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The Hacking of the American Mind by Robert H Lustig
Pleasure vs Happiness
Addiction = too much pleasure
Depression = not enough happiness
Finding pleasure in food DECREASES happiness! [WOW!!!]You can’t see the hormones of obesity and diabetes – that doesn’t mean they aren’t there
The willful confusion of pleasure with happiness = big profit for Big Food, Big Pharma and even Big Govt
Plus, it hides the link between product and disease
Industry and govt create and push reward generating (pleasure) substances and behaviors that create unhappiness for profit
You MUST help yourself because no one else will
Contentment = lowest baseline of happiness. The state in which it is not necessary to seek more
Pleasure = It feels good! I want more!
Happiness = It feels good. I don’t need more.
Pleasure: short lived. Visceral (fight/flight) can be achieved from substances (heroin, sugar, caffeine, alcohol). Process of “taking” only impacts you. Can lead to addiction and death
We are being pushed away from happiness and towards pleasure in the pursuit of other people (big business) profiting.
Pleasure should be a sometimes thing
Happiness should be an all the time thing
Does watching TV/movies of others being happy or unhappy bring us pleasure but unhappiness?
Pleasure: immediate excitement or amusement. Dependent on circumstance
Happiness: contentment in this life (not the afterlife) not prone to acute change. Unrelated to circumstance. Anyone can be happy. Not just for the rich.
Excessive reward leads to addiction and depression
There is nothing with a price tag that can bring you happiness
You don’t control dopamine (pleasure) it controls you
Infatuation = pleasure
Long term love = happiness but some find it “boring” (not enough dopamine)
Recommended book by the same author: Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity and Disease
Americans preferred drug of choice for dealing with stress – SUGAR [we even joke about it]
Cortisol (stress hormone) is an appetite stimulant and rapidly increases food intake while killing neurons that help inhibit food intake
BMI goes up over time in short sleepers
Sleep deprivation increase calorie intake by 300 calories a day
Coca-Cola (coke) mainlines two addictive compounds: sugar and caffeine
The gross profit margin on processed food is 45% [OMG!]
None of the foods that contain essential nutrients are even remotely addictive
Alcohol, sugar and caffeine – addictive, contain zero nutrients and usually ingested two at a time
Rats prefer sweetness to cocaine
In the last 50 years sugar has become a diet staple
Sugar correlates with risk of dementia in long term studies [note: correlation does not equal causation]
Sugar is associated with depression, addiction and metabolic syndrome.
Sugar is the cheapest way to pleasure and the surest path to unhappiness
Farm raised salmon is loaded with omega-6 because they are fed mostly grain based pellets – not plants
35% of adult Americans don’t get enough sleep (minimum 7 hours/night)
Lack of sleep increased desire for high calorie foods
Adults who get 5 or fewer hours of sleep consume 21% more sugared beverages (including energy drinks) than the general population
Depression rates started to rise in the 1960s – the same time processed food started to be a staple. Not causation – but suspect
If a company is telling you what to eat – remember, their only job is to make $$$ and they make $$$ by making you eat their product, not by making you healthy
There is $$$ in dopamine (pleasure) not in serotonin (happiness)
It’s not called a “Happy Meal” for nothing. Sugar, salt, fat. Start the dopamine/reward hamster wheel early and you’ve got them for life
They sell 3.2 million Happy Meals every day. Grossing more than $10 million per day (!!!) Kids account for 14.6% of customers
Big Pharma doesn’t want the American male to he healthy. ED drugs are expected to have $3.2 BILLION in global sales by 2022. Half of which will come from the US [healthy men don’t have erectile dysfunction]
Marketing “happiness” that is actually pleasure (dopamine) and fear (cortisol)
The more you buy stuff the unhappier you get
We are spending more buck for less bang
The food industry grosses $1.46 TRILLION. 45% of which is gross profit
In 2015 US healthcare = $3.2 trillion. 75% of which was diet related chronic metabolic diseases. 75% of those could be prevented
Which means, $1.8 trillion a year is being wasted on preventable healthcare
The insurance industry used to want people to be sick. That’s how they made money. With Obamacare came a cap on profits. Now they want people to be healthy so they don’t have to pay out.
Sugar is killing us and subsidized by the federal government
Metabolic syndrome = obesity, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, cancer, dementia
Only 37% of Americans believe they will be in good health 10 years from now
80% of study respondents over 50 already have one of the diseases of metabolic syndrome
There are no services provided by the healthcare system to prevent/heal/reverse chronic metabolic disease. They only treat the symptoms.
They can keep people alive but they don’t keep people from getting sick or making them better
There is Big Money in Beg Medicine being paid by taxpayers
65% of healthcare expenditures are paid in government (tax payer) money
There is no $$$ in prevention
We could turn this whole mess around if we limited the cheapest of thrills – sugar
Industry and govt have joined forces to convince us that pleasure = happiness. So buying stuff and ingesting sugar = happiness. It is a LIE. Doing so will leave you and society fat, sick, stupid, broke, addicted, depressed and most certainly UNHAPPY
Consumption = unhappiness
GDP (gross national product) is WAY more important than our health, happiness and even our lives
You are responsible to pursue contentment. We can’t control Big Food, Big Pharma, Big Medicine, Big Govt but we CAN control ourselves; 100%. We simply have to choose to do so.
Contentment (real happiness) = connect, contribute, cope, cook
This is not passive – you MUST perform (do) them
Do NOT believe any industry that claims they can do it for you of sell it to you. (“it” being happiness)
Create connection with people who have similar ideals and challenges
Obesity can be transmitted because we eat the same foods as our friends
Happiness can also be transmitted
Which means unhappiness can as well
The limbic (emotional) part of the brain activates to both physical and emotional pain
Feelings of envy from reading other people’s positive posts worsens mood
“If we don’t teach our children how to be alone, we doom them to always being lonely.”
Text vs talk, snapchat vs eye contact – they are not the same
Money doesn’t buy happiness. It buys pleasure
The more you have. The more you want
RnR note: Money doesn’t change you. It brings out who you really are.
Work that destroys happiness:
Disconnected from your values
Takes you for granted
Requires pointless or redundant work
Treats people unfairly
Overrides your better judgement
Isolates or marginalizes you
Risks harm (emotional or physical)Work that allows happiness
Matters more to others than it does to you
Challenging
Varying experiences
You can see the positive role on society
You are proud of itNotice that neither list says anything about money
Spite = the willingness to screw yourself to screw someone else
Create happiness by coping:
Eat right
Exercise
Get enough sleep
BreatheStress isn’t what matters. It’s how you respond to stress. How long do you allow the stress to go on?
US work stress costs 120,000 lives and $190 billion a year
Sleep deprivation kills your immune system
23% of adults have clinical insomnia
Sleep is not a luxury. It’s a necessity
Sleep apnea increase appetite which results in overeating and depressed mood and metabolic problems
Multitasking has increased 119% over the last 10 years.
Multitasking increases stress
Multitasking alters blood flow to the prefrontal cortex (logic center) increasing psychological stress, is associated with clinical depression and might increase degenerative changes in the brain
Give your brain a rest – meditate
Anxiety = excitement about the future which never comes (ongoing)
RnR note: Worry = building a bridge you don’t want to cross to somewhere you don’t want to be
Worrying = being out of control. Which makes you miserable (chronic stress)
Try meditation for 5 minutes a day for 30 days and see how you feel
Surely you can do anything for 5 minutes
Visceral fat (big belly) predicts future metabolic disease.
It is also the easiest to lose and is directly affected by exercise
What does “wellness” mean?
Different things to different people. You have to define it for yourself
Exercise and “health” apps don’t provide actionable data, which leads many users to lessen or stop use over time
The most toxic stressor of all = toxic food
The cheapest pleasure: Sugar, the other white powder
There are 56 names for sugar on food labels
Only 51% of sugar in our diet comes from things we would expect (soda/dessert)
Even if you remove soda and dessert from your diet you’ll still be over the “healthy” leave of sugar and still be at risk for diabetes
Reasons the food industry uses for “needing” sugar in their products:
It adds bulk and is cheap
It makes food brown – which it also does to your cells, fructose causes this aging reaction to happen 7x faster than glucose
It raises the boiling point
It attracts and maintains moisture – sugar in bread will attract water from the air so it doesn’t dry out after it’s bakes = great for shelf life!
It is a preservative – bacteria never grow in sodaSome people experience loss of control with certain foods
Tend to binge on high-sugar/high-fat foods
Mindfulness can improve mood, reduce disordered eating, and reduce risk of metabolic syndrome by restoring functionality in the reward and stress systems
Foods that are Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) (US govt rating) can be used in food in any amount by industry [think sugar and caffeine, which are both addictive = good for profit]
Resource – EatReal.org
Coca Cola paid off 3 scientists from a group call The Global Energy Balance Network to blame obesity on lack of exercise rather than where it belonged – on sugar
Soda industry has given away $120 million to 96 public health organizations to NOT promote food industry regulation
There is always a new click bait miracle cure. We know they never work but it is still a $121 billion industry. WHY?
The science has spoken. Processed food is addictive, can make you extremely unhappy and may kill you
Isn’t it time we “stick it to” the industry that has been making $$$$$ lying to us and making us sick?
If you don’t know how to cook you are hostage to the food industry and you are passing it on to your kids
There is nothing that will improve your health, wellbeing, achievement, sense of accomplishment, sense of community and happiness as much as cooking for yourself and others
It’s time to take back our lives from Big Food, Big Sugar, Big Industry
Too many people believe they “deserve” the “happiness” that food gives them. But it’s not happiness. It’s pleasure and it’s a death spiral.
Americas take for granted that money and pleasure are more important than all else
“I have a sweet tooth” “I’ve been a chocoholic my whole life” = addition
The things that create happiness are cheap. (and deadly)
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