Breaking the Food Seduction: The Hidden Reasons Behind Food Cravings—And 7 Steps to End Them Naturally

5 Responses to “Breaking the Food Seduction: The Hidden Reasons Behind Food Cravings—And 7 Steps to End Them Naturally”

1. Gregory Amato says:

   March 22, 2010 at 8:37 am

   Dr. Barnard appears in the documentary Super Size Me touting a couple of the thoughts in this very book, namely concerning casomorphins in cheese and the supposed opiate effect of chocolate. I scarcely have enough time to write how dreadful this book is or how much he misrepresents legitimate research.

   First of all, an introduction: Neal Barnard heads the Physicians Committee for Reliable Medicine. What is this group? Mostly, a group of people who are not physicians, but who ARE vegans. Membership requires nothing but $20- no degree, no research experience, nothing. A weird policy for an organization calling itself a “Physicians Committee.” This is a political interest group so incompetent that it can’t even do its own research. Do a search on PsychINFO or Medline for anything Barnard has published in scholarly literature, and you will find precious small there. That’s because he’s too busy writing books like these for people who don’t automatically have the literary background to know full of it he is.

   Take for example the chapter on chocolate in this book. Barnard asserts that chocolate is addictive, that it has a drug effect on the brain. He even notes one study where naloxone (a drug that blocks the effect of opiates like heroin), also blocked the desire for chocolate. Wow that’s pretty appealing stuff!

   Barnard didn’t mention a few things about this study though. First of all, there was more than one group tested. There were normal subjects, and then there were obese bulimics, people who were reasonably mentally ill. Barnard doesn’t mention that naloxone ONLY HAD AN EFFECT ON THE BULIMICS. Hey, that might be inconvenient for building his point, so you can see why it’s okay for him to mislead you. This indicates that the blocking effect had nothing to do with chocolate, but it DID have to do with mental illness. Moreover, they didn’t even test chocolate! They used several well loved snack foods that CONTAINED chocolate. That didn’t keep Barnard from zooming in on one single ingredient though, and not mentioning that the people in this study consumed several additional things as well.

   Another problem with the chocolate chapter is that he cites a study to support his point that no component of chocolate quells cravings reasonably the way chocolate itself can. He is referring to a study in which people who pine for chocolate ingested either chocolate, a pill containing the pharmacological equivalent of chocolate, or both. It turns out that ingesting the pill won’t satisfy a chocolate craving, you really have to eat the stuff.

   Not to be deterred, even though this study is really effective AGAINST his point, Barnard compares chocolate to nicotine, and writes that smokers are usually not satisfied with just the patch, they need to really smoke (he doesn’t cite any study in support of this assertion). Well, really nicotine patches DO lower cravings for cigarettes, as anyone who does a cursory search of the literature could easily find out. More than that, what exactly is Barnard concluding here? That the taste of chocolate has a drug effect through our tongues, but ingesting it has no effect? Can anyone really read such garbage lacking laughing? I could go on, but you can get this book from your library and see the rest of it for yourself. When in doubt, look up the references he uses to support his points. Pretty regularly, you’ll find that the articles he refers to really don’t say what he makes them out to say.

   I thought Super Size Me was a really excellent film that pointed out what a vested interest many companies have in keeping us unhealthy. Sorry to say, Dr. Barnard has his own vested interests, and they don’t include science or truth.
   Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
2. Rabbi JYH says:

   March 22, 2010 at 10:37 am

   Could you lose weight this way? Yes, but the book reads much more like a call to a lacto-vegetarian diet than help with weight loss.
   Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
3. J. Deezy says:

   March 22, 2010 at 12:13 pm

   An appealing read, but don’t expect to benefit from anything in it unless you are willing to completely give up all meat, fish and dairy products, for LIFE. Dr. Barnard does not endorse moderation, it’s all or nothing here. For persons who are willing to embrace this lifestyle, the final third of the book is full of tasty homemade lacto-vegetarian recipes.
   Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
4. Vegetarian Pacifist says:

   March 22, 2010 at 2:24 pm

   Breaking the Food Seduction:
   
   The Hidden Reasons Behind Food Cravings-and
   
   Seven Steps to End Them Naturally

   Whether you’re drawn to chocolate, cookies, potato chips, cheese, or burgers and fries, we all have foods we can’t seem to resist-foods that sabotage our best efforts to lose weight and improve our health.

   These foods are winning the battle-but that’s because we’re fighting it in the incorrect place. As physician and leading health researcher Dr. Neal Barnard clarifies in this groundbreaking book, banishing these cravings is not a question of willpower or psychology-it’s a matter of biochemistry.

   Based on the leader’s research and that of additional leading investigators at major universities, Breaking the Food Seduction reveals the diet and litestyle changes that can break these stubborn craving cycles. Using everyday examples, questionnaires, and practical tips, the book delivers:

   o Fascinating new insights into the compound reasons behind your cravings
   
   o Seven simple steps to break craving cycles and tame your appetite
   
   o Vital advice for kids’ sugar cravings and how to halt them
   
   o A three-week kickstart plot
   
   o One hundred tasty, satisfying recipes that help your body break the spell of problem foods and place you on the path to weight loss, better health, and greater well-being.

   This accessible and practical book is essential reading for anyone who wants to lose weight, lower cholesterol, feel more energetic, and get control of their health once and for all.

   This reviewer want to add a tidbit of health/diet-related
   
   information which is not well-known, yet which is rather timely
   
   —> Although sugar merely rots teeth and does not cause cancer
   
   it is the bone ash IN sugar (left in sugar during the refining)
   
   that is the #1 cause of the various kinds of cancer. Tobacco &
   
   pollution take a back seat to the BONES in factory sugar as far
   
   as cancers go. Lacking really buying a bag of commercial food
   
   (sic) sugar, look for the ingredient(s) statement. You probably
   
   won’t see a disclosure of the plant from which the refined food
   
   is made (cane or beet). It’s what they DON’T tell you that very
   
   likely might do you in… Keep in mind that most brown sugar is
   
   made from white sugar with some of the molasses added back. For
   
   a bone-free sugar, look into jaggery (mentioned by Sai Baba) or
   
   perhaps (whole-grain) rice syrup (Mizuamé or Amé in Japan). Sai
   
   Baba says that you’ve got to choose whether your sweet tooth is
   
   more vital than your health (& consequently forego refined
   
   white sugar). The bones do not add to taste appeal: they whiten
   
   the finished product.

   2 additional books to do with the inviting appeal of sugar are
   
   038000903X (and various earlier editions) “Body Mind and Sugar”
   
   0446343129 (paste this into the Search) “Sugar Blues” by Dufty.

   In case you don’t mind consuming honey (not a lacto-vegetarian foodstuff),
   
   look for UNHEATED honey (right on the mark). Raw does not mean
   
   unheated. The beneficial living enzymes in natural honey don’t
   
   continue to be viable once the honey has been heated (cooked).

   Were you to have a home-made (simple, uncomplicated) meal with
   
   steamed vegetables (and no, not from the can) and zero sugar, I
   
   venture to say that you’ll get a mellower high in your brain, a
   
   feel-excellent comfort-food after-effect that has no side effect of
   
   crankiness or irritability (which it seems sugar does produce).
   
   On a day off from work when you can afford to live dangerously,
   
   have a bowl or plate of steamed vegetables (preferably lacking
   
   tomatoes and eggplant; potatoes OK, with the skin left on) and
   
   perhaps either whole-grain stone-ground bread* or unadorned noodles
   
   (spaghetti w/o tomato sauce, linguini w/ garlic that YOU press)
   
   and (only if you already have incorporated home sprouting into
   
   your weekly routine) a handful of mustard or alfalfa sprouts.
   
   Rather than guzzle water like there’s no tomorrow, intersperse
   
   single MOUTHFULs of water (distilled costs no more than spring)
   
   whenever your stomach indicates that you’re sending down overly
   
   dry food. End your (day off) meal with a SINGLE nap; set the
   
   clock radio for the maximum that you can afford to be ‘gone’. I’d say
   
   to set the clock radio for a full two hours AND WEAR (soft) EAR PLUGS
   
   to further ensure an anxiety-free nap. Whether or not you sleep
   
   the full time before the clock radio goes off, get up THE FIRST TIME
   
   that you wake up (even lacking the clock radio). That’s the time when
   
   your brain will get the druggy effect from your earlier meal of
   
   steamed vegetables. The insurance of having an clock radio clock lets
   
   you really relax and really get into the nap, since the clock radio
   
   will rouse you in case you travel beyond this solar system). RH
   
   * -the store-bought bread oftentimes sneaks in various sugars;
   
   try to find an outlet for day-ancient organic bread withOUT sugars;
   
   the retail cost of yuppie-quality organic bread means that you
   
   are better off either slow-baking your own OR buying it ’stale’
   Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
5. Anonymous says:

   March 22, 2010 at 3:15 pm

   Granted, Dr. Barnard’s diet is levelheaded, and the science behind his reasoning is levelheaded; but, the reasoning itself isn’t as fantastic as he himself believes. Let me clarify:

   Dr. Barnard advocates vegetarianism and the 4 four group diet: grains, legumes, vegetables, and fruits. This, obviously, excludes meats and dairy. From personal experience alone, I will agree that this type of diet does make one feel better and manage weight, not because it excludes meat dairy, but. As a replacement for, this type of diet works better for the body because it limits processed junk foods by keeping natural foods in the system. So while I agree on the level of the diet effective for a better sense of wellness, I disagree with his reasoning.

   Another problem I have with his method is that it excludes meat and dairy really, going to the point of using soy meats and soy milk to replace what your body naturally needs from these foods. I would also argue that your body craves this groups not because one is automatically addicted to them, but because your body needs vital nutrients from them. For example, vitamin B-12. He suggest taking a vitamin pill to replace what is not received. To limit is one issue, but to really eliminate is another.

   The science behind his beliefs are levelheaded. For example, cheese and chocolate are addictive because they relief natural opiates in the body (evidence also suggest the same for meat, which is appealing, but I wouldn’t personally jump to place my faith in this and thus eliminate it from my diet). I favor taking his science and argument that one can adjust your cravings to more suitable foods, like oatmeal, and form my own thinking to judge that -any- kind of food can boost seratonin levels and become addicting, not just “unhealthy” foods.

   Thus, reading this at some chapters was kind of like a “Fahrenheit 9/11″ for meats, dairy, and sugar. I say this in the sense that the argument seemed legit, but it was so one-sided in leaving out the additional side – the positives of the additional food groups – that his own position seemed too shakey to place my firm faith in.

   So in terms of the his diet plot: a excellent plot and it will change the way you feel about yourself, but mainly if your diet and especialy weight has huge problems as is. But be aware that this diet isn’t the answer to a pleased and perfect life. Additional options to excellent living exist outside of the organic food aisle.

   Regarding the actual title, Breaking the Food Seduction, I would tend to place more faith in his methods and reasoning. He offers valuable information and more levelheaded reasoning as to how and why one should adjust their diet, keep blood-sugar levels steady, and thus feel better overall.

   Also, I have a problem with the fact that this book devotes 1 measly chapter to exercise. Yes, one can lose wieght on diet alone, assuming you ot stout on diet alone. Except America didn’t. American got stout on poor diet and no exercise. You have to use your body, people! If you want your body to flow, you have to make it flow! Nothing boosts happiness, adrenaline, and personal might than moving your body, whether it be raking leaves, walking the neighborhood, and running an hour. Yes, diet will make your emaciated… just look at anorexics who don’t exercise. The problem is that they don’t have the might or metabolism to feel their best. The same is right for the 140 lb, 5-10 20 yr. ancient male. Emaciated, but no energy or drive to go throughout the day. I speak from experience.
   Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5