How to Eliminate Junk Food Cravings for Good in South Sioux City NE

In 2022 Americans spent a staggering 100 billion on snack foods and another 200 billion on fast foods!

Don’t think this is by accident. The food industry spends millions and millions of dollars every year to design these foods to make them addictive. They have taken the flavor science to an extraordinary level, creating an artificial ingredient that stimulates the bliss point in your mouth, to make you crave these sweet and salty foods. Consuming these foods damages your metabolism and the Systems of your body.

For example, non-calorie sweeteners destroy your metabolic response to real sugar, increasing your risk for obesity and diabetes. Your mouth senses the sweetness coming in and stimulates the release of insulin to deal with the sugar, but there is no sugar to metabolize. If that wasn’t enough, they also destroy your good gut bacteria, making weight loss much more difficult.

If you follow the 7 Systems Plan, you know that sugar can be more addictive than cocaine, but sugar is not the only culprit. Salt, fat, and dairy can also be highly addictive.

As described by investigative reporter Michael Moss, author of the 2013 book, “Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us,” food manufacturers go to great lengths to find the perfect blend of salt, sugar, fat and additional flavorings to excite your brain’s reward center, thereby assuring you will be back for more. In addition to those basics, the food industry also employs other strategies to increase their products’ addictive nature. This includes:

• Dynamic contrast — This is when a combination of contrasting sensations produces pleasurable sensations, such as biting through a crunchy chocolate shell, followed by a soft, creamy center filling
• Salivation response, which boosts taste and feelings of pleasure. Examples of foods and/or ingredients that promote salivation include butter, chocolate, ice cream and mayonnaise.
• Rapid food meltdown and vanishing caloric density —foods that quickly melt in your mouth trick your brain into thinking you are not eating as much food as you really are, despite the fact you are stuffing in plenty of calories. A prime example of a snack food that has perfected this is Cheetos.
• Sensory specific response — Repetitive flavors, or flavor overload, tend to lead to decreased sensations of pleasure. In short, you “get tired” of eating the same flavor again and again. Your palate can even tire of a flavor within minutes. Processed food manufacturers circumvent this by creating more complex flavor and sensory profiles. The greatest successes, whether beverages or foods, owe their “craveability” to formulas that pique your taste buds just enough without overwhelming them, thereby overriding your brain’s inclination to say “enough”.
• Calorie density —Junk foods are designed to convince your brain that it is getting nutrition, but to not fill you up. This is accomplished by combining the ideal ratio of calories to prevent satiety signals from going off.

So how can you get yourself out of the trap set up by junk food manufacturers?

We go through this in much more detail in the Course (see lesson four of the Structural System), but let me give you 3 steps:

Find three things to break your addiction to food in South Sioux City NE

Find the Food

Almost everyone has a food they cannot control themselves with. What food is it that you need to not have around that could get you in trouble?

See if you are a food addict with this test. If you score greater than 14 you have a problem that needs to be addressed.