Breaking The Food Seduction & How Certain Foods Can Make You Feel Drunk

by Barbara Ferguson Kennedy


In the following interview, Dr. Neal Barnard talks about how what you eat can lead to impotence, obesity, high blood pressure, cancer and diabetes - and how a vegetarian lifestyle can help reverse these illnesses. He also explains about how certain foods act as opiates within your system.

When Dr. Neal Barnard was working as an autopsy assistant in a hospital in Minneapolis, he saw a patient who died in the hospital of a massive heart attack. He was required to examine the heart by removing a section of ribs from the front of the chest, and found the arteries were totally clogged. Plaque had also clogged arteries leading to the brain. Barnard said the pathologist explained this was a common problem and that these blockages in the arteries began quite early in life, in the mid-20s, with heart attacks following with the next twenty years.

"At the end of this exam, I took the ribs and put them back in his chest. We sewed up his skin and washed our hands and made our notes, and then we went up to the cafeteria. They were serving ribs for lunch," said Barnard. "It smelled and looked just like his body and I just couldn't eat it. It was a gut-level experience. This started me down the road of thinking about how what we eat directly connects with the condition of our bodies."

A cadaver's ribs and ribs for lunch led Dr. Neal Barnard to now become one of the leading US physicians to advocate diet and lifestyle changes to dramatically improve a person's health and well-being.

Barnard ran the psychiatric ward at St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan, New York, after finishing medical school, and also opened a psychiatric consulting practice where he counseled ill and depressed patients. "I started to have concerns about these medical patients, because they got no information about nutrition. Not only in the hospital, but there had been no prior effort to prevent the heart attack until it came - full-blown - through the emergency room door. There was no effort to prevent cancer until it showed up on the mammogram, or colonoscopy, or elevated PSA levels for prostate cancer."

Convinced this was wrong, Barnard set up the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine in 1995 with a group of 20 doctors. Today, the Washington-based PCRM has a membership of 5,000 doctors who advocate a vegetarian diet for optimum health.


Are you addicted to the food you eat?

If some people find it hard to become vegetarians for more than physiological reasons, it's probably because they're addicted, said Barnard.

"Certain foods behave like addictive substances. In research studies we recently completed here with 59 obese women, they were randomly assigned to either a low-fat vegan diet, with no animal products at all, or a more moderate chicken-and-fish kind of diet."

He said the vegans lost weight faster, and after 14 weeks, he asked them what they missed eating the most. "They did not say they missed milk - their diet was vegan, there were no dairy products - they didn't say they missed yogurt or ice cream; what they missed was cheese."

Barnard says this is not an uncommon experience for people: "Cheese contains opiates," said Barnard. "Dairy protein, casein, the fundamental protein in cow's milk, breaks apart in the digestive process, to release chemicals called casomorphins, and the casomorphins are casein-derived, morphine-like substances.

"The casomorphins are opiates; the most powerful of them has about one-tenth the narcotic power of pure morphine. It's not enough to make you drive erratically, but it is enough to give a certain addictive quality to these foods."

Milk, yogurt and ice cream have a certain amount of casein in it, "but it is the process of cheese making, when all the liquid is pressed together, which leaves just pure casein and fat. And it's the purest form of the casein - and once in your digestive track it breaks down into casomorphins.

This discovery led Barnard to write his latest book, called Breaking the Food Seduction, where he examines the "drunk-like effects of foods." These are four things: "Sugar, or anything that turns to sugar, like white bread, chocolate, cheese and meat. These are the only food groups that people resist giving up." (Breaking the Food Seduction is available from the NHA. Please see catalog for ordering information.)


The Four Food Addictions

"From an addictive perspective - people will fight for sugar, cheese, chocolate, or meat. I've met men who've already had three attacks and still have a high cholesterol level. But when his doctors tell him that he's going to die if he doesn't change his eating habits, the one food he will not give up is his steak, or his fried chicken. So it makes good sense to view these as addictions."

As for chocolate, Barnard said people have suspected it acted like a drug for a long time, particularly toward the end of a woman's menstrual cycle, when she'll say she needs chocolate.

"If you take a person who is addicted to heroin and give him a drug called Naloxone, he will no longer have any desire for heroin, because it's an opiate blocker - it blocks the effect of heroin on the brain.

"If you give the very same intravenous drug to a chocolate binger, it will dramatically reduce their interest in chocolate, which suggests it has opiate-like effects on the brain."

Barnard says sugar, chocolate, cheese and even meat are affected by Naloxone, not broccoli, salad or an apple.


Alternative Protein Sources

"If a person is consuming a diet entirely plant-based, a raw food kind of diet, and they have a lot of fruits and raw vegetables, they'll be getting plenty of good protein, said Barnard.

Soy products, promoted as the ultimate protein substitute for meat and dairy, have both good and bad news, said Barnard.

"Soy products have been used for a very long period of time in countries that maintain a level of health that is unsurpassed in other countries," said Barnard. "A lot of tofu and soymilk are used throughout Asia, where the populations are largely lactose intolerant and cow's milk is not used. They also have a very low rate of cancer, obesity, and heart disease. Their longevity is substantially better than ours, and has been for a very long period of time."


Is there a link between Soy, Bovine Growth Hormones and Cancer?

"Soy products, like other plant foods, have very weak estrogens, called phytoestrogens, and phytoestrogens have been credited with an anticancer effect."

"If a woman who has a normal amount of estrogen in her blood consumes soy, these phytoestrogens occupy the estrogen-receptors on her breast cells, so her natural estrogens can't attach and because the soy estrogens are so weak, they keep her own estrogens away, and the presumption is that they actually have an antiestrogenic effect, which prevents cancer."

Barnard said there is new concern that because soy has estrogenic-effects, it could have disadvantageous effects as well as an advantageous effect.

"It could be that for postmenopausal women, whose ovaries aren't making much estrogen, this estrogenic effect of soy could actually be a problem, particularly for someone who has breast cancer.

"For just about everybody else I think it's fine. Particularly if a person is consuming fish, meat or other fatty foods - because they are getting so much of an estrogenic effect from the meat or fat, and I don't mean the estrogens in meat, but the fatty foods that stimulate the body to make estrogen - this overwhelms any qualms about consuming soy."

Barnard recommends buying organic vs. non-organic soy. "There's no reason not to. One should eat organic, non-GMO [non-genetically modified organisms]."

Asked about Bovine Growth Hormones, BGH, Barnard said they are injected into dairy cows to increase their productively. "There's a big battle over whether or not they should use it, because it does increase this chemical in milk called IGF-1, which is a potent stimulus for cancer cells."

"If breast cancer cells are mixed with IGF-1, they grow more rapidly. So it's bad stuff."

But Barnard said the effects of dairy and meat outweigh the effects of BGH.

"If you are consuming milk or cheese, it has a lot of fat and calories. Skim milk is 55 percent lactose sugar, and the absence of fiber in it causes hormonal derangement in the body. So, whether you're a man or a woman, the amount of estrogen in your body is going to rise, as is the amount of testosterone in your body. And those effects are far greater than the effects of the chemical additives that are being used."

This scuttles the theory that eating organic meat is better because it doesn't have these hormones. "It's like using a clean cigarette. It's good to get away from the chemicals, but you want to get away from that food, too, because it has a greater chemical effect on your body than the chemicals used to produce it."


Why foods make fat men and women look alike?

Two-thirds of Americans are overweight, and observers say men and women develop a similar "bovine" shape.

"What happens is that fat tissues produce estrogen. The reason why men are looking more like women is that overweight men have breast development - breast augmentation and their hips are wider - that's the effect of estrogen on their bodies. And when men become impotent it's usually due to their diet and their fatty intake.

"That's due to any source of fat. There are several effects working simultaneously, all by the same kinds of foods. High fat foods stimulate high hormone production - in particular, estrogen and testosterone.

Fiber-depleted foods, foods that have no fiber in them, also allow elevated levels of hormones, said Barnard.

"There's estrogen, testosterone and cholesterol in your blood, and the liver extracts them and sends them down to the bile duct in the intestinal tract. So the liver filters the blood, and when there's an excess of waste estrogen, it goes down the bile duct into the intestine and adheres to fiber.

"So those who were smart and ate beans and vegetables and fruit for lunch - this goes out with all the waste. But if a person didn't have high-fiber foods for lunch, and instead ate chicken breast and yogurt and white rice, and the fiber, which is only found in plants, is not there, the estrogens still go down, but they end up being reabsorbed because there's no fiber to hold on to, and they come right back into the [blood] circulation and go back into the liver, and it continues this circulatory process.

"There is a great interest about this in cancer research; as it's a great way to protect against, say, breast cancer. But it also affects our size and shape."


Schools: Dumping grounds for the dairy and meat industry.

Barnard is greatly concerned about what children are being fed in schools and was dismayed to learn that a milk-in-schools program was recently introduced to students in Saudi Arabia. "It's disgraceful," said Barnard.

"This Western set of dietary habits should not be emulated by other countries, unless one wants to emulate our rates of cancer, heart disease, and obesity - which are bankrupting our country and destroying our children."

"Kids today have every challenge against them," said Barnard. "Advertising on television shows nothing but fast food and snack foods."

He said schools are used in two ways that are harmful to kids: one is that schools' educational materials are often donated, often by the dairy industry, so they emphasize the foods the companies wish to sell.

"Instead of thoughtful nutrition at schools," said Barnard, "what you see is a dumping ground used to regulate an agricultural crisis: when beef prices fall, the cattle industry goes to the Department of Agriculture and asks them to execute a 'federal purchase'."

PCRM's chief says the government has bought up beef and dairy surpluses for decades - several hundred million dollars of beef or dairy in the course of a year. "And when they buy it, they have to put it somewhere, so it ends up in hospitals, prisons and schools.

"Our kids today are victimized by that, and they are more out of shape than they've ever been. One in six teenagers is now overweight and it's getting more common. When we were in school, there was an overweight kid in the class who was one of thirty. But today kids are getting heavier and heavier and heavier… and two-thirds of adult Americans are overweight."


Soft Drinks: Another form of addiction

"Soft drinks start with what the body actually needs, which is water, and then it adds a lot of seductions to it to make sure you're hooked," said Barnard. "As children, we occasionally had sodas - in 6-ounce bottles.

"Now people drink several soft drinks daily. And what do you get? First, no soft drink is smaller that 20-ounces at the local store, so you get almost as much caffeine as in a cup of coffee.

"What 10-year-old needs to have the same caffeine blood level as his stressed-out parents?" asked Barnard, noting that each soda also has the equivalent of about 17 teaspoons of sugar.

"Kids' behavior is directly affected by what they eat," said Barnard. "Look at kids who are hyperactive. Take them off the colorants and preservatives in their foods and drinks and general sugars. Then get them away from fatty foods and into healthy diets, and you'll see that many of them settle down."

Similarly, said Barnard, men who eat high-fat meaty diets tend to have hormonal differences that cause their behavior to be different than men eating a high-fiber diet. He referred to a study called the "Massachusetts Ageing Male Study," which measured SHBG in the blood, or Sex Hormone Binding Globulin.

"SHBG holds, and inactivates, sex hormones. And it's in your blood, circulating, and it keeps these hormones inactive until they need it. So the more SHBG you have, the less active your testosterone is going to be.

"Researchers in the 'Massachusetts Ageing Male Study' had thought for a long period of time that if you're on a high-fat, low-fiber diet your SHBG falls, and you don't have this natural method of reining in your hormones.

"It explains why meat-eating folks are sometimes less cooperative and more aggressive and why vegetarians tend to be less aggressive and more apt to work things out. And I think there must be a political message hidden in there somewhere…" said Barnard.


Who do you want to look like? Alec Baldwin or John Candy?

Reflecting on the difference between meat eaters and vegetarians, Barnard said: "There is an old stereotype that philosophers become vegetarians, thoughtful people like professors and librarians become vegetarians, and so it's not the guy running halfback on the football team. So the idea is that it's the intellectual, and so they're skinny people who become vegetarians.

But I think the idea that switching to a vegetarian diet is going to make you look like this has been largely put aside for a couple of reasons. One is that we now know there is more iron in a vegetarian diet than a meat-eaters diet. Oddly enough, but green, leafy vegetables and beans are so high in iron that most folks who go on a vegetarian diet find that their iron level does not fall, but actually increases.

"Secondly, there's plenty of protein in plant-based diets.

"Finally, and perhaps most persuasively to most folks, the strongest animals on the planet are vegetarians, such as bulls, stallions, gorillas, and elephants.

"Where does a bull get those rippling muscles? From grass. And yes, of course a cat is a meat eater, but the idea that a vegan diet is going to make you unmuscular is silly."

Using Hollywood stars as models, he said: "Kim Basinger, Alec Baldwin, Pamela Anderson - all of these people who have enviable bodies - are vegans. And if you look at the John Candys of the world - is that the kind of diet that you want to follow?"


Atkins Diet is based on a "false premise"

Of course, the interview would be incomplete without mentioning the latest fad diet - Atkins.

"The Atkins Diet is based on a false premise, which is that carbohydrates make you fat. So it's designed to avoid all carbohydrates, or virtually all; it allows you no more than 20 grams, whereas you're eating 200 grams in a normal diet.

"When you take all those foods out of the diet, your body is starving for its normal fuel, which are carbohydrates, so it's forced to burn fat, which is Atkins' theory. The problem with that is if you look at the skinniest people on the planet, they eat carbohydrates all day long. Carbohydrates are not the cause of obesity."

"It is true if you take all the carbohydrates out of a body, a person will lose weight in two ways, neither of which is appropriate," said Barnard.

"First, if you lose carbohydrates, your body uses up its stored carbohydrates. You store sugar in your muscles and in your liver - it's called glycogen. Glycogen is your emergency batteries, your emergency energy.

"Every pound of glycogen holds three pounds of water. So what you're losing is not fat, but glycogen plus water, which your body has to build back later. So, if you lose five pounds that first week, it's not fat; it's glycogen and water, and there's no point to that.

"Secondly, over time you will lose weight, but only if you are eating in such a way that your calorie intake drops. You're eating cheese and meat, but no bread, pasta, rice, or grains of any kind - it's not surprising people lose weight. But if they eat so much cheese and meat that their calorie intake stays the same, they'll lose nothing. And what you have just done is that you've skewed your diet towards the worst foods. They may be the most seductive foods, but your body wishes you would go back to fruits and whole grains."


A vegan diet can improve diabetes

PCRM is currently running a diabetes study with 60 people who have Type-2 diabetes. Half the people have been put on a vegan diet. "They heard this diet may help them lose weight and get their sugars under better control and might reduce their need for medications. That's exactly what happened," he said.

Barnard recommends a few tricks for those starting out. "Trick one is focus on the short-term. Don't say: 'For the rest of my life… I'm never going to be able to have another double cheeseburger.' I focus on three weeks; they know what they're doing and they want to keep going.

"I also walk them through the day, what to eat for their meals. Skip the eggs and bacon for breakfast, and eat oatmeal with raisins. If they are used to sausage, then they can have the vegan sausage. There are choices, depending on what their dietary preferences are, but there's no need to go back to meat and eggs. For lunch, instead of the beef taco at Taco Bell, they can get the Bean Burrito, or go to the salad bar. Once they plan it out, and they've put it down, and know what works - they're fine. I haven't had anyone drop out from the vegan group in my study.

"In breaking an addiction, in changing your diet, in breaking a habit - whether it's quitting smoking or any other habit - focus on the short-term, not the long-term. The long-term will come on its own. When you go on a vegan diet, at first it tastes light. But after two or three weeks, you will be totally adapted, and if you then go back and have the double bacon cheeseburger, you'll find it's not the joyful experience you thought it was because it tastes unhealthful."

Barnard said it's important to learn eating choices and where choices are: healthier foods are everywhere; there are books that are everywhere.

"One tip that is very helpful, even though they may not want to hear it, is do it 100 percent. The reason I say that is if you have that cheeseburger every three or four days, you're never going to wean yourself away from the taste. Even if you do it for only four weeks, do it completely. Then you'll know how much better your body feels."



Source: www.healthscience.org/Articles/Break_Food_Seduction.htm

© Copyright 2004. All Rights Reserved. Health Science is the publication of the National Health Association. This article reprinted from the Summer 2004 issue.