I went to a food addict anonymous meeting

#1

Last night I decided to go to my very first food addicts anonymous meeting. I was pleasantly surprised by what I found out.

FAA believes that food addiction is a biochemical disorder that cannot be controlled by willpower but can be alleviated by avoiding foods that contain sugar, flour or wheat, and working the 12 Steps of the program. We call this " abstinence ."

According to the 12 step program I’ve been clean from sugar, flour, wheat for seven months now.

Here’s the link to food addicts anonymous if anyone is interested.

http://www.foodaddictsanonymous.org/

(Brian Bfd) #2

I didn’t know there was such a thing. Thanks for the link.

#3

That is the way I see it too. I ate toast for breakfast and that was it- I was hungry 2 hours later and more carbs just perpetuated the cycle. And I too found it impossible to withstand the “call of insulin”. There was no way I could find the willpower to stop eating as long as the insulin was raging through my veins. And it is a true revelation when you stop the insulin cycle and notice how you need NO effort to resist the call of food.

(Gregory - You can teach an old dog new tricks.) #4

One of my favorites.

The Case For and Against Food Addiction, with Robert Lustig

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #5

Thanks @OldDog. There are a couple of things that caught my immediate attention, however.

First, at 5:15 Lustig displays a graphic regarding NeuroFast that clearly states …" the only currently known exception is caffeine which via specific mechanisms can potentially be addictive." Then subsequently he wonders why NeuroFast dismisses caffeine as an addictive substance commonly found in food. They obviously do not. So I wonder how he got that wrong and why. NeuroFast also states that they don’t consider alcohol a ‘food’ and thus exclude it in their findings. You could of course wonder why so, as does Lustig, since much alcohol is consumed with food and most people consider it a part of the meal. The reasons could be other than what Lustig implies: that NeuroFast is just trying to exclude the very substances that contradict their conclusions. He fails to cite any reasons for or against.

Then (around 6:30-45) he draws a non-sequiter conclusion. NeuroFast has simply stated that they find no convincing scientific evidence to support the ‘addictive food theory’. I.e. they did the study and drew a conclusion. They may be wrong or right and further studies will either confirm or disprove. Fair enough, that’s how science works. There may already be other studies that Lustig could cite contra to NeuroFast’s conclusions. But rather than cite any, Lustig immediately claims that they are thus providing cover to the food industry and blaming individuals for addictive behaviour. Why does he do that? It seems to me that he has his agenda and is selecting and interpreting data to support it. from what follows he does not need to do that.

From that point, Lustig does present a case for addictive foods and I think a good case. And it becomes clear that he considers caffeine a prime contributor. So I suppose that helps understand his initial antagonism towards the NeuoFast study. Even though it did not exclude caffeine as he claimed. Lustig finally goes after the legal definitions of GRAS and I think makes some valid points regarding ethanol, fructose primarily, but other ‘added’ sugars, and caffeine.

What I find intriguing is the importance of fructose in initiating/maintaining addiction. This because both fructose and ethanol follow very similar metabolic pathways and both can lead to addictive behaviour. I think this warrants more study. It may well be that ethanol/fructose are in a real sense a 4th macro. And a non-essential macro that potentially leads to addictive behaviours.

Thanks a gain for posting this link.

(Gregory - You can teach an old dog new tricks.) #6

If you Google " lustig and sugar " he presents what I consider a lot of good arguments for the physical addiction of sugar.

Some of his lectures are quite long so I don’t want to send you off on a lot of screen time…
Pick one or two and see what you like.

(Karen) #7

Interesting post! Thanks for providing the link. There used to be an over-eaters anonymous in our town; however, that has been gone for a long time and that still suggests that it’s CICO. I believe there is food addiction, it’s not as strong as some other addictions, but it’s just as devastating in someways.

(Jack Bennett) #8

CICO in the context of food addiction just seems so crazy to me. People aren’t addicted to “calories” - they’re addicted to the feelings (taste, texture, sugar rush, sensation of fullness, food coma, etc) that come from eating certain foods.

Anybody who has eaten more than one kind of food knows that some foods are more appealing than others.

100 kcal of Krispy Kreme donuts is very likely to lead to 1000 kcal of Krispy Kreme donuts.

100 kcal of raw broccoli is not likely to lead to very much aside from a tired jaw.