How to Beat Your Junk Food Addiction, With Michael Moss
This week, we’re beating our addiction to convenience foods with the help of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Moss. Michael is the author of the bestselling book Salt, Sugar and Fat: How Food Giants Hooked Us , and his latest book is On the Hook: Food, Free Will, and How Food Giants Use Our Addictions .
Tune in to hear Michael explain some of the psychological and biological reasons for how and why we are addicted to unhealthy foods, as well as some evidence-based tips and tricks we can use to start fighting these bad habits and getting on with it. a healthier way.
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Highlights from this week’s series
From an interview with Michael Moss
How he came to the conclusion that junk food can become an addiction:
[A] After walking through this cartel that we call processed food and meeting with scientists who study drug addiction and then switch to food addiction, I am practically completely convinced that in some sense these foods, foods, are even more than cigarettes, alcohol and drugs. And one of the main ways is that they use our own basic instincts, our biology, which we have evolved over the millennia. And it worked for us until the last 50 years food companies changed the nature of our food so radically that overeating became commonplace. So it’s a combination of the additives they use, such as salt, sugar, fat, and then other things that aren’t on the label that they use to use our biology.
How to learn how to cook in such a way that it does not interfere with the convenience of ready-made semi-finished products:
I also kind of claim that [the big food companies] have stolen our convenience. This dates back to the 60s when more women started working outside the home, men were hesitant to fail when it came to cooking. And so the food industry stepped in and said, “Hey, we’ll fix this problem for you.” Right. Come home from work tired, we will cook dinner for you. Well, it’s not so difficult to start preparing certain foods for dinner, to cook on your own, which does not take a lot of time. I have a spaghetti sauce recipe for 93 seconds … The point is, cooking, if you think it’s hard, shouldn’t be that hard. And it has miraculous benefits. It forces you to pay attention to food when you do very little cooking, which is a great way to make a difference for these food companies because these foods are meant to be consumed mindlessly.
What you need to do to get rid of your junk food addiction:
I think first of all, avoid crazy diets … because they work until they stop working, and then you have to blame yourself, right? I mean, second: don’t blame yourself. This is not your fault. These companies are created in a way that, as I mentioned, destroys free will. But third, I would say just start with one thing, because these foods … cause problems for different people at different times. Or is it just trying to figure out what your most problematic food is? And then just pay attention to it for a while. Try to avoid this food, replace it with something else. But don’t try to do too much and spend a little time on it, because it can take several weeks. Right. Remember, our whole life we have forced these companies to dictate to us what we value in food. And so changing that and thinking about these products differently can take time.
For more advice from Michael on how to beat your junk food addiction, we highly recommend listening to the entire episode.
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