Dr. Jen Unwin: Why Ultra-Processed Food Addiction Needs Medical Recognition

Why are so many people struggling with sugar cravings, binge eating, obesity, and chronic disease — even when they desperately want to stop?

In this episode of the Kick Sugar Coach Podcast, we explore the growing scientific movement to recognize ultra-processed food addiction as a legitimate medical condition. Joined by clinical health psychologist Dr. Jen Unwin, we unpack the evidence behind food addiction, why ultra-processed foods may hijack the brain’s reward system, and why official recognition could change the future of treatment, research, and recovery.

Dr. Jen Unwin shares her personal journey with sugar addiction, her work helping people reverse type 2 diabetes through low-carb and whole-food approaches, and the international effort to have “Ultra-Processed Food Use Disorder” recognized by major medical organizations like the WHO and DSM.

🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE YOU'LL DISCOVER:

• Why ultra-processed food addiction is a legitimate medical condition — not a lack of willpower
• The groundbreaking work Dr. Unwin and her husband Dr. David Unwin have done helping over 150 patients achieve drug-free type 2 diabetes remission
• The ongoing campaign to get ultra-processed food use disorder recognized by the WHO's ICD and the American Psychiatric Association's DSM
• The CRAVED screening tool — 6 simple questions that can help identify food addiction symptoms
• Why official recognition would unlock research funding, treatment programs, and real change
• How GLP-1 medications relate to food addiction treatment
• What YOU can do right now to support the movement

If you’ve ever wondered why some foods feel impossible to control, this conversation offers both insight and hope. 

Transcript

From Low Carb to Food Addiction

FLORENCE 0:02

Hello, everybody. Welcome to an interview today with Dr. Jen Anwen. And let me just hit you up with some highlights from her bio. So she has a ridiculous long number of letters after her name. Bachelor's of Science, Master's of Science, the Doctorate of Psychology, on and on and on. But she is currently the consultant clinical health psychologist, past chair of the UK Association for Solution Focused Practice, and winner of the British Psychological Society's Karen Ellert Lifetime Achievement Award. She's the co-founder of Food Addiction Solutions, and she spent her career exploring the role of hope in chronic disease and behavior change, and specifically also around the role that food addiction plays in that. I hope it has your book in here. Can you? Oh, yeah, it's coming. For over 13 years, Dr. Unwin and her husband, Dr. David Unwin, has helped more than 150 patients achieve drug-free type 2 diabetes remission. Featured in the BBC documentary The Truth About Carbs, which had 3.7 million viewers, she spent the last nine years focused on ultra-processed food addiction, authoring a book called A Fork in the Road, and it's fabulous, and it's small and it's short and it gets right to the chase. It's amazing. If you haven't read it, do, and co-authoring the first published treatment study in the field. She also coordinated an international expert consensus, still underworks. There's a conference coming up in London, which you can tell us about, and is co- Although this will happen after the conference. That's okay. You can probably get recordings. And is co-editing a special issue of Frontiers and Psychiatry on the topic. Welcome, Dr. Anman. Hi, Florence. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. When did you first step your foot on the path of understanding food addiction? Like how when was that?

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Yeah. So the food addiction piece came, yeah, relatively recent, really, really, probably about nine years ago. So I'd personally had my own struggles all my life, like so many of us. Um, and it kind of um, you know, through the work that that David and I did, um, together with the patients with type 2 diabetes, we'd sort of come across this low carbohydrate idea, um, you know, because that kind of reduces appetite and you know, stabilizes blood sugars and all that. So that did really help me actually. I so I was I was low carb for a long time before I understood the whole addiction thing, but I knew that like that the that food piece wasn't wasn't the whole story in a way. You can, you know, you can you can still mess around with keto and low carb in a food addict type way and be making little cupcakes with sweeteners, and I always love to bake. So that was all coming in, and then I heard Bitten Johnson um on the on the Diet Doctor website, she did some videos with them, and she was talking about um sugar addiction, and I just thought, you know, yes, there you go, boom. Um, that's me, that's always been me. And why haven't I thought of it in that way before? Because I'm a psychologist. Obviously, I was a psychologist in denial. Obviously, we'd kind of, you know, you train to work with people with other addictions, and um yeah, so so that was it really when I when I heard Bitt and Johnson talk, and then I did her I did her training after that. Um, and that's where the sort of passion came from, really, you know, the fact that other other people don't have that information or they've not they've not had the good fortune to hear that message, um, and are still in a place where they don't understand their own behavior and their own suffering and their own health problems. And um, yeah, so that's where it comes from, really. I just want everyone who needs to know to know. And to have and for to have that be a valid, a valid thing that other people respect. Whereas at the minute it's kind of, oh, you know, ha ha ha ha, I'm a chocaholic, or you know, you can't be a food addict because we all need to eat, you know, all these kind of inane things that people say when you mention it, you know, I want I want there to be, you know, the proper science, the proper education, um, so that it, yeah, it's out in the world and people get the treatment that they need and deserve.

FLORENCE 4:33

Right, absolutely. And uh I um I was recently on a on a thread. I I have I'm in a WhatsApp group with a bunch of people who work in work in this space, the low-carb, functional medical space, etc. Anyways, one of them is a man named Malcolm, who no, I'm sorry, his name wasn't Malcolm, his name was Hel. And I guess he's sort of the head of senior centers, and he's been slowly introducing low carbohydrate sugar-free meal plans into senior centers. Anyways, true story. Just yesterday, I got, or was it today? I think it was yesterday, he sent us a text message. Hi, so I'm giving a tour of to a family of a of a potential new resident today. I'm telling them about our low-carb meals that we serve. And they reply, oh, I know people say that dementia patients should stay away from sugar, but that's a bunch of crap. And you just think, wow, I do I honestly believe that there's a human being on the planet who doesn't have isn't bombarded with the message that sugar is bad. Like no human being on the planet has not bombarded with the message that cigarettes are not, you know, are bad.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Yeah.

FLORENCE 5:45

But I just thought that I thought that job was done, that the education that it is not harmful, sugar and ultra-processed foods are not our friends, being, you know, make no mistake about it. I thought the addiction piece is still sort of, you know, needs some messaging, some uh, but I think, oh my goodness, there's still people walking around thinking the idea that sugar, you know, someone with dementia, that it's crap that they need to give up sugar. So, right, that the passion is um well placed, it will save lives, it will, it'll absolutely change everything. So, from your own journey, you became awakened, you heard Bitten, you're like, oh my gosh, that totally makes sense. It all fell into place. You did our training, you came back. Did

Diabetes Remission Meets NHS Resistance

FLORENCE 6:30

you implement it into your practice with your husband then and start running programs and started to see the transformation in clients?

SPEAKER_01 6:37

So he works, he he's a general practitioner in in the NHS in the UK. And over time he's come to sort of you know specialize more and more with the patients with obesity, type 2 diabetes, because he's just so good at that now that all all the partners send him all of those patients. And yeah, obviously, over time, as my knowledge has evolved in terms of food addiction, we've had those conversations. Um, he he totally gets that because he's seen, you know, firsthand the behavior and he said, Yeah, it's exactly like someone with an alcohol problem, someone with a you know, either nicotine or other drug problem. So, yes, he does talk openly with his patients about it. Um we we do run groups of patients with type 2 diabetes and we regularly talk about it, and most of the people in the room will say, Yeah, you know, that's me, that describes me. We go through the the symptoms. Um, yeah, so he's incorporating it in what he does. But I'd say he's I mean, that's very rare in the UK. Uh there's probably a handful of doctors who who uh have that sort of knowledge and would would in would you know would would do that in their NHS practice in in the UK. So there's there's a lot of work to be done in terms of awareness and and and training around uh food addiction in uh in the NHS. Yeah, I mean we're still uh there's it's still not really accepted about the low carbohydrate diet with for patients with type 2 diabetes, which just really blows my mind because we've been doing that now for maybe 15 years and um the results are incredible. You know, people come off their drugs. It just makes sense, doesn't it? If you've got a problem with blood sugar, maybe don't have the sugar um and the the simple carbohydrates, but um yeah, no, that's not quite got into the official guidance yet over here. So yeah, much, much, much work to be done.

Pushing UPF Use Disorder Into Manuals

FLORENCE 8:43

A lot of work to be done. So that it seems like the the reason why you've now been really spearheading the the campaign to get ultra-processed food addiction recognized by you know DSMs and the ICD, etc. So do you want to tell us a bit about your work in that area?

SPEAKER_01 9:01

Yeah. So I when I trained with with with Bitten, um I got on really well with Heidi Yever, who's um nutritionist, she's got her own story again around it's a bit of a different story um around um sort of sugar sugar addiction. Um and she comes from a sort of background of uh an international career and you know, very kind of high-powered um person. And uh we just had that really good, it was just one of those uh serendipitous things where our sort of skill sets fitted, you know, that that my sort of because I've got a bit of an academic background as well. Um, so you know, I can look at the research, I can help design research, I can write papers, and she's very good at sort of project management and campaigning. And so um in I think it was in 2020, we kind of put in a first application to the WHO um who look after the international classification of diseases. We we made an application for them to recognize um uh uh food food addiction. We didn't call it ultra-processed food addiction at that point, that's sort of come a bit later. Um, and you know, could put in, I think there was like 200 references, and you know, lots of people supported it. We weren't that hopeful that it would get approved, but we thought, well, they've got to tell us something, they'll have to tell us why it's not, you know, we have to learn something from this. Um, so we kind of waited and we and we got their reply. Um and we've been working since then on um, you know, kind of bolstering up our reply to the the four essentially four things that that they said. And um largely thanks to Heidi and also Molly Payne Shab's put in masses of work on this as well. Um the just the resubmission has has just gone in, the response to that rejection and and the resubmission. Now, in the States, Ashley Gerhart's the person who's sort of spearheading the application to the DSM, um, which is under the American Psychiatric Association. And I I believe they did submit, but I haven't heard, I'm sure we would have heard um what the outcome is if there was an outcome. So, but so far, um I we haven't heard, but I think it's all good, and I think we just keep trying and answering their criticisms. And I think if one if one goes, the other one will go. So it's great that we're sort of doing this on both sides of the of the pond. Um and there is also there's a there's a there's a category in the DSM which is a sort of not quite yet accepted, but you know, we're we're looking into it, which is where gambling first started. It sort of went into this, you know, holding pen of well, we're doing some more research. Um I think if we could get ultra-processed food addiction in there, that would be incredible.

Why A Diagnosis Changes Everything

FLORENCE 12:23

Um what is what are the benefits of that? So let's say we're successful and maybe we go into the holding pen and eventually make our way into these two documents. That's an understatement.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

I don't know what they would be called, bodies of classifications or classifications.

FLORENCE 12:38

Yeah. What are the benefits of that? Why are we putting so much effort into this?

SPEAKER_01 12:43

It's a great question. Um, you know, in in my view, it then becomes a legit, it's a legitimate sort of uh condition, if you like. We don't want to necessarily call it a disease, I don't think, but it's a legitimate condition. Um when that's the case, then then there's monies available for research for more you can apply for research grants to do bigger, you know, the research that we're doing now, everybody's doing on a cobbled together shoestring at their own expense, kind of thing. Um, and also treatments would then, you know, need to be made available because if if it's a if it's a condition, then you know, we can treat treatment programs for alcohol dependency, you know, for drug use, for eating disorders, for obesity, you know, there's all the all of those other conditions. There's a there's a kind of path you would you would go down to to treatment. So treatment would be available, um research would would start to get funded. I think the other thing, which is um, I think what we're also all interested in now that so we did this consensus exercise. So the the WHO said there's no consensus about this, you know, you're all disagreeing with each other, you don't know you know what's going on. So that's why we did the consensus exercise, and we managed to get 40 people together who work in the field, either academically or clinically, all can contributed, and we we got managed to get 37 out of 40 people to to agree several things. Um, and one of them was that we should call it ultra process food addiction or ultra-process food use disorder, um, because that's where the most evidence was, and because it kind of points the finger where the finger needs pointing. So if ultra-processed food use disorder got accepted by the WHO, well, then that kind of acknowledges that ultra-processed foods are addictive or have that addictive potential, like alcohol um or other drugs. And then, of course, well, the implication of that is we're not serving them in schools, we're not serving them in hospitals, you know, they maybe come with a bit of a warning label, you know, it it really changes the whole game. And I think obviously that's partly why it's so difficult to get it recognized because of that whole massive industrial political lobby that's well, the really the food industry lobby that's going to be against that happening very, very strongly. So uh I think a lot of good things would come out of it. Of course, the day there there are potential downsides as well, you know, that it would become more medicalized. But I mean, in a way, that's starting already with the GLP ones, you know, now being available. Um so, you know, some would argue that the fact that GLP ones help people with cravings and food addiction symptoms in a way is helping our case, um, because it it shows that it's a condition that that can be treated if you like. But my my what my slightly worry my slightly wor worrying perspective is that we would um the whole field would become much more medicalized, which I'm not sure is the exactly right way to go for everybody. Um people do, you know, who some people need those kinds of uh interventions to get them, you know, in a better place so that they can implement all the lifestyle changes. But I don't think that's where we should start. I think we should start with, you know, education support. Yeah.

FLORENCE 16:38

Right.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

Lifestyle changes, yeah.

FLORENCE 16:41

So if we can get this diagnosis, and I really like the use disorder, I I want to start using that more as opposed to the word addiction because yeah, word addiction can be tricky. So ultra-processed food use disorder gets into the DSM and the ICD. There's an acknowledgement, there's something here. There's something by neurophysiological, it's about the body. There's a body response to these substances that suggests that it creates a pathology, it creates a condition, a classification that we can classify and treat. Now we we are still trying to figure out collectively, those of us working in this space, what are the standards of care? What are we finding is helpful? Obviously, a low club, a low, a low-carb meal plan is almost universally, you know, agreed to be whole foods. You know, there's there's things that we're discovering can be really, really helpful. And there's more to discover, and it will always evolve. We'll get better and better and better at treating this condition. So it goes into the book. Doctors start to become trained about it. They they're able to uh identify it, write it down as a classification. Ah, you know, I've screened you. Let's screen you for ultra-processed food use disorder. And if you are positive, show um that you fall, you qualify for that classification, then they're required to be able to have places to refer people to, to find funding because that's what medical systems do. They fund the solutions to the medical problems that are being presented. So all of a sudden, this becomes something that people can go in and say, I think I have this problem that can be diagnosed, and then they can say, here's these treatment modalities. Of course, the pharmaceutical companies are going to want to come in and just do everything, right? It's all about the pharmaceuticals. We'll just find the right pill. You don't have to change your diet. But we're not dumb. We know that these they're they're they're underwhelming. The pharmaceuticals, you know, are underwhelming in terms of how they how they they don't restore health typically. They make the symptoms better. So we're eventually gonna move in the direction of trying lifestyle changes, the whole lifestyle medicine movement. And then there's hope that humans can become unhooked from these truly unfriendly, human-harming substances, and then fall back in love with whole foods, and future generations can stop having escalating, rising chronic diseases, and really there's nothing else that's gonna turn it around. So I think you've made a case about why it needs why why we're all working, working so hard to try and get this recognized and then begin the research and then have lots and lots of resources for people. What progress has been made

Evidence From A 12-Week Program

FLORENCE 19:15

in the last few years?

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Yeah, good, good. I think, you know, uh I'm I'm I'm hopeful, I'm optimistic because you know, I I feel there is that sort of moment momentum building. So, yeah, so we've done so two applications to the ICD, and then there's Ashley in the States with with her application there. Um we've had last year's international conference, and that's coming up, as you said, beginning of September, which is probably maybe have already happened by the time this goes out. But people can watch the recordings from 2024, and for a while, obviously, we'll be charging a little bit for the 2025 videos um because we're a charity and we're everything we do is kind of funded by by what we do. So um, yeah, if people want to um have a look, have a look at those, that that would be amazing. Um, we've completed our so we so like you were saying, kind of what works, and that was one of the criticisms from the ICD was well, you know, there's no treatment studies, or it's so chicken and egg, it's no treatment studies because it's not a thing, and so you can't apply for research money to do treatment studies because it's not a thing, and then it's not a thing because there aren't any treatment studies. So, anyway, we decided to put together basically everything that we'd learned from from Bitten and looking at the research and you know, just giving it our best bet, really. Um, and we did a 12-week um online group intervention, Heidi and I, uh, but also Molly and Clarissa, and also um Frieza and Charlotta in Sweden, Lever Soccer Fry. Um, we all had that slightly different, obviously slightly different cultural spin, but it was basically the same sorts of content. So it was, yeah, real whole foods as nature intended, um, education about the brain and how it is that sugar and ultra-processed foods hijack the reward system, what's going on, and how it's not your fault, but you know, yeah, once you know this information, you can, you know, work towards doing something about it. And that basically, because it is an addiction like any other addiction, we're working towards abstinence as the as the treat as the solution, as the treatment ultimately, and supporting people towards that, you know, their own they have their own we don't dictate a food plan, they make their own individual abstinent food plans, and then thinking about all the other things that go towards recovery, you know, like how are you gonna manage emotions, like how are you gonna get some movement in your day, how are you gonna you know have support the support that you need and or and what are you gonna do when you have a slip up you know how are you gonna sort of handle that and learn from it learn from from what happens so we we did that in in the groups and then we had follow-up support groups and we collected data on mental well-being food addiction symptoms um and various other things and um we followed them up for for a year and we've just published that we published um a few years ago just the before and after from the programme and then we've just published the 12 month results because a lot of programs that you see published don't have that follow-up and we know we all know don't we that you know addictions are kind of relapsing problems so we need to show that people are are doing better over you know a good good period of time and we were you know really delighted with the results so people um yeah massive statistically significant improvements in mental wellbeing and in food addiction both on the Yale food addiction scale and the scale that we use which is based on the ICD which we call craved it's just the six questions basically um and uh yeah so really good good outcomes so we've shown that you know like other addictions it's a treatable is a treatable uh uh condition um and then I'm just finishing up now um guest editor of a special issue of Frontiers in Psychiatry on food addiction um with David Wys and Adrian Sotomoto we will sort of did the editing together uh I think we're going to end up with about 15 16 papers quite a few of them are out already so we can hopefully give people the the link and they can they could they should all be out actually by the time this goes out then there's some there's some other treatment um studies written up you know it's kind of audits of of practice um yeah there's stuff about you know like um let's see what I was trying to think what else there is what David Wiss has written a really good thing on social inequalities and um yeah so a nice collection of papers and we've been asked um Nicole Vina's going to edit a special issue based on the conference this year as well so um that'll be another whole collection of papers so I think academically you know things are moving forward and more and more papers are published every every year on on it um yeah so academically things are moving on clinically I think think people are getting more of an idea you know what's what's working for people um and yeah keep pushing away at the WHO and the American Psychiatric association and um there's been quite a bit of interest in the press as well and there's more books coming out on there we've had um ultra processed people here in the UK Chris van Tullikan um you know we've got amazing people like um Professor Lustig on our side so he's written a actually he's written a really good paper in the special issue um because he wasn't always convinced by the idea actually of of uh food addiction but he's uh he's convinced now so that's really good so he's written a book about the uh a paper about the arguments for and against you know what you know what what is it the naysayers say and and you know how how you know what we know that actually counters that those arguments so amazing amazing lots going on lots going on lots going on so exciting um tell us about the crave six questions in case people are curious about whether or not they fall on the addiction spectrum or the use disorder spectrum yes so so crave so hydro and I developed this based on so the ICD obviously has criteria for substance

CRAVED: Six Questions To Screen

SPEAKER_01 26:05

use disorders alcohol drugs etc so we basically took the six criteria for substance use disorders and just made them into a questionnaire around foods like so we say you know list the foods that you know you can't control your intake are of or that occupy your mind and you know we all know we all know what our foods are so you you write those down and then there are six questions and craved is the acronyms that to help help us all remember what the six are and if you have three or more it's not a diagnosis but it's an indication maybe that there's stuff going on um at the conference this year Erica Lafata is going to be introducing her new interview schedule which is much more of a proper diagnostic interview which gives would give people the sort of full the full assessment but you know this is just a screening questionnaire that people can use in clinic. Also we'd found that um you know obviously the Yale food addiction scale amazing everyone's been using it for years it's fantastic for research it was designed for research um it's a little bit tricky to score in clinic I don't know if anyone's listening who's tried to do it even when we did it for the research we were sort of puzzling over there's some things you have to score the other way round and some things you include and you don't include. Anyway craved is literally six and if you're three or more yeses then so craved obviously C for cravings and compulsions to to eat those foods R is reaching for more it's really getting at the idea of tolerance you know needing more and more to get the same effect you know eating more more and more to feel okay so are reaching for more A is activities neglected so this is you know being so about all about the the foods and in the food that you're kind of you know not paying attention to maybe you know um hobbies and family and socializing and work and the things that you know other things that are important in life it's becoming more about the food so V is for volume and that's always losing control of the amounts that you eat. So maybe you know we're all we all do that thing don't we where we say well I'm just gonna have I'll just have the one biscuit I mean it's never worked before I don't know why we go round the round but we do I'll I'll just have you know I'll just have the one it'll be fine I can do it and you never can you you know it's never one uh the E stands for exclusion and that's getting the the idea of withdraw symptoms so if you try and exclude those foods from your diet do you experience physical physiological or psychological withdrawal symptoms so you know um what do we get shakiness headaches gastrointestinal problems um panicky low mood sleep problems I mean it can be many things can't it but people usually recognize yeah it's two or more um withdrawal symptoms and then the sixth one is um D is for continued use despite knowing it's doing you harm so despite knowing it's doing you damage so um you've maybe got type 2 diabetes you maybe have you know mental health struggles you know that eating the weight that you do is making it worse but despite your best efforts you're really struggling because of the withdrawal symptoms or you know this kind of wanting more all the time you you can't you can't stick to to quitting um so those are the six and so clear so clear the R if I was to sneak another little R in there it would be for relapse yeah yeah yes yeah you can't you can't keep stopped basically yeah that is it the yeah awesome love that thank you so much so tell us a bit about what what more needs to be done what and how can people help how can people be a part of those of us that are trying to make it a change here and make it happen yeah so um on the ICD side um now that we've got the application in it's actually a public in a way a public sort of platform so you can go in you can sign up to this platform you can find our application and you can say yes I agree with this you know that's absolutely me you know if you're um either a healthcare professional or you know a member of the general public and you want to go in and and support the application um you can do that so that's one way another way is to um yeah to to you know either donate to the charity or what buy the videos and then that in essentially is a donation and you get the video so that's that's uh good value and watch it watch all the talks from the conference you know maybe come next year um if anybody feels that you know they they are really really passionate about it and they've got some time and some skills that they think they might be able to bring definitely get in touch because we you know we've got all sorts of people working in in the charity who you know for example we've got um somebody who used to be marketing and communications in a big British company and

How To Help And Advocate

SPEAKER_01 31:40

they're just passionate about this so now they're retired they're doing our marketing and communications you know so people who've got any other sort of skills like uh you know um website stuff or you know video stuff I mean anything that you think might might bring to bear and as sort of skills because there's there's only a few of us that that do it. Yeah just get in touch if you think you might be interested in in doing something.

FLORENCE 32:07

We'll get those links and make sure I'll make a note to make sure that we include them under your interview but do you want to just sort of say them out loud like how people can be a part and I is it mostly I'm assuming it's an international charity but is it ideal for people local to the UK to be a part of what you're doing or how can people internationally work with you as well support you?

SPEAKER_01 32:28

Yeah um I mean we are it is UK based but you know that that doesn't mean that we because through the the wonders of the internet that we can't work um like we work really closely with Molly and Clarissa who are both part of the um you know they really help us out a lot with the charity uh you know and obviously we really because we've not so much got time now to do people still coming to us to say you know can you help me but we think probably our time is best used on the sort of research and campaigning that sort of side because um we quite like doing it and there's lots of other people like yourself and sweet sobriety and other people doing really good treatment programs and that's what they're focusing on. So we're not we're not really providing that now so so we always kind of signpost to you other guys um yeah so yeah so people could could could get involved from from overseas if if they're interested for sure. Give us the website okay so it's www dot the the word the and then uh a dash the chc dot org uh collaborative healthcommunity dot org and then within that there's two projects there's um food addiction solutions which is us and there's collaboration for kids which is really a sort of preventative project it's the idea is that um that to stop people ending up where we ended up you know that that we need to educate families and children to make different choices um and that's how you know things are going to change really from the ground up if people you know if we have this kind of revolution around people wanting to eat real food and have that available and that's where they spend their money um you know that's gonna start to make a difference as well and it's a preventative project so that you know people don't you know we're not trying to pick people out downstream and and sort of uh you know pat them down and uh get them dry. We're gonna stop them falling in uh further upstream. Absolutely absolutely is there anything else you would like us to know about your work about this topic oh gosh um I think that's I think that's mostly mostly it really other than yeah it's great to that we're all sort of becoming part of a big community I think and we're all I think people have been sort of working you know working away and you know have have the you know we've all been discovering this kind of separately but now I there's really a feeling of people sort of banding together um and there is that sense of momentum which which does give me real hope for the future.

FLORENCE 35:23

Totally and if I was to add a little bit about what people can do um obviously save yourself get onto Whole Foods get the help you need to be able to become a Whole Food man or a Whole Food woman. And then you know who are you feeding? Are you feeding children, grandchildren? And how can you just start to explain to them honey I love you too much. I want to give you nothing but the best of the good foods right and just serve them Whole Foods kids will adapt and the ones that don't they can get support. And then you can talk about where else in my workplace can I make a difference? Can I start to sort of advocate advocate for whole food snacks or in the lunchroom or at meetings or no snacks at all.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

That kind of thing like in small small small little ways I give everything work in a hospital you know like you know maybe have a conversation about the vending machines or you know yeah yeah we need to I think it's we've got blind to it. We've got blind to the fact that these foods are everywhere um you know and they're sort of socially sanctioned. I think we just need to sort of yeah wake up and see and see the harms uh yeah we wouldn't give our kids alcohol caffeine you know sugar it's the only psychoactive drug that we give our kids you know and I have massive regrets about my own children and how we've done things differently but the happy news is that um all my own children if they're they're grown up they're all real food now and uh I have eight grandchildren and they're all real food four of them are coming in like literally 10 minutes and they'll have a like a real food snack you know and um yeah they're they're really happy then they just don't eat sugar and we just explain it to them and their mom doesn't doesn't give them any and they're gluten free as well so that's amazing I I literally have clients who've you know two or three years into their journey lost weight ditched medications um reverse diabetes like all kinds of incredible like they know firsthand unequivocally the life on the other side of sugar is so much better in every possible way it's nothing short of a miracle and yet they're still feel feeding their grandkids junk food.

FLORENCE 37:39

And I say to them but why like I don't I don't get like why? And they're like there's still a tug at the heart of the female heart to feel like oh I'm depriving them or they're gonna feel rejected or it feels mean or you know and I just think women we've got to band together to support each other to just say honey I love you too much. That will rot your teeth that will make you feel sad and and no I we are going to get the good stuff. Let's go let's go pick out whatever you want in the produce part of the you know of the grocery store and get them excited about real Whole Foods. But it's an effort but there's nothing there's no there's very few things we can do better as women. This is our thing this is this is our issue. We are the ones that for the most part historically still true but historically we were always the ones that were in charge of the food and feeding our families yeah and you know oftentimes it comes from our own parents doesn't it when I you know when I think back my mum was for sure she for sure had a sugar addiction problem when I look at like her behavior now.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

You know and those guys they lived through the war they had rationing so it was a real thing that they fed us you know they suddenly there was sugar and cake and they wanted us to have all of that and you know I I get it the sort of culture like you say the cultural things that went on that kind of got got us where we are today but that doesn't mean that we can't we can't do better.

FLORENCE 39:03

I think I think we can we we have to one in 1000 children used to be autistic now it's one in 31 one in 45 not going to get better. Never ever nothing for our children going forward will get better unless we sort this out. End of story there is no superfood surgical intervention no medical intervention no pharmaceutical nothing is going to undo the harms these foods are causing and if we care about the future generations we got to do the tough thing of letting them cry feel whatever they feel and just and just keep vibing them love with the whole foods and if it's going to change it's gonna be it's sorry to say but it's gonna be women so I hope that's my little rant. Amen. Amen we can do this women we can do it we can do it. Awesome well thank you so much again for all your amazing

Final Takeaways And Thanks

FLORENCE 39:50

hard work you've moved from a woman who saved her own life her family you know patience to a woman on a mission to get the whole world to wake up and it's just shocking really that the World Health Organization is dragging its feet because they sounded the alarm the first international organization in the whole world to sound the alarm about sugar in 1989 and they actually brought the whole damn world together all of its members to sign an agreement that these heads of states would go back to their country and achieve the goal of men consuming no more than nine out of teaspoons six for for women and under two for children. They and then they re-ratified it was it 2014 they did the Rome Declaration on nutrition they had member states sign that they agreed to go back and put policies in place do whatever it took they know they they were the first organization in the world to sound the alarm these foods are not our friends we need to stop consuming minimize very narrow margin of safety and now they're dragging their feet on this crazy crazy yeah thanks for your time Dr.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

and when all your leadership thank you thank you Florence thank you so much