Bingeing and food addiction

[Guest guest]

Hi, All,

I've been mulling over the question of food addiction vs. "using food to handle emotions" as an addiction. While I think the latter idea holds merit (see also below), I can't help but wonder, then, why it is that we mainly binge only on certain kinds of foods? I'm sure this differs from one person to another, but for me, this comes down to certain combinations of fat/salt (anything with salt and butter on it, even veggies; anything with fat of any kind and salt, like chips; non-lean meat with salt) or fat/sugar (desserts of all kinds, chocolate) or fat/sugar/salt (things like kettle corn), or any kinds of non-complex carbs.

If food per se holds no addictive properties, why is it that I don't binge on things like, say, fruit? Or veggies without sauces/butter? Or lean meat that's not salted or sauced or has cheese on it? I also never binge on complex carbs (like whole-grain breads or cereals) unless I've loaded them up with butter or something sugary, but put a white-flour biscuit anywhere within a mile radius and I'll find it, maybe even put butter and honey on it, and eat it and any other biscuit I can find. Or at least I used to.

I was able to get over what I thought was a lifelong butter addiction by simply buying only unsalted butter. For me, the problem was the amount of salt with the fat. I sometimes used to crave just butter (or so I thought), and would sometimes even eat it plain. But I never have that craving for unsalted butter.

So I just can't put all this together in my head without thinking of certain food components as having addictive properties, at least for me. Your thoughts?

Now, for the "food to handle emotions" addiction--for short, "emotional eating" or "EE": I do believe that EE has a strong hold on me. Or has had. It's not that I use food to make myself feel good, but instead to keep myself from feeling bad. Watching the hoarder shows drives this sort of "addiction" home: these people cling to their hoarded items to feel safe in a world where they feel besieged by emotions like sadness, loneliness, depression, anxiety, low self esteem, etc. Food similarly helps distract me from anxiety, mainly. I don't feel good when I overeat, but at least temporarily it distracts me from the anxiety. This kind of use reminds me of what happened to my husband when he was prescribed pain killers for his spinal fusion surgery. The addiction he had to that drug was almost instantaneous, and once he was healed enough not to need it for pain, he still needed to be carefully weaned off of it because if he *didn't* take it, he felt crummy, like he had the flu. For me, overeating is like that: doesn't make me feel all that good, just keeps me (or so I deluded myself into thinking) from feeling crummy in one way or another.

I seem incapable of writing a short post. Sorry for going on and on!

Laurie

[Guest guest]

Paddy,I agree with you...it's a complex thing, this intuitive eating.1. it's separating addiction from desire from diet from intuition.2. it's separating ethics from diet. (In other words, I've wanted to go vegan for years but couldn't stick to it until starting this path because I was still thinking of vegan as a "diet" on some level.)3. it's eating what we want and compassionately self-talking about our path without getting overwhelmed, trying to nourish ourselves with good nutrition while gently being aware that chips "call us" more than other foods. And some may disagree with this, but that's where I am too. Ciao! > If food per se holds no addictive properties... Well, I know some people disagree, but I've learned that some foods do have addictive properties. In particular, any drug (sugar, caffeine, alcohol) can be physically addictive. When you cook oil, its chemical structure changes, and it becomes not only unhealthy but also addictive. Hence fried chips, fried anything in fact, can be addictive. Deep fried of course is worse, and reusing old oil the worst of all. Fat also has an addictive nature about it. Instinctively, we are attracted to fat for its high energy value, because the natural state of a human being, until very recently, has been a shortage of food (as with most animals in nature). I know that doesn't answer your questions, but it's more food for thought, so to speak. Paddy

[Guest guest]

Paddy,I agree with you...it's a complex thing, this intuitive eating.1. it's separating addiction from desire from diet from intuition.2. it's separating ethics from diet. (In other words, I've wanted to go vegan for years but couldn't stick to it until starting this path because I was still thinking of vegan as a "diet" on some level.)3. it's eating what we want and compassionately self-talking about our path without getting overwhelmed, trying to nourish ourselves with good nutrition while gently being aware that chips "call us" more than other foods. And some may disagree with this, but that's where I am too. Ciao! > If food per se holds no addictive properties... Well, I know some people disagree, but I've learned that some foods do have addictive properties. In particular, any drug (sugar, caffeine, alcohol) can be physically addictive. When you cook oil, its chemical structure changes, and it becomes not only unhealthy but also addictive. Hence fried chips, fried anything in fact, can be addictive. Deep fried of course is worse, and reusing old oil the worst of all. Fat also has an addictive nature about it. Instinctively, we are attracted to fat for its high energy value, because the natural state of a human being, until very recently, has been a shortage of food (as with most animals in nature). I know that doesn't answer your questions, but it's more food for thought, so to speak. Paddy