MEDICATION NOT MEDITATION –
May 7, 2025 – I was caught between what the food industry has done to make the American diet unhealthy and addictive and what my metabolism could accommodate … These foods typically are called ultraprocessed, but I refer to them as ultraformulated because they have been engineered to manipulate the brain’s reward system. These foods have become the new cigarette and, similarly, have resulted in a health catastrophe.
Forty percent of American adults are obese. These foods have contributed to a rise in diseases characterized by visceral fat, or what I call toxic fat — fat that accumulates in our abdomens and surrounds the liver, heart and pancreas. These chronic illnesses include cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer and probably some forms of dementia. Visceral fat and obesity more generally are among the reasons that Americans have an average life expectancy that is four years shorter than that of people in other large, industrialized countries.
