Are You Addicted to a Deadly Diet?

This is an article that was written by Dr. Joseph Mercola. Check out his wonderful natural health website: http://www.mercola.com/

Processed foods are typically chemically altered to increase the appeal to your taste buds, so they can override your body's signals that would otherwise tell you it's time to stop eating.

These foods are pumped full of unnatural amounts of sugar, corn syrup, salt, MSG and many others, which radically increases the likelihood of becoming addicted to them.

In one study of rats fed a diet containing 25 percent sugar, they became anxious when the sugar was removed -- displaying symptoms similar to people going through drug withdrawals, such as chattering teeth and the shakes.

The researchers conducting the study found a link between opioids, your brain's 'pleasure chemicals,' and a craving for sweet, salty and fatty foods. It is thought that high-fat foods stimulate the opioids, as when researchers stimulated rats' brains with a synthetic version of the natural opioid enkephalin, the rats ate up to six times their normal intake of fat.

Further, long lasting changes in rats' brain chemistry, similar to those caused by morphine or heroin use, were also noted. According to researchers, this means that even simple exposure to pleasurable foods is enough to change gene expression, which suggests an addiction to the food.

Too Much Processed Foods Can Ruin Your Taste Buds

Meanwhile, refined sugar, which is in nearly every processed food out there, because it is inexpensive and improves the flavor of the food, has been proven to be more addictive than cocaine!

Your body's sweet receptors (two protein receptors located on your tongue), which evolved in ancestral times when the diet was very low in sugar, have not adapted to modern times' high-sugar consumption.

Therefore, the abnormally high stimulation of these receptors by sugar-rich diets generates excessive reward signals in your brain, which have the potential to override normal self-control mechanisms, and thus lead to addiction.

This is why, if you regularly eat a diet of processed foods, whole foods seem to lack flavor. You have become conditioned to think that these chemically altered foods are the norm, when in fact the opposite is true.

The unfortunate reality is that when you eat a processed food diet, it leads to an avalanche of negative changes in your body. One of these is elevated insulin levels, and ultimately insulin resistance.

The positive health impacts of breaking the processed food addiction in the United States would be even greater than if everyone stopped smoking, because elevated insulin levels are the foundation of nearly every chronic disease known to man, from cancer and arthritis to cardiovascular disease.

If You Give Up Processed Foods, What Should You Eat? Raw Food!

Ideally you'll want to eat as many foods as possible in their unprocessed state; typically organic, biodynamic foods that have been grown locally, and are therefore in season.

But the challenge is, even when you choose the best foods available you can destroy most of the nutrition if you cook them.

I believe it's really wise to strive to get as much raw food in your diet as possible. I personally try to eat about 85 percent of my food raw, including raw eggs and humanely raised organic animal products that have not been factory farmed. And there are a number of reasons for this.

For starters, cooking your food, especially at high temperatures, destroys naturally occurring enzymes. Enzymes are proteins; catalysts to speed up and facilitate reactions in your body. In fact, some biochemical reactions will not even occur without these enzymes (you have about 1,300 of them).

So if all of your food is cooked, your body is going to be deficient in the enzymes it needs to function properly.

Your Body Craves Biophotons

Enzymes are very important, but the primary reason for making sure you get plenty of raw food in your diet is due to what's called 'biophotons.' It's a term you may not have heard of before, but in Europe, Germany in particular, there's significant research in this area.

Biophotons are the smallest physical units of light, which are stored in, and used by all biological organisms – including your body. Vital sun energy finds its way into your cells via the food you eat, in the form of these biophotons.

They contain important information, which controls complex vital processes in your body. The biophotons have the power to order and regulate, and, in doing so, to elevate the organism – in this case, your physical body -- to a higher oscillation or order.

This is manifested as a feeling of vitality and well-being.

Every living organism emits biophotons or low-level luminescence (light with a wavelength between 200 and 800 nanometers). It is thought that the higher the level of light energy a cell emits, the greater its vitality and the potential for the transfer of that energy to the individual which consumes it.

The more light a food is able to store, the more nutritious it is. Naturally grown fresh vegetables, for example, and sun-ripened fruits, are rich in light energy. The capacity to store biophotons is therefore a measure of the quality of your food.

Now, the DNA inside each of your body's cells vibrates at a frequency of several billion hertz (which is unfortunately the same range at which modern cell phone communication systems also work). The vibration is created through the coil-like contraction and extension of your DNA -- which occurs several billion times per second -- and each time it contracts, it squeezes out one single biophoton; a light particle.

All the biophotons emitted from your body communicate with each other in a highly structured light field that surrounds your body. This light field also regulates the activity of your metabolic enzymes.

Switch to More Raw Foods Gradually

Many people feel that if they can't eat their favorite junk foods, they are being deprived. In reality, the sooner you switch your eating habits, the sooner you'll enjoy increased energy, normalized weight, a better mood and improved health overall.

Knowing this, many initially succeed at implementing an improved diet, but then fall back into old habits... and therefore, the "old" body.

To avoid this, I recommend you make the changes to your diet gradually, starting with making one meal a day raw, then increasing from there.

I personally try to make at least 60% of my diet raw each day and I've really noticed a positive difference in how I feel since I've been doing this. Give it a try and see what you think!

If you've made a commitment to eat healthier and your best intentions keep going astray because of cravings for your favorite foods, check out my new video - "Tap to Be Free" - EFT for Cravings