Saturday, May 16, 2009

Fat, Sugar and Salt


Former commissioner of the FDA, David Kessler has been all over the radio this week. He just published “The End of Overeating” and has confirmed a lot of my own suspicions.

Fat, sugar, and salt will always leave you wanting more. It’s not possible to be satisfied with these foods even if you’re about to explode.

I hear people like Rush Limbaugh, and others, talk about food Nazis. “Big government should keep their noses out of my food habits!”

We’re at an unfair disadvantage. ADM and others have the manipulation of our addictions down to a science. Worst of all we’re subsidizing them. The argument I keep hearing is “it’s what the people want.”

Well I want drugs but I can’t have them! They’d take my kids away.

We are actually hard wired neurologically to want fat, sugar and salt. From infancy these foods equal good in our brains.

Kessler has been studying this for years. He came to the conclusion that because we’re actually hard wired with these addictions we always will be. The only thing we can do is hard wire ourselves with a different message that’s stronger. He points to the great strides we’ve made in the public perception of cigarettes. Smoking used to equal cool and was a friend. Now it equals the enemy.

It’s takes a lot of work to change. I remember when I finally stopped smoking. I actually trained myself to enjoy my desperate longing for them. I became a masochist. I still believe most of my addiction was physical. The urge to breast feed. Chemical withdrawal always seems to pass pretty quickly for me.

Is diabetes 2 is just a euphemism for obesity?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey, now that pepsi is putting out a version with sugar in it, it's only a matter of time till coke does. i wonder if it will taste the same? i quit smoking once for 5 years, then when i split up with mary i started smoking again, i actually had to force myself to do it, i remember throwing up once while i was getting my addiction and resistance back up. ive finally quit again, hopefully for the last time, but every once in a while i'll take a few hits off of someone's cigarette to get a buzz it's the only buzz i get to feel these days, i dont really like to drink all that much Geo

Doggie said...

Hey Geo, Pepsi is copying Coke. The have a sugar version for Passover and everyone loves it. Pepsi took their lead and is giving it a go. It'll never happen though because we subsidize corn and the syrup is basically free to them.