American Food is a Drug, and many are addicted!
 

Thats right. its not food, its a drug. The combination of fats, oils, sugars, salts, complex chemicals and preservatives stimulates the human brain the same as drugs, and in fact, the average american diet is no more than a veiled drug addiction. Their brain is as addicted to food as a meth addict loves speed. It is just as impulsive and out of control. It is reinforced misbehavior controlled by biochemistry. And whats worse, so-called restaurants/markets sell this shit on every corner, like drug dealers. They mass and subliminally advertise their products. They give special prices to and double-up/bait and switch tactics to up the users tolerance, they use television especially to brainwash our children to become impulsive consumers. Through marketing they brand us for food products which we have never even eaten before, but become loyal to the brand and go out and become good customers. And whats worse.. this shit kills more than anything and everything else combined..

discuss:

From Publishers Weekly
Conditioned hypereating is a biological challenge, not a character flaw, says Kessler, former FDA commissioner under presidents Bush and Clinton). Here Kessler (A Question of Intent) describes how, since the 1980s, the food industry, in collusion with the advertising industry, and lifestyle changes have short-circuited the body's self-regulating mechanisms, leaving many at the mercy of reward-driven eating. Through the evidence of research, personal stories (including candid accounts of his own struggles) and examinations of specific foods produced by giant food corporations and restaurant chains, Kessler explains how the desire to eat—as distinct from eating itself—is stimulated in the brain by an almost infinite variety of diabolical combinations of salt, fat and sugar. Although not everyone succumbs, more people of all ages are being set up for a lifetime of food obsession due to the ever-present availability of foods laden with salt, fat and sugar. A gentle though urgent plea for reform, Kessler's book provides a simple food rehab program to fight back against the industry's relentless quest for profits while an entire country of people gain weight and get sick. According to Kessler, persistence is all that is needed to make the perceptual shifts and find new sources of rewards to regain control. (May)
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absolutely.

Though, it's not just an american thing.. But I'm sure it's far worse there.

Everything has a pesticide man.

American food tastes good.
Potatoes, tomatoes, corn, turkeys...yum.

I think he's talking more about corn syrup and the assortment of different 'words' used to describe the inclusion of salt/sugar/fats over and over in foods where it is really unecessary.. mostly to just increase profit margins.

It isn't just about McDonalds sway though. It's about virtually every processed food stuff you can imagine. Whether it be biscuits or noodles or pasta. If you don't make it yourself at home from scratch, chances are many of the ingredients the item started off with, are long since replaced with 'substitutes'.


ok.

I don't hate america, so I dont want to turn this into a patriotic vs 'rest of the world' kind of debate. But yeh. erm. right now, america isn't doing so great.

...

I dont even know where to begin with that. I'm happy to agree to disagree for the sake of not taking over the thread/.

wow. just wow.

I am not talking about mcdonalds and fast food, I am talking about 90% of the shit at the so-called grocery store, and I am talking about the big business of marketing and brainwashing which influences Americans to eat excessive combinations of imitation food.

It is both the ignorance of the consumers, and the business of the suppliers..

The irony, in Somalia and Ethiopia which you mentioned people die in large numbers of malnutrition from not eating enough.

In America people die in unimaginable numbers, equally from malnutrition but in the polar opposite direction, from eating way TOO MUCH food.

My beef is with the companies and businesses which mass market this garbage to us and our children. Pop tart and mcdonalds commercials on morning cartoons.. shinny packaging in the ailes.. its marketing 101, and they have us all hooked.

The book I mentioned above talks all about it, about the fact that Americans tend to over eat because of the poor quality of 'food' which is sold to them.

All food stimulates the brain and/or body.

often this is the case, yes. Often those who do know, struggle to do anything about it because those with the most power and money, convince the majority that everything is fine and america is doing great.

suchfriends have you read any good articles on food crisis predictions in first world nations?

Well yes and no. See the whole point of identifying the biochemical affects of poor food is to point out that for many many people, it is uncontrollable. They over eat and eat garbage not because of poor choices on their part, but because the way their brain and body react to the initial poor choice. I mean, yes, when somebody smokes crack for the first and second time you can blame themselves, but after the 100th time lets start pointing fingers equally at the producer and the dealer you know?

Lets not exonerate these bad guys simply because we ourselves are implicated in the guilt.

American so-called food companies produce this crap with unnecessarily excessive amounts of fats, sugars and chemicals, all of which are highly addictive.

Yes, as PDBRADLEY mentioned, all food causes biochemical responses, but the issue is which kinds of responses. Poor food becomes addictive in the way the brain and body process it, and the person then becomes unwillingly addicted, they develop cravings for terrible food that are so instinctive they can not be stopped. It is not always an issue of will power. That being said, I think that some blame should most definitely be pointed at the so-called food industry which sells all this crap to us, markets all this crap to us, and puts it on every block and in every kitchen in america. If the people have a dangerous weakness due to biochemistry to these kinds of foods, then these kinds of 'foods' should not be so hyped up, so mass marketed, so over-sold to us as american consumers.

In the orthodox church during fasting season we ask ourselves, "am I eating to live, or living to eat?" With the dangerous combinations of sugars fats and oils in most american food, the question is also, "Why am I craving this food, to eat to live, or to live to eat?"


No, not when the casualty ratio is between 10 to 1 and 20 to 1. The leading causes of death in america are related to poor diet, and these diseases kill FAR MORE people a year then does a lack of food in ANY place of the world.

It seems as though you are suggesting that the American diet is not simply an eating disorder in being a psychological addiction to high levels of fat, salt, and sugar but, instead, is a physical addiction to those.

Is there any scientific work to back this up? From what I know about addiction, I think there exists a lot of confusion as to the role of biology in addiction, even in drug use.

I am saying it is like most drugs, a combo of both psychology and physiology. Essentially, it is psychology (marketing and consumerism) based and built upon physiology (the susceptibility of the mind and body to become 'addicted' to fats, sugars and salt) which create a kind of downward spiral, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

i had french fries for dinner.

we dug the potatoes before lunch and put them in the walk-in. had lunch, picked onions, ate melons, washed potatoes, drank homebrew, had a rotten melon tossing contest, cut and fried the potatoes.

time from the ground to my belly: 7 hours.

i wonder what kind of time mcdonald's can boast?

I think it would be a lot more interesting if these foods were shown to increase dopamine in the brain.

levels of sugar and fat intake does affect our metabolism.. insulin.. and brain function.. serotonin and dopamine.

I'm talking comparable to nicotine.

All of the super refined and processed sugars and fats we ingest, cause spikes in the metabolism that our body can only handle to a certain extent. The average human has faced a massive diet change in a reletively short time span. Nicotine is addictive I would think, because of the spike. Your body struggles to compensate, then when the same rapid high level isn't there for an extended period, your body misses it.. big dose again.. repeat. The same would go for any food, ingestable... activity.. in the right or susceptable(sp?) person.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/art...?artid=2235907

Yes...those spikes are a self perpetuating cycle in which when we feel tired and in need of a boost we keep reaching for them, as quick fixes, when in fact they work entirely against our energy and health on many levels. The temporary 'energy' and 'nourishment' we think we're grasping for is really just stimulating those tricky reward centers SuchFriends mentioned in his intro post.

I care about this subject and cant see it as a blanketed "the whole world eats mcdonalds" issue because FOOD and my involvement in such cycles has, in fact, been at the center of most of my life. I can say very surely that many of the more obvious issues such as the physical, and then the trickier labrynthian issues regarding depression cycles and mental stuff are so very linked to FOOD + LIFESTYLE. these two things are so interrelated that they should never be apart. And if you're not taught how to properly respect these things as such important parts of your life then you will easily find yourself struggling to keep off the reward lifestyle and on a truer nourishment cycle.

It's not like I'm trying to blame THEM!!!!! for DOING THIS TO ME AND MY SOCIETY!!!! . I'm just saying that yeah, its hard to develop proper nourishment habits when you've been brought up eating mostly the salt + fat + sugar pyramid, which also involves more packaging/instant access and less prep time/accomplishment out of each meal. I would be a pretty different person if I'd grown up in an environment that took more care to cultivate healthy food habits, but at the same time it's been such a journey learning these things for myself, and I am constantly amazed now when I learn something new about the food world, be it culturally or chemically.

Damn !@#$%@! what did you have for dinner?

Another day, another conspiracy of sorts from suchfriends.

a cold organic watermelon sweeeeettt.

the picture is not me, it's what google turned up for "asleep".

which is how i wanna be when i read stale rants with information everyone knows about. at this point, we all know about trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, petrochemical fertilizers, etc. we all know.

i vote for sway as the winner of the debate. which ended in page 1.

Swa(y) is always the winner.

ok here's how it breaks down.

don't want to eat processed food and shit that's been injected with all kinds of antibiotics and hormones? forget eating at ANY restaurant in this country, not just fast food. everything in national chain supermarkets is processed except for at places like whole foods etc. if you don't want to pay out the ass for organic food you're shit out of luck.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UKLncvGxQ8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgO-u83Os_I

I'll do it for you.

http://www.aph.gov.au/library/INTGUIDE/sp/obesity.htm

another conspiracy from suchfriends? are you fucking kidding? do you have absolutely no single grain of being to relate to this topic at all, or were you born in a tube?

in regards to satans mention of whole foods: indeed, only the rich can afford to eat assuredly without pesticide/chemical, an odd concept to anyone of gmku age and up.
Unless of course, you have you own garden.

Nah, I see lots of farmers markets and independant grocers on the outskirts of my city, but maybe i'm just lucky. It looks like just the city folk that get blinded into thinking that places like wholepaycheck are their only option (its their own dumb fault.)

I love how you start this thread about how fasst food is a drug, and how horrible it is, and then your sig is two pics about drugs.

American food is a drug! OH NO!

Guess what? So are those mushrooms you are always talking about...

I see where suchnsuch is coming from, yes the ingredients are shit, yes the companies don't care about the health of the clientele, I agree.

BUT

Everyone has the choice whether or not to buy and support fast food. Its a ridiculous statement to ban fast food or bring down these corporations, think about it, you are basically deciding what people should and can do. Besides, aren't you going to work for Wal-Mart? They are huge conglomerate beast that perpetuates many unhelathy and unfair situations.

it is the consumer's responsibility to educate themselves and make the appropriate decision based upon their knowledge.
whether you choose to do so or not is none of my business. eat away, fatties.

Well said.

In what way a cheesburger at McDonalds is more unhealthy than the one I make myself, at home, after buying the ingredients separately?
Or are they equally unhealthy?

Supposedly,(and I believe most of this) the quality of meat at mcdonalds is poor,reprocessed meat (meaning any part of the animal gets ground up and made into a patty) they use chemicals to give the meat a ''real'' scent and taste.

also grass fed beef > grain fed.