Tag Archives: healthy diet

Questions & Answers

What To Expect When You Give Up Junk Food

Let’s talk about junk food withdrawal.

I read an interesting study out of the Avena lab at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. This team discovered that when people eat highly processed foods, particularly those with artificial coloring, they can get quite addicted. These findings refer to foods like donuts, fast food burgers and fries, and deep-fried chicken. You know, the types of foods that are full of sugar, processed fats, artificial colors, and an assortment of preservatives.

When people come off of these foods, there is a certain element of withdrawal symptoms. Not unlike a cannabis withdrawal or a caffeine withdrawal. So remember, when you eat foods that are very sweet, colored, and man-made (rather than naturally occurring), there’s a potential for addiction. In my opinion, the strength of this addiction gets higher as more of these foods are consumed.

This may explain why yourself or someone you know keep going back to that can of pop, that half-eaten donut, or that bag of candy. It can be hard to give up those fake foods. My advice, especially if you have children, is not to get them started on processed food. Instead, please encourage them to eat healthy food. I’ve never seen people have withdrawal or addiction coming off broccoli, brown rice, fish filets, or eggs.

Further readings:

I’ve never heard of an egg addiction, but I’ve heard of donut addictions.
Be careful. When you start eating or drinking junk food regularly, and you try and break the habit, you may have withdrawal symptoms. There could be anxiety, depression, sleep disturbance, and other symptoms.

The key thing is not to go cold turkey. If you’re going to start a new healthy diet, I recommend warm turkey. My book Candida Crusher explains what warm turkey is all about. But in short, it’s about coming off of foods over a two to three week period rather than overnight.
My decades of work as a naturopath has shown me that when you eat natural foods rather than supermarket foods, you don’t end up with weight, fatigue, or sleeping problems.

Don’t fall into the junk food trap in the first place. You especially want to avoid brightly colored, highly processed foods that contain a collection of chemicals.

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Questions & Answers

The Connection Between Your Mood And Your Microbiome

How do gut and bacteria affect your mood?

It’s interesting. All the years that I practiced as a naturopath, I had this strong feeling that gut health had a significant impact on mood. I saw the relationship quite early on in my practice.

I noticed years ago that people who ate vegetables, lean meats, fruit, seeds and nuts, and whole grains with only light alcohol consumption had a much better mood than those eating potato chips, pizza, and soda pop. People who ate a lot of junk tended to be much more depressed.
Scientists are now validating my observations.

I think one of the first people that noticed the link between the GI tract and mood was a doctor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Dr. Sven Peterson is an experimental biologist who made the connection between the gut and the brain way back in the 1980s or 90s.

Now, I’m excited by all the different research institutions which are researching the impact of the microbiome on mental health conditions like depression and anxiety.

Dr. Cray is a scientist who has compiled a list of about 60 substances in the gut that impact neural response. We know that that a lot of the bacteria in the gut produce chemicals that affect nerve endings. These chemicals can influence whether your mood is good or bad.

Further readings:

There are gut bacteria called Dialister and Coprococcus that can influence the brain.

Coprococcus produces butyrate, an anti-inflammatory short-chain fatty acid. Coprococcus also can impact the dopaminergic pathway, which is the pleasure pathway in our brain. In other words, this bacteria may be able to make people feel better.

We don’t know yet what factors are causative and what factors are just associated. But we can say there is a connection between the gut flora and our brain.

That’s the reason I tell people to avoid artificial sweeteners. I recommend getting rid of all the junk in your diet.

If you eat junk, you’re going to feel awful. If you eat great food, you’re going to look and feel great.

Eat well, feel well. That’s a motto worth following.

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