This, in itself, of course is bad enough. However, an even greater problem we have are the additional hungers we experience on top of a genuine hunger for the right nutrients. These are caused by the additional chemicals often added to junkie-type foods designed to cause an even bigger hole. They are designed to cause an empty, insecure feeling, an identical feeling to a normal genuine hunger. Such feelings are the result of the withdrawal effects from certain junkie foods, or the effects of low blood sugar – which, again, are caused by the drug foods themselves.
These junkie foods really are a double whammy. Not only are they void of some genuine nutrients, they ultimately create a set of false hungers which feel exactly the same as a normal genuine hunger. And because they are sold as food, and not drugs, people remain none the wiser to the fact they are hooked. Instead, people who are caught in the food trap because of drug foods are called ‘pigs’, and are often ostracized and given no sympathy whatsoever. The people who are caught also believe it must be some flaw in their own character rather than a result of a very clever confidence trick – the food trick.
It is the false physical hungers, along with the false advertising, that cause people to have mental and physical cravings for drug foods.
This is ultimately why people attempt to ‘use’ drug foods in much the same way drug addicts attempt to ‘use’ drugs: i.e. reaching for them in times of boredom, loneliness, or for comfort etc. What frustrates me most is that the people who make and distribute drug foods even have the front to advertise the fact that their product will not end a genuine hunger. They have the audacity to let us know that their ‘food’ will only seemingly satisfy a false mental and physical hunger. Our problem is that we don’t question it because we believe it’s our genuine choice and that we derive some genuine pleasure from it. A great example of this was an advert for a chocolate bar which claimed you could, ‘Eat it in-between meals without ruining your appetite’. So what’s the point of eating it then? I thought the whole point of eating was to satisfy your appetite, to end your hunger. With this advert they are blatantly telling us that their ‘food’ will not satisfy a genuine hunger. In other words it won’t genuinely feed you. Another old ad that did this was the finger of fudge one. If you cannot recall, allow me: ‘It’s full of Cadbury goodness and very small to eat, a finger of fudge is just enough until it’s time to eat.’ First of all what the hell do they mean by ‘full of goodness’? Isn’t it full of sugar? The second part says, ‘it’s just enough until it’s time to eat.’ In other words it’s just enough to take the edge off the false hunger, but it won’t ruin your genuine appetite.
The reason we are so easily fooled is not because we are stupid, but because such products do feed the false hungers; in the same way nicotine feeds a smoker’s hunger for nicotine and heroin feeds a heroin addict’s hunger for heroin. When you end any kind of hunger you feel a sense of relief. A feeling of relief from any type of aggravation is pleasurable and this is where the confidence trick really kicks in. The makers and advertisers of these so-called foods try to give the impression that there is a genuine pleasure in eating, even if you are not genuinely hungry. But it is a false sense of pleasure created by a false hunger and it’s just a trick. On top of that you’ve got every diet and ‘health’ book giving the advice over and over again that you should simply, ‘eat when you feel hungry’. But the point I am making is that the drug food eater has additional hungers and is hungry, but it is a false hunger created by the rubbish itself – they are effectively in a loop.
Until the junkie food addict realizes exactly what’s going on, statements like ‘eat only when you feel hungry’ are ludicrous at best. Someone like US born and bred Terriny Woods – who, at the age of just 15, weighed in at 41 stone 12 lb (over 260 kg) – was no doubt following the advice to eat only when hungry, but she was such a drug food addict and had built up an immunity to drug foods to such a degree that she probably felt the false hungers even when she was stuffing herself with drug foods in her desperation to relieve her false hungers. At this stage she would be in a constant state of withdrawal, would be hypoglycaemic and have a constant level of insulin in her blood (which, as I will explain in simple terms later, can cause a permanent state of dissatisfaction). And this condition was seemingly only lessened to some degree by more drug foods. She had created a monster of a hole and was simply desperately trying to fill it with the very things causing the hole in the first place. The more she tried the bigger the hole became … and the bigger it became the more desperate she became to fill this empty insecure feeling. The bigger the feeling, the larger the sense of relief when drug food hits the bloodstream and the bigger the sense of pleasure.
The more aggravations BIG FOOD creates, the MORE PLEASURE we appear to get from them, the BIGGER the Sacrifices we believe we are making when we stop and the HARDER we find the change.
This is why we feel such a sense of loss and missing out when we try to cut down or cut them from our diet completely. It’s a trick – and requires a very open mind to see through it.
Eric Schlosser in his wonderful book Fast Food Nation wrote a small passage on gambling, which I feel works just as well for any form of addiction and works brilliantly to illustrate the food trick: ‘It is the ultimate consumer technology, designed to manufacture not a tangible product, but something much more elusive: a brief sense of hope. That is what Las Vegas really sells, the most brilliant illusion of them all, a loss that feels like you’re winning.’
That is also what BIG FOOD and BIG DRINK is selling – the most brilliant illusion of them all, a loss that feels like you’re winning. When you give yourself a ‘lift’ from drug-like foods it feels like you have just won, when in reality you have in fact lost – in many areas of your life.
‘Nothing seems to satisfy like a Snickers’
This was another advertising slogan blatantly informing the drug food addict that nothing will satisfy their need like a drug food. Why? Because their need is a false one created by junkie foods in the first place. Let me explain in case this is starting to get confusing as this is probably one of the most important aspects of the book to grasp.
All the food in the world will never satisfy a smoker’s physical and psychological need for nicotine. All the food in the world will never satisfy a heroin addict’s physical and psychological need for heroin. Why? Because they are completely separate hungers created by the drug itself. Non-smokers and non-heroin addicts just do not have these hungers. This point is obvious when we are talking about what people clearly regard as drugs, but it is exactly the same with drug foods. And this is why it is essential to really open your mind and change the way you view these ‘foods’ – it is a vital part of freeing yourself of the diet trap for life.
All the natural food in the world will never satisfy a physical and/or psychological need for drug food. Why? Because it is a false physical and mental hunger that has fooled us all for generations. That is why you can seemingly satisfy your false need for junk without ruining your genuine appetite. It explains why even when I did eat fruit or salad it just didn’t seem to satisfy me the same way as junk and drug food. And it also explains why I would sometimes feel stuffed but, at the same time, dissatisfied and still hungry. After all your stomach can only hold so much.
The excellent news is that the false hungers are very easy to get rid of and towards the end of the book I will discuss how to starve them to death, enjoy the process and set yourself free. First you need a full understanding of drug foods and false hungers. There are several products that create false hungers and I will cover each in turn. However, the biggest culprit of false hunger, the biggest drug food of them all and what really compels people to overeat and to eat as a response to emotion is a substance which, when it hits your bloodstream, has your body screaming …