to food, excess salt will significantly add to this problem.
Ween Yourself Off
When you're addicted to the hyper-flavorful food that's composed of excessive and unnatural amounts of fat, sugar, and salt it can take up to three months of eating a natural, whole-food, plant-based diet to fully kick the desire to eat these types of foods.
However, you can eliminate these cravings even faster by practicing water or juice fasting. Not only does this give your digestive system time to repair itself, and rebalance your gut-microbiome that contribute to your cravings, it helps change your relationship with food. When you're able to go 24-72 hours without food, you don't need something hyper-stimulating to be satisfied. A simple plant-based meal will do.
You need to ween yourself off of the extreme flavors, the chemical additives, the excess sugar, fat, and salt. You need your gut, your taste buds, and your brain to re-align itself so that healthy whole-foods are satisfying again. Fasting is an excellent way to make this process faster and even more effective.
The modern world makes it difficult to have a healthy relationship with food, but with time, discipline, and faith all things are possible.
God Bless,
Mercy Ballard