ADDICTED and UNAWARE: How the Food Industry Engineered Your Cravings, Hijacked Your Brain, and Made You Sick - and the Clinical Truth That Sets You Fr (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798195882563)

You switched to diet soda. You bought the low-fat yogurt. You chose the granola bar over the candy bar.

And you still cannot stop the cravings. And the weight is still climbing. And nobody can explain why.

Here is why.

You were not failing at your diet. You were being chemically manipulated by a $1.5 trillion industry that spent billions of dollars finding the exact combination of sugar, fat, and salt that hijacks the human brain-the "bliss point"-and engineered it into virtually every affordable processed food on the market. They gave sugar sixty-one different names so you would not recognize it. They tripled portion sizes over fifty years until your stomach forgot what normal felt like. They put additives in your food specifically designed to override your brain's fullness signals and bring you back for more.

This is not a willpower problem. This is a neuroscience problem. And neuroscience has a solution.

Addicted and Unaware is written by a board-certified family nurse practitioner with seventeen years of clinical experience working in the communities hit hardest by the food industry's targeting strategies-low-income communities, Hispanic communities, and families where the most affordable food is also the most engineered. She has sat across from patients who were trying as hard as anyone could, yet they were still not getting better. This book is the explanation she wishes she could have given to each one of them.

Inside this b, ook you will discover the following:

• The bliss point-the scientifically documented combination of sugar, fat, and salt that triggers the same brain response as addictive drugs, and how it is built into the foods you eat daily


• The 61 names food companies use to hide sugar in ingredient lists-including in products labeled natural, organic, and no added sugar


• How portion sizes tripled in 50 years and physically reconditioned your stomach to expect three times what your body actually needs


• The Dirty Dozen additives in your food right now - what they do to your brain, your metabolism, and your long-term health


• Why liquid calories are invisible to your satiety system and how a single daily soda adds the equivalent of 20 pounds per year


• How food marketing was engineered by psychologists to create emotional associations that drive consumption without rational awareness


• The clinical framework for rewiring your cravings - not with willpower, but with the documented neurological process of taste recalibration

Includes a Quick Reference Hidden Sugar Name List, the Dirty Dozen Additive Guide, a Smart Swap chart, and a 7-Day Clean Start Meal Plan built for real kitchens on real budgets - approximately $40-$50 for a family of four.

Written in plain language for anyone who has ever been told to "just eat less" without being told what they were actually up against.

You were not weak. You were targeted. Now you know.

And now, nothing about your life will ever be the same.

Perfect for readers of: Salt Sugar Fat, In Defense of Food, How Not to Die, and anyone who has ever stood in the grocery store trying to make the healthy choice and left more confused than when they walked in.