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Sugar is the heroin of the masses: Advice on how to kick it


  3. AndreaKnoll
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Dr. Neal Barnard MD is to vegetarianism what Al Gore is to environmentalism. His lectures on the benefits of a plant based diet are smart, entertaining, down to earth, and offer hope rather than peddling despondency.

The son of a cattle rancher, Barnard trained is psychiatry, but has spent much of his life focusing on the impact of diet on human health. He had a job at McDonald's while at high school, but, while working as an assistant at a morgue during a year out before medical school, experienced first hand exactly what a modern Western diet does to the insides of those laid out on the morticians slab. He now serves as PETA's medical adviser, and is a committed, and evangelical, vegetarian. But don't let that put you off. Whether you're a carnivore or a herbivore, we can all benefit (and indeed have) from the good doctor's wit and wisdom.

As the president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (an organization which Bernard founded in 1985), he took the government to task for their fudged dietary guidelines.

"Of the 11 members on the committee, six of them had ties to the dairy industry, meat industry or egg industry," says Bernard. After he prevailed in court, the government issued radically revised guidelines in January 2005 (though as we mentioned in our previous story, these guidelines still massively underestimate the servings of fruit and veg needed for a healthy diet).

Barnard believes that much of the illness we experience today is a result of what we eat, and that much of what we eat is addictive, and pushed on us by food corporations whose major concern is the size of their own bottom lines, rather than the size of our bottoms.

In his book, Breaking The Food Seduction, Barnard writes about the opiate effects of foods, and gives advice on how to kick our bad food habits. He reveals that sugar works like heroin, and dairy like morphine, so it's not surprising that the food industry has us right where they want us, craving our next chocolate fix.

For those in need of a dietary intervention, he suggests that you familiarize yourself with the four new food groups (grains, legumes, vegetables and fruit) and give them a three-week trial period (which will give your body, and your taste buds, enough time to adapt). For those ready to cut the beef and go cold turkey, go to the link above for seven basic tips.
AndreaKnoll

6 responses // Sugar is the heroin of the masses: Advice on how to kick it

  • Awesomesauce!
    rct1113
  • I really liked this video. Thanks
    MargaretMilliaws
  • I haven't cut the strings entirely with beef yet; I go for the free range local organic beef. It's expensive to buy and so I only have it once or twice a month, but it is a major source of Vitamin K.

    I agree that eating living whole foods is best for our body to give it the proper fuel that it needs in order to function optimally.
    jubal
  • Oh and for a sweetener that I recently discovered that goes really good with my coffee, for I absolutely will not use artificial sweeteners; it is agave.

    On teaspoon of agave is as sweet as three teaspoons of sugar. It is amazing stuff and tastes delicious in my coffee along with my cream. MMMM
    jubal
  • Thanks for the post. I loved it. Most people don't realize that the food pyramid is altered from time to time based on government "findings," which could be things like 'well I am losing money on my stocks in the beef industry maybe we should add more servings to the pyramid.' If you are really interested I highly suggest reading Food Politics, it changed the way I think about food.
    clarity_kat
  • http://www.dailymantra.com/2008/04/dr_tea_just_say_no_t...
    My fav camellia sinensis-pusher Dr. Tea raves about agave in this video. I actually prefer tea without sugar, but may try agave as a substitute for sugar when cooking.
    AndreaKnoll

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