Highly processed foods resemble drugs of misuse in a number of disturbing ways
  • Steve@communick.newsEnglish
    991·
    1 year ago

    I’ve said for years, the one thing I envy of people quitting alcohol or other drugs, is the simplicity of the rules.

    In their case the rule is just “No”. At every time, place, or circumstance, no matter what, it’s just “No”.

    It would be so nice if food was that simple.

    • ThrowawayOnLemmy@lemmy.world
      461·
      1 year ago

      Seriously. Quitting cigarettes is childs play compared to eating healthy. I’ve managed to not smoke for years after quitting cold turkey. I’ve been trying to lose weight for a decade or more with varying degrees of success and failure. If I could just never have food and be fine, I would have been healthy a long time ago. But your body requires food, often multiple times a day. And life doesn’t always give you the time or options you need to keep healthy. And not even getting into the horrible nutrition education I’ve had my entire life, it’s like everything was set up for me to fail, and then everyone’s mad at me for failing, like it wasn’t the expected outcome.

      • xtr0n@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        8·
        1 year ago

        It’s serious medicine and not right for everyone but if you’re seriously obese then consider discussing Semaglutide or similar medications with your doctor. For some people it had been a game changer. It can make it easier to eat a small portion and then stop and it can quiet the persistent food thoughts. The side effects can be too much for some folks and it’s definitely something that shouldn’t be started without doing research and discussing with a physician. But it can make dietary changes much more attainable.

      • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        54·
        1 year ago

        Sunday meal prep for the week. In 2023, it’s not only necessary, it’s imperative if you don’t want to eat FF. Welcome to capitalism.

      • speck@kbin.social
        181·
        1 year ago

        Be kind to yourself. A weakness for baked goods is a significant upgrade from those other vices. If the baked goods have helped you at all from abstaining from them, it’s a small price

      • Barack_Embalmer@lemmy.world
        9·
        1 year ago

        I made a kind of deal with myself that if I wanted baked goods and sweets I had to make them myself. Since then I’ve learned to make brownies, cookies, ice cream, sorbet, chocolate ganache tarts, pancakes, and more. It’s fun, allows you to be creative, and the extra work of having to make if yourself keeps you in check.

        • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          6·
          1 year ago

          Making it yourself also lets you make it healthier. It’s super easy to choose recipes with less sugar and put fruit, veg, healthy fats, etc into baked goods. It’s not going to make it a health food, but it’s better than Little Debbie.

    • ಚಿರಾಗ್ 🌹✊🏾Ⓥ🌱🇵🇸 (he/him)@mastodon.online
      13·
      1 year ago

      @Steve @shish_mish There is one rule I follow: no packaged snacks. Any snacks I want, I make at home. I got into it for environmental reasons, but after I went vegan, it was the main principle stopping me from going for all of those vegan junk food options. Instead, I make bliss balls and, occasionally, cookies or other treats. Those combined with fruit make great snacks while not destroying my health.

      Oh, I also pretty much always go for WFPB recipes, even for snacks.

    • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.worldEnglish
      71·
      1 year ago

      The nice thing about just saying no to food is that you don’t have to do it for as long as those guys with a drug addiction. So that’s a good point.

    • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      211·
      1 year ago

      It sort of is that simple. There are no addictive ingredients in whole foods. Fruit, vegetables, whole grains, non-processed proteins. People just have to make better decisions at the grocery store.

  • MxM111@kbin.social
    55·
    1 year ago

    I don’t stop eating when I am full. I stop eating when I hate myself. And then some.

      • TurboDiesel@lemmy.worldEnglish
        13·
        1 year ago

        I switched to sparkling water. Satisfies the “cold fizzy thing” itch without extra sugar. Though, apparently finding plain seltzer is hard in some parts.

        • Tarquinn2049@lemmy.world
          6·
          1 year ago

          Would a sodastream type solution satisfy your needs? Things like that have gotten super cheap. My dad also just uses unsweetened drink flavoring in his like bubly. Can also use natural flavours instead of buying artificial ones. Concentrated lemon juice is easy enough to find, I’m sure other concentrated flavours are possible to find or make too. But yeah, by default it just makes carbonated water, adding flavour or sweetening it is an optional second step.

          Devices that carbonate water have been around for decades, the upside of the new ones is just that they hit a critical mass in enough markets now that the co2 cartridge replacements are everywhere and cheap now. I live in a small town of 2000 people up in Canada, and we have a sodastream canister exchange program in our local hardware store, lol. And a canister is 20$cad and lasts me about 100 drinks, the water I use is filtered tap water, so the price there is pretty negligible per drink. Totals up to about 25 cents per drink. The price of the machine itself was 80$cad, so if I only add that to the first batch, those first hundred liters were more like a dollar each. Pretty easy to swallow. Though it’s carbonated, so best to sip anyway.

      • theragu40@lemmy.world
        6·
        1 year ago

        I used to drink a shitload of soda.

        Then after college I was living at home with my folks, two hours away from my fiancee. I had nothing better to do so I decided to focus on my health. Took 6 months, did a lot of p90x, went almost entirely cold turkey on processed foods, added sugars, and alcohol.

        I ended up losing over 60lbs, almost all of which I have gained back for various reasons. But one thing that stuck is I cannot handle non-diet soda anymore. It makes me feel physically sick to drink more than a couple ounces. I will occasionally drink a diet soda, but even those are few and far between.

        It’s like I rewired something inside of me and I just can’t deal with those sugar bombs anymore. I’m sure part of it may also just be me getting older.

        Anyway the point of the story is, there is hope! It takes some willpower, but if I could do it, you can too!

      • AA5B@lemmy.world
        4·
        1 year ago

        Getting soda by the can really helps me- It’s hard not to finish whatever I open and at least the can is an ok size for the day. A bit more expensive per volume and a bit worse for the environment, but at least it’s one part of my diet under control

    • CoderKat@lemm.eeEnglish
      4·
      1 year ago

      Yeah, it’s a serious problem for me. I’m largely channeling those feelings of hatred into reminding myself not to do that. Perhaps not the healthiest approach, but it’s been working so far.

  • pomodoro_longbreak@sh.itjust.works
    351·
    1 year ago

    My sister bought me a bunch of pastries for my birthday, and just left them in my refrigerator. Like seriously a problematic amount of pastries, that I had to schedule my days around. I work from home, and after a while, I just got used to deking into the fridge for a quick pastry. It was ridiculous, but also a lot of fun.

    Anyway, when those pastries finally ended, man… the jonesing I felt when I realised I couldn’t just reach for a pastry all of a sudden…

    • Wogi@lemmy.world
      20·
      1 year ago

      Sugar baby. You developed a sugar dependency.

      Note that no actual sugar is required to develop a dependency, because flour, and almost all sources of carbohydrates are effectively sources of sugar.

    • solstice@lemmy.world
      5·
      1 year ago

      Once for my birthday my aunt baked me not one but two cakes! She couldn’t remember if I prefer chocolate or vanilla so she just made both. That was a week of indulgence I vividly remember, and my god at the end there I was so relieved those damn cakes were eaten omg XD

      • pomodoro_longbreak@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        1 year ago

        Chocolate can definitely be cloying after a while, I find. But a St. Honoré… foof, it’s like eating a rich, refreshing cloud. I could have kept eating it every day.

  • watcher@lemmy.world
    33·
    1 year ago

    I tried to go cold turkey but only lasted a few weeks before the doctors put me on a forced feeding tube.

    • Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish
      132·
      1 year ago

      Yeah, just about everyone is addicted to caffeine, but no one bats an eye. It’s only the drugs that were made illegal that people usually have issues with people being addicted to. All addiction is bad and we should try to have better resources and understanding to help anyone with any addiction.

      • pomodoro_longbreak@sh.itjust.works
        11·
        1 year ago

        Ehhh as an addict, I can say that there are some pretty big material differences between quitting smoking, sugar, alcohol, etc. Legality and how the substance is socialised are for sure huge factors in its perception, and how addiction is internalised, but yeah… there are real physical differences.

        Not that you were necessarily making that point, but close enough, and I’ve seen it made before. No offense.

      • Wogi@lemmy.world
        41·
        1 year ago

        A person with a crippling addiction to sugar is going to look like a morbidly obese person. A person with a crippling addiction to heroin is going to look like that homeless person you’re picturing. But the obese person can have sugar delivered to their door on a daily basis, and the drug addict has to do some sketch shit to maintain their addiction.

        Most people are far further down the scale than either of those two obvious examples, and may be indistinguishable from someone who isn’t actively addicted to something. Though, the 40% obesity rate night have something to do with that.

  • roofuskit@kbin.social
    19·
    1 year ago

    Not only have we had proof of this for a very long time, the entire US industrial food industry is built around making processed foods as addictive as possible.

    • Hikiru@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      What helped me drink a lot less soda was to begin looking at the sugar content on everything. A can has 75% of your daily recommended max intake, a bottle has 125%. Combined with the amount of sugar in a lot of other things, I’m pretty sure many Americans consume like double the amount of sugar they should pretty often. Plus, the 50 grams they recommend is still a lot of sugar and you shouldn’t be even consuming that much

      • AA5B@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 year ago

        For me, getting soda on cans made a huge difference - the parent didn’t estimate the sugar content if a 2l bottle. Anyhow having cans both let’s me off the hook for having one, keeps me from rationalizing that I don’t want to waste it by letting it get flat, and I find it easier to limit myself to only one per day

        (Plus it’s diet. I’m not sure that’s entirely better so still worth limiting, but it’s not sugar, or empty calories)

        • Hikiru@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          Artificial sweetener is actually worse for you than sugar. Just drink normal soda. If you’re drinking soda daily, try to reduce that to 3 or less a week

    • TheFriar@lemm.eeEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      Interesting. I didn’t have a hard time giving up food, I quit about three years ago, but I drink constantly

        • TheFriar@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          They’re saying food is addictive. I’m here to tell you otherwise. I went cold turkey years ago. Big Food wants you to believe you “need” food. Just like Big Tobacco wants you to “need” cigarettes. Phooey, I say

  • Let's Go 2 the Mall!@lemmy.worldEnglish
    151·
    1 year ago

    I’m a sugar addict. I went keto 2 years ago and lost 150lbs. I still need to lose around 30. 90% of our “food” isn’t real food. You need meat and veggies. Nothing else. It’s hard to stop though. I still gotta have a doughnut at least once a month.