What costs billions of dollars every year and makes Americans very, very sick? If you guessed the Standard American Diet, you got it right.
According to the former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, David Kessler M.D., substances found in processed foods are as addictive as drugs. If they are not, why is it harder to stop eating cookies but not so hard to pass up an apple?
The Evils of the Food Industry
Millions of dollars are spent each year on researching new and exciting ways to combine foods to make them more addictive than ever. Certain combinations of fat, sugar and salt, along with artificial flavors and alluring packaging, is used to create foods that are highly attractive and addictive.
The unique ingredient combinations signal the brain that we need more and encourage us to overeat. Americans spend almost 50% of their food budget on fast food, or in restaurants where the food combination method is heavily used. Food is designed to entice and induce “craveability”. This, after all, drives business. However sadly, it destroys health.
Breaking the Bonds that Hold
If you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, maybe it is time to break the bonds that are holding you hostage to poor health. It all begins with changing how you think and feel about food. While we can try to sue the food manufacturers for luring us in, what is the point?
We ultimately made the choice to put the food in our mouths in the first place. We alone are in charge of our own health. Now is the time to take back the health that belongs to us and stop fueling an industry that holds so many millions of people captive.
If you think about food as an energy source, and make your food choices based on what will best fuel your body, you are off to a good start. Also, consider that fact that just because everyone else eats it does not make it right. You have to arm yourself with the most knowledge possible, face up to the food demons in your life, and take them down.
You have to understand that you have options, and freedom to choose what you think is best. Sure, you may swim against the grain, you may slip and fall a time or two, however…. once you start to pull yourself away from the mind and stomach-controlling food and the advertising industry, you will feel freer than you ever have.
Creating Healthy Habits
So, why do we make poor choices when we know they are bad for us? Why do we load up on cheesy fries instead of enjoying a light bowl of broth before a meal? We have allowed ourselves to be swept up in the American way of eating, and because everyone else does it, we don’t feel a whole lot of pressure to change. We have developed bad eating habits.
The only way to break bad habits it to quit them and replace them with good habits. According to research conducted at the Cancer Research Health Behavior Research Center, it takes an average of 66 days to form a new habit.
This would mean replacing old eating habits with healthy eating habits for 66 days in order to break free from the sugar, fake fat and salt fix. Once you pass the 66 day mark, you will be empowered to make the right choices no matter what the food and advertising industry flaunts in front of you.
Good habits will change the way you view food, and this will drive your decision making. That plate of cheesy fries that once made your mouth water will look instead like a mass of unappetizing grease and five bags of sugar. That should work to motivate you towards making the right decision. Once you start feeling better because you are eating better, these decisions will get easier and easier.
-The Alternative Daily
Sources:
http://www.landthink.com/if-unhealthy-food-is-bad-for-us-why-do-we-eat-it/
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0908/09080401
