This is an excellent article.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnews/20081020/ts_usnews/10thingsthefoodindustrydoesntwantyoutoknow

joan@sugarsandflours.com

The Houston Wellness Association is hosting an Obesity Summit and Worksite Wellness Conference on November 13 and 14.  My experience (based on one committee meeting) is that the Association is committed to making a real change in the way that refined foods impact the public.  You can learn more about the conference at  http://www.houstonwellness.org/schedule/calendar.asp?Mode=CalendarViewDetails&date=11/1/2008&ID=250

joan@sugarsandflours.com

I went to my first meeting of the Houston Wellness Association this week.  I was so impressed with their enthusiasm for changing the way people eat.  Often in a new group, the concept of refined food addiction is met with skepticism and disinterest.  This group was quite the opposite. They were interested in knowing more.  I am looking forward to working with them.

The group came out of the office of the Mayor.  It’s purpose is to help workplaces take advantage fo the health services available in Houston.  I’m pleased to be part of their group.

joan@sugarsandflours.com

I was in a meeting of the Nutrition Committee of the Houston Wellness Association.  I admire this group.  They are so clear in the need to change eating habits.

A Human Resources manager mentioned that ‘presentism’ is a hot topic in personnel management.  Presentism means that people are present at their desks or workplaces, but they’re not working.  They may be at work for 8 hours, but they only do 2 hours of work.  They are asleep, day-dreaming, or playing video games.

Of course, fatigue and brain fog related to refined food use came to mind as a possible explanation for presentism.  Almost every recovering food addict reports that they ‘wake-up’ on about day four after eliminating sugars, sweeteners, and flour from their diet 

The HR director’s comments reinforces my decision to focus my efforts on refined food education in the workplace. 

Of course I know what it feels like to be too tired to work or think.  I’m very glad to have mental clarity and energy as a result of eliminating refined foods from my diet.  These are benefits that appear on about day four of abstinence.  They also disappear rapidly, sometimes within minutes when refined foods are reintroduced.  See the graham cracker story that follows…

Joan@sugarsandflours.com

I have been away from this blog to figure out how to make my comments more positive.  Our environment is intensely refined food oriented. So many people seem to be sick from refined foods that it’s hard to even talk about the positive without mentioning the negative.  The negative often seems to be the starting point for talking about recovery.  So, I don’t know a way around discussing the negative.  That’s just the way it is.

I got some insight into why people think being normally weighted is expensive.  I wonder if it is because wealthy people tend to be thinner than poor people.  I wonder if people assume that it is an expense issue.  Of course we know that eating healthy is the cheapest way to eat.  A cup of beans, a cup of rice, and one fresh vegetable can be had for a dollar.  A cup of rice and a cup of beans with free fresh vegetables from the condiment bar at a drive through can be had for $3.50.  So why aren’t poor people thinner than rich people?  I drove around the poorest zip code in Houston one afternoon.  The neighborhood is ringed with heavily advertised fast food restaurants.  So I am wondering about two reasons.  Poor people live under greater stress than rich people.  In rich neighborhoods, there are plenty of healthy restaurants whereas in this poor neighborhood, I only noticed one low-key family establishment as compared to perhaps a half dozen of the big fast food chains.  So reason one might be availability of seemingly cheap ready made food sold through triggering caused by visual advertising (huge signs) and the smell of hot grease perhaps near places where residents get off buses.  Reason two might be the stress of being poor.  However, poor people have not always been as obese as they are today.  So let’s scratch that.  Perhaps the stress is more intense today because of neurotransmitter dysfunction related to the fast food.  Perhaps people get into a downward spiral of fatigue and depression and they can’t get out.    As with all addictions, education is the key.  Joan

Eight years ago, I told my shopping class that about half of the mustards were free from refined carbohydrates.  What we watched for then was white wine as a refined ingredient.  The other day, I was visiting my daughter in Michigan.  We went to buy mustard and began checking labels.  One after another had a sweetener added.  Finally we found ONE that was clean.  What a progression.  The country’s sense of taste seems to go sweeter and sweeter.  Where will it end?  Joan

This morning, I was organizing my thoughts for a paper on exercise.  We have the earliest glimmer of evidence that refined food addiction is negatively correlated with exercise while fatigue is positively correlated.  I recently asked a group of 12 self-identified food addicts to give me examples of how their refined food use interferes with their lives.  Many of the examples involved fatigue, sleepiness, excessive sleep, passing out, grogginess, brain fog, etc.  It made me wonder if there is a sequence here… first we eat the refined foods that make us tired, then we become less able to exercise, then we develop obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.  These three conditions correlate with lack of exercise and a sedentary but I think we’re being to see that fatigue may play an important role in the development of diet-related diseases. Stay tuned.  Joan

I took a survey last week on the question of how much it costs to follow an unrefined food plan.  I showed the audience four bags of groceries that contained the foods needed for one person for one week.  I asked them to tell me what they thought the groceries cost.  I had some nice things in there like thick cut pork chops, shrimp, and Buddy’s chicken breasts.  The groceries cost $70.26.  What was interesting was that 2/3 of the respondents thought they were more expensive, while only 1/3 thought they were less expensive. I wondered if people just assume it’s expensive to eat healthy.  In fact, it’s the opposite.  Just another of the gazillion benefits of eating unrefined.  Joan