Break Free from a Processed Food Addiction
If you’re like most people, you’ve dealt with food struggles where you have either tried changing your diet for reasons like improving your heart health, or losing weight. Sometimes, it’s even for aesthetics – to look good – and there’s nothing shameful about that goal, either.
But what usually happens is you swap out your usual delicious foods for what the food industry says is healthy. You “shop the outer aisles” at the grocery store, enthusiastically filling up your cart with fruits and vegetables.
You cut down on sugar and replace it with things like artificial sweeteners or even monk fruit powder. You throw some granola bars into your basket and smile at the fact that you’re going to achieve your health goals and say goodbye to candy bars.
The transition into these foods from the highly addictive processed ones is hard. You’re fighting both a mental and physical battle. The grocery stores have perfected the art of marketing with end caps full of promotions to bring you back into the fold of cheap, mouthwatering addictive substances.
Friends and family will try to sway you to just enjoy something bad for you. Physically, you don’t feel much better. You have awful headaches from not downing Cokes anymore.
You’re sluggish and tired from not being able to get a quick burst of energy from sugar and caffeine. And this whole time, you thought the supposed health foods were supposed to make you feel great!
Isn’t that strange? Not really. Not once you start digging into the food industry and seeing how they manipulated you into thinking you were making good changes. You were, to a small degree – but not enough.
No one is saying you have to grow a garden or forage in the wilderness and go hunting for wild game to be healthy. But you can arm yourself with knowledge that not only empowers you in your quest for health and fitness, but also makes the process more enjoyable and satisfying to your body.
Food Addiction Is Not What You Think
When you think of food addiction, do you picture someone who is morbidly obese sitting in front of a table full of food like something you would see on My 600 Pound Life? While that is definitely one version of food addiction, for most people, it's something much more subtle.
We are raised with food being used as a reward and a comfort item, and very rarely is a child raised with a mindset that food is simply fuel for your body. The physical addiction aspect is simple.
Manufacturers have added ingredients that cause a dopamine response in your brain, which is where your body receives notification that you are experiencing a pleasure by eating a certain food.
This is especially prevalent when they add sugar, and sugar is not just in candy bars and sodas. It's in your ketchup, your granola bars, and many other foods. The sneakiest part is, it often comes in many different names.
The nutrition label will have things listed like sucrose, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, maltose, corn syrup, and more. This is done intentionally so that you aren't aware of what you're putting in your body.
Studies have shown that sugar is more addictive than cocaine. When rats were given both options, they found the sweetness of sugar more rewarding than an actual drug in terms of the impact it had on their pleasure center in their brain.
It's not always sugar that's addictive, either. Salt has a physical addictive nature as well. If you've ever craved salty foods like chips, that's because the saltiness also releases dopamine and reinforces your desire to continue consuming that food.
Fat that is found in food is also going to trigger endorphins in your body to make you feel satisfied when eating it. When you combine fat, salt, and sugar, it's a recipe for disaster in terms of getting you addicted and making you feel as if you Want to continue down that same path.
Even artificial sweeteners can be addictive. You'll see many people who are addicted to Diet Coke. It gives the brain the same response because it tastes sweet, even though it doesn't have the calories.
There are other ingredients you will find in foods that cause food addiction, too. MSG (monosodium glutamate) Is found in many foods to enhance the flavor and make you feel like overeating.
Even certain preservatives and emulsifiers that increase shelf life and hold food together can improve the texture of the food and make that more appealing for you to consume in larger quantities.
That's just from a physical standpoint. From a mental approach, you'll find food addiction hard to overcome when you are using food for celebrations as well as sad times when you need comfort.
It's also just based on routine. How long have you been eating foods that are processed and toxic in your body? The longer it's been, the harder it is to feel like you can break free, even though it's very possible.
Food companies have to have shelf stable food that is priced right. You have to feel as if you're getting a good deal, and they need to make profits. Therefore, they make their food addictive so that you will buy in larger quantities and continue buying on a regular basis.
Packages are created to grab your attention and entertain you with cartoon images or even images of athletes in some instances, regardless of whether or not the food is an actual healthy option.
Processed Foods Are Keeping You Sick and Making You Sicker
When you talk about processed food, that can be tricky because every food is processed to some degree before it reaches you. But we're talking about food that is manipulated to no longer maintain its health qualities.
If they add ingredients that are going to be harmful to you, then it is processed in a way that you need to break free of. Even the fruits and vegetables that you buy in the grocery store that are not marked organic are processed with pesticides and sometimes things that have been created to protect produce as a food coating.
To make things worse, the laws vary in different countries about what they are able to sell to us. In America, for instance although we have a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that is supposed to protect our citizens, companies are allowed to put all kinds of toxins in our food that are not allowed in European countries.
While our foods are packed with ingredients made from petroleum and potentially harmful dyes, other countries are using natural fruit coloring. Even their packaging is not geared to make kids whine and beg in the grocery store for sugary sweets.
Unless you stand in the grocery store for hours going through each ingredients on the package, chances are you don't know what you're putting in your body and are blindly putting faith in companies that want to squeeze every possible dollar from you.
An example of this would be monk fruit powder. This is often considered a healthy alternative to sugar. If you happily put this product in your grocery cart and get home and look up the ingredients, which contain erythritol, you'll see that studies are now showing that this ingredient causes blood clots, strokes, and heart attacks.
Not so healthy, now, is it? This is a sugar alcohol that's used in many of your foods to help sweeten it and bulk it up or help it retain moisture. Only recently did studies get released that showed how dangerous it is for us to consume.
Typical Americans eat a ton of processed food each and every day. Our fast food is convenient and abundant. The aisles of grocery stores are packed with processed food that is tasty, inexpensive, and alluring.
You might not notice it at first, but as you continue eating these foods, your body and mind will suffer from this addictive behavior. You might be able to manage your weight just fine until one day you don't.
You go to the doctor for your annual check up and suddenly, for the first time ever, your blood work comes back problematic from what you've been eating. The doctor simply tells you to improve your diet, which is very little information to go on.
Even with So-Called Healthy Food, Your Struggle Continues
When you are instructed or make the decision to eat healthier, and you start instinctively buying the foods that are supposed to be healthy for you, like apples or protein bars, you think you're doing something good for your body.
But you're still going to suffer from inflammation, possibly weight gain instead of loss, fatigue, and other health challenges. The worst part about it is that you won't be satisfied with these processed health foods, either.
They don't taste good. They aren't good for you. And they won't do anything good for your body. Then you feel like you're trapped in a cycle. You try to lose weight and get healthy, but because you're not satisfied, you quickly go back to your old eating habits.
You have to have your eyes opened to the fact that the food industry is deeply connected to monetary gain, and their goal is not to help you get healthy, but to keep you sick and addicted.
It’s a rabbit hole that’s difficult to go down. You can’t fathom that anyone would knowingly manipulate someone with harmful information. But it happens. There have been lawsuits and whistleblowers, scandals and more – you just have to pay attention to the news.
Spend a little time each day (not long) learning something new about ingredients. You have to know about additives, emulsifiers, sweeteners and more. They’re not forthcoming with this information.
Companies have websites with information buried on it – or shown openly. You can find out about the brands and see what they mean with their wording. Read the fine print. Also, join communities online where people are discussing processed-free lifestyles.
Detoxing from Processed Foods and Replacing Them with Truly Healthy Ones
When you are detoxing from processed foods, if you're not replacing them with the right nutrition, it's going to be much more difficult for you to get through. You might experience fatigue, headaches, and irritability.
This is not your fault and it's not anything that you should be ashamed of. You have been treated like a cash cow being milked for all you are worth and now it's time for you to fight back against a system and reclaim the health of your body and mind.
The first thing you need to know is that this type of discovery means you have to be willing to put yourself in learning mode for a short period of time. Even though it may seem exhausting to look up ingredients and research studies before buying food, it's only something you have to do one time before that knowledge is in your head and you can apply it from that point on.
For example, if you purchased that monk fruit with erythritol and got home and looked up that ingredient to discover its harmful effects, you would know from that point on not to buy anything with that ingredient.
All you really need is the ability to create a simple set of staple foods for your monthly meals and the knowledge of how to shop for things that are not going to harm you. Some things are very tricky.
For example, if you wanted the healthiest eggs to eat, you don't want to buy typical white eggs that are purchased in stores and sprayed with chemical cleaners and sanitizers before they are packaged.
This is supposed to reduce the risk of salmonella. Even the way these hens are raised is not going to give you the nutrients you need in that food source to be at optimal health.
So then you start looking for cage free eggs. But the truth of that is they are still housed in a large barn-like structure packed in like sardines in sick and unhealthy environments, being fed grains instead of a natural hen diet that includes grass and insects, too.
The cage free eggs are actually more expensive than normal eggs because the consumer doesn't know the real meaning behind it and are willing to pay more. You have to be looking for pasture raised hens where they have access to a field with grass and insects and a natural way of living.
There are some companies that will even tell you what farm it comes from and give you a link where you can see a video from that farm and see exactly how the hens are raised.
The same thing goes for milk. You want to choose organic milk from a grass fed, pasture raised cow. What you're going to notice when you start using this ingredients is that your body has a different physical reaction.
You are eliminating the antibiotics and steroids that are injected into these animals from your food source. The milk can be sweeter, which reduces your reliance on sugar in things like coffee.
Even your coffee beans need to be researched so that you are buying organic, unprocessed beans other than the fact that they have been ground up. Coffee has all sorts of problems when you buy a typical brand like Folgers.
These coffee companies use pesticides and guess what? The United states has very lax standards for how much residue companies can leave in foods like coffee compared to what the rest of the world allows.
It's infuriating. You have to be your own protector in this situation, and that means you look for certified organic coffee that comes from a smaller farm preferably. Look for companies that have testing on their coffee are willing to share the results in terms of toxins.
When you combine a rich, organic, healthy coffee with grass fed, no grain diet milk, your coffee is going to be naturally sweeter and you can either cut down in your table sugar consumption or use pure monk fruit that doesn't have any erythritol in it.
Because sugar addiction is one of the most prevalent problems for people in getting off of processed foods, let's talk about that first period you don't want to replace table sugar with one of the harmful artificial sweeteners.
It's often not enough to simply tell you to start using something like organic date powder, because it’s not the same level of sweetness. You have to find ways to eat fewer processed foods so that your cravings won’t be the same.
Then find substitutes that satisfy your cravings. Are you a chocolate addict? Before you reach for a Hershey’s bar, take a look for alternatives. Honey Mama’s is a brand that uses organic raw honey, unrefined and organic coconut oil and organic dark cocoa to make delicious candy bars.
They don’t contain emulsifiers that give it shelf stability and stickiness. So it has to be refrigerated. But the result is a delicious, sweet concoction that doesn’t taste like a typical “health bar.”
You want real food, not artificial. Shop for whole foods first. Your organic (without pesticides) fruits and vegetables. When you shop for dairy, look for organic items made from grassfed dairy cows.
That goes for milk, yogurt, and butter. For eggs, make sure they’re not just cage free, but pasture raised. You want eggs where hens live mostly on grass and insects, but some could have some supplementary grains.
You don’t want antibiotics and steroids in your meat. Look for pasture-raised, grassfed meat products that are organic. In stores, these are all more expensive options. But everything is going to satisfy you more.
You’ll feel healthier and crave less, so you might end up saving money rather than spending more overall. Instead of having to throw out spoiled milk, your organic grass-fed dairy milk is going to last for over a month – sometimes two!
You may or may not be the kind of person who goes cold turkey on everything. You’ll be doing yourself a favor to wean off of the processed foods even if you can’t do it all at once.
So you might make a plan to start off swapping your milk and eggs. Then shop for organic produce. Those are things where the taste difference isn’t going to be jarring, like it might be swapping out a candy bar for healthy sweets.
This is an empowering journey. As you learn and adopt this information into your own healthy eating strategy, you’ll go from a mindset of deprivation dieting (which is damaging) to one of fulfillment and satisfaction knowing that what you’re putting in your body is actually good for you.
Don’t forget – living a life with unprocessed foods doesn’t mean you can never indulge. You might have a birthday cake, or go on a vacation where you want to sample the local foods in another country.
The key is to stick to it most of the time so your body has the ability to fight disease, not succumb to it. What you’ll find is that you’re going to have more energy, less pain, more mental focus, fewer mood swings and gain the ability to shed pounds without feeling panicked and dissatisfied as you normally do just dieting with processed weight loss foods.
Don’t view this process as punishment. Get mad about how you’ve been raised and manipulated to be an addict to processed food. Once you tap into that protective mindset over yourself, you’ll be better equipped to make choices that impact you in a positive manner.
Eating healthy is about much more than how many calories, protein and carbs you consume. Eating the perfect level of those ingredients mean nothing if you’re still putting pesticides, antibiotics and steroids into your body.
Start today. Make a single switch that’s going to add a protective layer for your body and remove one thing that does damage. Soon, you’re going to feel those changes mentally and physically and realize you’ve fully broken free from the grasp of the greedy food industry.