It Starts With Food by Dallas Hartwig

It Starts With Food is a radical book by nutritionist Dallas Hartwig, on how our eating habits control our lives (and vice versa.) First off, the book makes no secret of the fact that people like sweets; it’s a natural instinct, and all races enjoy them in some way or another. As an example, he writes about how you might get a sudden desire for cookies. But you’ll only desire the taste and texture and smell, not the idea of satisfying hunger. This, he says, is a craving, and it wrecks our eating habits.

Chapter 5 is all about the hormones (like insulin) that regulate the food once it’s in there. Lower levels of insulin mean that sugar ends up being stored in huge amounts, causing weight gain, among other things. It makes the body burn sugar, not the stored fat. You end up feeling hungry when you shouldn’t be, and you don’t feel like eating when you’re supposed to.

One example of this, which I bet countless parents deal with in their kids, is the breakfast problem; you wake up feeling lousy, don’t feel hungry enough for breakfast, eat something sugary (like Captain Crunch) with coffee, and by mid-morning, you’re starved. At lunch time you pig out on salty comfort food, and now you’re screwed. The Hartwigs’ advice is to stick to basic protiens and vegetables, while eliminating the processed foods. By leaving the “frankenfoods” out of the diet, you limit the sugar you’re eating, and that gives the body the chance to burn stored fats.

On a funny note, Hartwig debunks a mass-media diet myth, and that myth is the juicer. We all saw it somewhere, maybe on an infomercial, maybe a promotion at a store like Bed, Bath & Beyond (with a sexy model on the package, no doubt.) But the juicers are bad for you. They give you the liquid from the fruits and none of the fiber, so you end up satiating your taste buds, not the hunger.

Eat the foods, not the bi-products. You’ll feel full for longer.