The addictive nature of cooked food - A personal experience........... 6.8.10

We’ve experienced it before, but not in such a clear fashion.

 

On good days our diet is mostly raw. We’ve known all along that theoretically cooked food is addictive. We’ve even experienced it somewhat when we ate it occasionally and felt that need for more and more, never quite being satisfied even when we were stuffed. But now, we’ll, this is on a whole new level. We basically spent a whole week eating more cooked food than ever before since going raw. On my part, what I deviated with was bagels and cheese (cream and otherwise). I also had a few meals consisting of cooked vegetables and either a noodle or rice. Other than that, I was pretty much on the straight and narrow. S on the other hand deviated significantly more than I. He enjoyed meat, fish and eggs in addition to everything I ate. And he ate much more of it than I did.

Results?

 

Well I think if you had stopped and asked us how we felt we’d say: Slightly heavier and loaded down.

Fast forward to the following week at home and back to our normal lifestyles......

Here’s where the significant change kicked in. For 4-5 days after we got home both of us were constantly searching for something to eat. Anything. Anything at all just to munch on. Just so you understand the big picture here, we never do that. We eat our breakfast smoothie that usually last us well past lunch. Then we eat something for dinner. Rarely do we look for something else to eat in between and certainly don’t spend the day hunting and pecking in the kitchen. We just don’t have the need to, it’s not our will power that’s keeping us in check, the desire is not there.

The other big change would be in the gastro department, which I will kindly spare you the details of, but let me tell you, we’re significant as well. To add insult to injury, those gastro issues tacked on the pounds! Not to worry, all’s well now, ‘gastroly’ speaking and pound wise :-).

So, what lesson did we both learn from all this? Well, nothing new really, but boy did it reinforce what we already knew and then some!

Bottom line is: Cooked food is addictive!

When you eat it, you want more. And more. Your body doesn’t recognize it as nourishing and sustaining food, hence, your brain doesn’t tell it to stop desiring the food.  The brain thinks it needs more to supply the body with what it needs (that's a pretty simplistic explanation on my part but will do for now). Therefore, we keep eating. And eating. And eating.

When you enjoy a primarily raw diet, and yes I did use the word ‘enjoy’ quite deliberately, you eat you feel satisfied and you stop eating. In fact, the taste of food changes once you’re body’s had enough. It’s not as tasty anymore and it can even become downright bad tasting sometimes.

I already hear some of you saying, sure, it doesn’t taste good to begin with so of course you don’t want to eat a lot of it!

Ah, but that’s not the case! When we eat raw on a regular basis, we find ourselves desiring those foods. We actually developed cravings for greens. Have you ever sat in front of the TV and had a craving for lettuce wash over you? We have. When we find ourselves hungry, it’s not the chips or pasta we want but a nice crisp piece of fresh veggie of some sort. Even cravings for fruit have died down some (too much is not a good thing). So, you see, it’s all about what the body demands. When it eats healthy, it demands healthy.

I know, some of you will cry out and say low fat cooked veggies and whole grain pastas and breads are good for you. And certainly, they are better than heading for the drive through.  Even just a little bit of research into the difference between foods as they appear in their original forms and those same foods when they are cooked and wilted down, or worse, processed in some fashion, is highly recommended.  But that's just my humble opinion :-)