Gosh! It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged here, but here I am! LOTS has happened over the last few weeks besides my intermittent ‘news’ or spherical ‘thoughts’ on this site. With that said, I will move forward with today’s thoughts!
To say I first dismissed her theories would be an understatement, as I couldn’t seem to relate to how her message applied to me. I first listened to her speak at Low Carb USA May 2019… yeah, it’s taken me this long. But after forcing myself to truly look at myself, and those in my family, especially now that I have grandchildren, I CAN now see and understand her message, as it resonates perfectly with Dr. Georgia Ede.
Listening to her on Low Carb MD Podcast the other day, something just *clicked* for me. I could suddenly *see* many of the behaviors and physical and emotional/mental maladies brought on by the toxic nature of processed food addiction in people I’ve known since childhood and beyond. Blows my mind!
Like Dr. Ede, Dr. Ifland attributes the effects of processed food (which includes sugars, grains & industrial seed/vegetable oils, aka, PF:SGISVO) addiction with regard to mental and emotional health to be cumulative. In other words, the longer the toxic composition of PF:SGISVO have been percolating in your body, the more intense and adverse the effects over time to the point that your *normal* can be a wac-a-doodle (or fairly sick person) no one wants to be around. This leads to the destructive and progressive nature of addiction in general, working at a neurological level, which is why food addiction is particularly dangerous.
In fact, here is the short list of the negative ways these PF:SGISVO can adversely affect your physical, mental and emotional health and temperament:
Alzheimer’s
Autism
Dementia
Schizophrenia
Bipolar disorder
Manic depressive
0 – 60 mph rage in a nano-second
Acne
Insulin resistance (skin tags anyone?)
Cancer
Heart disease
And these are just the big ones. Think about all the little aches, pains, headaches, itchy skin, autoimmune disorders, digestion and stomach problems that people routinely complain about. Literally ALL these problems can be traced back to processed foods, sugar, grains and ‘heart-healthy’ vegetable/seed oils. Yikes & yuk!
Here’s a brief summary of her Quest to help people from processed food addiction:
1996 Joan creates a handout of healthy foods for friends but no one can follow it. This shows that information alone is not effective in helping people change eating routines. Information is not enough, nonetheless, health professionals are still relying on handouts today.
2000 Joan publishes her popular book Sugars and Flours: How they Make us Crazy, Sick and Fat. The book stays in the top 3% of Amazon books for over 10 years but does not spark a revolution in eating styles. Unfortunately, her book was not enough. Nonetheless, hundreds of diet/health books continue to be published.
2007 Joan earns her PhD in the hope of reaching academics. To her astonishment, she discovers a vast body of obesity literature describing the symptoms of food addiction. Her dissertation validates alcoholism diagnostic criteria for overeating. Although the scientific basis for food addiction exists, it is hidden.
2014 Joan is approached by CRC Press to write the textbook for the food addiction field. Processed Food Addiction: Foundations, Assessment, and Recovery is published in 2018. It is 204,000 words supported by 2,000 studies. It establishes the scientific basis for food addiction and shows it to be a widespread, severe addiction. This is the foundational work that shows why all weight-loss programs are inadequate to put reverse overeating and diet-related disease for the long term.
2019 The Daily Addiction Reset Community (ARC) with the one-week intensive Reset Week, finally bring control over food to a beta test group of 30 individuals who had been bingeing uncontrollably. Access to four hours of live programming per day on the Zoom platform, plus a periodic all-day, multi-day live program proves to be enough to keep addictive overeating and diet-related diseases in remission.
I urge you to consider your health from this perspective, uncomfortable as it may be. Good luck!