The End of Overeating Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite

The End of Overeating Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite

Conditioned hypereating is a biological challenge, not a character flaw, says Kessler, former FDA commissioner under presidents Bush and Clinton). Here Kessler (A Question of Intent) describes how, since the 1980s, the food industry, in collusion with the advertising industry, and lifestyle changes have short-circuited the body’s self-regulating mechanisms, leaving many at the mercy of reward-driven eating. Through the evidence of research, personal stories (including candid accounts of his own struggles) and examinations of specific foods produced by giant food corporations and restaurant chains, Kessler explains how the desire to eat—as distinct from eating itself—is stimulated in the brain by an almost infinite variety of diabolical combinations of salt, fat and sugar. Although not everyone succumbs, more people of all ages are being set up for a lifetime of food obsession due to the ever-present availability of foods laden with salt, fat and sugar. A gentle though urgent plea for reform, Kessler’s book provides a simple food rehab program to fight back against the industry’s relentless quest for profits while an entire country of people gain weight and get sick. According to Kessler, persistence is all that is needed to make the perceptual shifts and find new sources of rewards to regain control. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

User Ratings and Reviews

3 Stars Not terribly insightful . . .
I found this book only marginally insightful. The basic premise is that foods that are high in sugar, fat, and salt are virtually addictive, and the food industry works hard to create and market these foods. Some may find this surprising, but this seems like old news to me. The chief problem I found with the book is that, at least to my mind, Dr. Kessler did not focus sufficiently on the extreme unhealthfulness of these foods and how over-consumption of modern foods sets people up for truly dreadful diseases, including diabetes. Kessler’s idea of controlling one’s intake of these foods was more focused on changing one’s thought process to something like “I won’t have that food because I know I will feel terrible about myself afterwards.” For me at least, knowing I won’t feel good about myself after eating certain foods was not enough for me to stop eating them. I stopped only after I genuinely understood, from other sources, how terribly unhealthy many of the foods in the Western diet are for us (including sugary foods, and foods made with refined flours and high-fructose corn syrup). I am not only longer attracted to these foods, but I actually find them disgusting and repellant. I would spend my money on books like Real Foods (Nina Planck), Omnivore’s Dilemma, and In Defense of Food. I found these books far more helpful in thinking about food choices. Also, I found the format of the book somewhat scattered and unfocused.

5 Stars Mind over muffins!
Anybody gain weight around Christmas? From Thanksgiving through New Year’s I gain between five and ten pounds. It’s inevitable. Although I don’t bake Christmas cookies and only overeat at a few holiday meals, the countertops at my office are filled with sweets the entire holiday season . . . sweets sent to us by companies to thank us for our business. The holidays are my “danger zone”. Sound familiar?

After reading this book, I now understand why. Mr Kessler, former FDA Commissioner under Presidents Clinton and Bush, explains that foods high in fat and sugar create opoids (or endomorphins), which are chemicals produced in the brain that reward us in a similar way morphine and heroin reward the drug addict. I am addicted to sweets during the holiday season. The more I eat them, the more I want to eat them.

Many have this problem year-round. Research by Kathryn Flegal revealed that in 1960 the average weight of women between 20 and 29 was 128 pounds. In the year 2000, it was 157 pounds. She astutely noticed another trend . . . weight gain was not evenly distributed across the population. People already overweight were becoming more overweight, while leaner people were gaining less weight.

How often have you heard people complain that their weight is due to their metabolism or lack of exercise? Recent research has shown that metabolism and level of exercise are less important than diet. Gerald Smith identified the term “orosensory self stimulation”, describing our behavior of eating more of any delicious food we enjoy. One brownie turns into two. Sixteen potato chips turn into the whole bag. Four slices of pizza turns into eight. And so on, and so on.

The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite tells us, step by step, how to get control of these impulses. We have to develop rules to guide our behavior. Even though I walk right past the food counter at my office 30 times a day, I can develop a rule that I will have one sweet after lunch. It isn’t easy . . . Mr. Kessler tells us in the introduction that we are the “target” of the food industry. Although that is just business I guess, we need to change how we look at food or we will never have the bodies and good health we’d like to have. Mr. Kessler also shares the warning signs in children, so we can help them before overeating becomes a lifelong habit. What can we do to stop being victims of the food industry? Stop buying and eating crap, and start buying and eating good wholesome foods like fruits, vegetables and whole grains. If enough of us join the movement to better health, the food industry will have to listen.

Lynette Fleming, Coauthor of Lunch Buddies: Buddy Up for a Better Diet

2 Stars 336 pages for this?
I bought the book after seeing the author on Bill Maher and Colbert. I was hoping for some real insight into compulsive eating, something I’ve struggled with since childhood, but was disappointed.

To begin with, the title is quite misleading; there’s little about “ending overeating” and “taking control of the American appetite.”

Virtually everything the author asserts, most people with even a passing familiarity with overeating already know:

1. Overeating can lead to addictive behaviors that compound overeating

2. Diets don’t work

3. Fast foods, processed foods, and corporate foods are loaded with fat, sugar, and salt

4. The manufacturers combine these ingredients (and ramp up the advertising) to make the foods more enticing and irresistible

5. You have to reformulate your thinking about food by changing your behaviors and thought patterns

No kidding, Dr. Kessler? I could have gotten that from a one-hour episode of Oprah.

As an aside, please be forewarned. For some bizarre reason, Kessler goes on at length (and I mean, AT LENGTH) detailing all the ingredients that are in all the foods you shouldn’t eat. I actually found myself craving the foods he was describing; everything on the menu at Chili’s, the history of Cinn-a-bon; Starbucks frappucinos, yadda, yadda…. WE GET IT ALREADY!

I’m sorry but it seems to me that a book about overating shouldn’t induce the munchies.

And the resolution–that we can somehow end our lifelong patterns of overeating by avoiding unhealthy foods and somehow reconditioning our brains to not think about it–seems utterly ineffectual. Earlier in the book, the author cites the futility of the “mind over matter” approach by citing the old saw: try not to think of an elephant and you will, of course, think of an elephant. Then he winds up by recommending that his readers do just that when it comes to the food we shouldn’t eat.

Really, Dr. Kessler? You avoid those fattening dumplings you love by simply taking a different route past the restaurant? WOW! Why didn’t I think of that?

5 Stars What we are facing as a nation!
I just finished listening to the audio version of this book. I started with some doubts, and ended with respect and admiration for what Dr. Kessler has done. In today’s world it seems that everyone, including many scientists, are selling something. I sensed none of this in Kessler’s book.

For those who may have forgotten, Kessler is the FDA Commissioner who attempted to regulate the tobacco industry’s secret manipulation of nicotine content in cigarettes. He dragged a doubting and cautious FDA along with him, and almost made it until the US Supreme Court overturned FDA’s proposed rules. This same proven public health servant is now telling us why we have an epidemic of obesity in the USA and what we can do about it.

Some observations about the book that struck me:

- Kessler studiously avoids characterizing over-eating as an addiction, creating his own term of ‘conditioned hypereating’. This is so consistent in the book that I must conclude he decided from the outset to avoid addiction terminology. Yet he gives the best, most comprehensive description of the addictive process, from the physiological to the emotional dimensions, that I have ever read, framing it as the bodies drive for ‘reward’. He makes passing reference to 12-step programs, but I don’t recall hearing any reference to Overeaters Anonymous (OA), the one 12-step program that focuses directly on this issue.

- He stops short of attacking the food industry for its manipulation of food with salt, sugar and fat, to make food more irresistable. At one point he quotes a food industry executive as saying it was the success of their business model to increase sales and profit, which is part of the problem. The people who make processed foods simply want us to buy and eat more of it, in particlar eat more of their brand and not another. That said, Kessler suggests that something has to be done, including possible regulation of the industry (eg, a calorie content statement for every dish served in a restaurant). From a public policy perspective, the health consequences of obesity are devastating and cannot be ignored. If we think our healthcare system is broken now, wait 20 years and see the overload of our system with generations of obese families and children. It seems the food industry cannot escape their role in unwittingly creating their part of this problem.

- Finally, in the ‘Afterword’, Kessler describes his own struggle with food and dieting, owning ‘a suit in every size’. This human aspect of the story is a balance to the compelling, but sometimes difficult, scientific data he covers earlier in the book.

On a technical note: the audio book was one of the best I’ve every listened to. It is divided into 40+ short chapters which keep the information in ‘bite-size’ chunks. The logic and organization of the material was fine, and the reader very clear and easy to understand.

5 Stars Devoured it in 3 days
Terrific read. Moves like a juicy novel. Fabulous insight into the mindset of Big Food Producers, food marketing, and human response. True Confession: armed with all that knowledge and solid rules, on my first trip to the grocery store after finishing the book I brought home fruits, veggies…and a slice of carrot cake. The cover photo was SUCH a powerful cue!

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Frankenstein

Frankenstein

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Gothic at its best
Mary Shelley was the daughter of the famous feminist and author, Mary Wollstonecraft, who is best known for her work The Vindication of the Rights of Women. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a young university student, Victor Frankenstein, obsesses with wanting to know the secret to life. He studies chemistry and natural philosophy with the goal of being able to create a human out of spare body parts. After months of constant work in his laboratory, Frankenstein attains his goal and brings his creation to life. Frankenstein is immediately overwrought by fear and remorse at the sight of his creation, a “monster.” The next morning, he decides to destroy his creation but finds that the monster has escaped. The monster, unlike other humans, has no social preparation or education; thus, it is unequipped to take care of itself either physically or emotionally. The monster lives in the forest like an animal without knowledge of “self” or understanding of its surroundings. The monster happens upon a hut inhabited by a poor family and is able to find shelter in a shed adjacent to the hut. For several months, the monster starts to gain knowledge of human life by observing the daily life of the hut’s inhabitants through a crack in the wall. The monster’s education of language and letters begins when he listens to one of them learning the French language. During this period, the monster also learns of human society and comes to the realization that he is grotesque and alone in the world. Armed with his newfound ability to read, he reads three books that he found in a leather satchel in the woods. Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and a volume of Plutarch’s Lives. The monster, not knowing any better, read these books thinking them to be facts about human history. From Plutarch’s works, he learns of humankind’s virtues. However, it is Paradise Lost that has a most interesting effect on the monster’s understanding of self. The monster at first identifies with Adam, “I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence.” The monster, armed only with his limited education, thought that he would introduce himself to the cottagers and depend on their virtue and benevolence; traits he believed from his readings that all humans possessed. However, soon after his first encounter with the cottagers, he is beaten and chased off because his ugliness frightens people. The monster is overwrought by a feeling of perplexity by this reaction, since he thought he would gain their trust and love, which he observed them generously give to each other on so many occasions. He receives further confirmation of how his ugliness repels people when, sometime later, he saves a young girl from drowning and the girl’s father shoots at him because he is frightful to look at. The monster quickly realizes that the books really lied to him. He found no benevolence or virtue among humans, even from his creator. At every turn in his life, humans are judging him solely based on his looks. The monster soon realizes that it is not Adam, the perfect being enjoying the world, which he is most alike. Instead, he comes to realize that he most represents Satan. The monster is jealous of the happiness he sees humans enjoy that he has never attained for himself. The monster tells Frankenstein that he found his lab journal in his coat pocket and read it with increasing hate and despair as he came to understand what Frankenstein’s intent was in creating him. The monster curses Frankenstein for making a creature so hideous that even his creator turned from him in disgust.

Shelley’s intent here is plain to see. “The fate of the monster suggests that proficiency in `the art of language’ as he calls it, may not ensure one’s position as a member of the `human kingdom.” In a sense, she is showing that both her parents were mistaken when they advocated greater education reform for people. They thought education would make people better, which in turn would improve society for all. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein contradicts this belief.

Starting with the full title of Mary Shelley’s book, Frankenstein: or The Modern Prometheus one can instantly see that mythology was integral to her book. Lord Byron, poet and friend of the Shelley’s was writing a poem entitled Prometheus, and Mary was reading the Prometheus legend in Aeschylus’ works when she had a dream, which was the impetus for her book. The Greek god Prometheus, is known for two important tasks that he performed, he created man from clay, and he stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. The stealing of fire really angered Zeus because the giving of fire began an era of enlightenment for humankind. Zeus punished Prometheus by having him carried to a mountain, where an eagle would pick at his liver; it would grow back each day and the eagle would eat it again.

The presence of fire and light in this gothic story helps to point to the similarities to Prometheus and Victor Frankenstein, the creator of the monster, in Shelley’s book. The book uses light as a symbol of discovery, knowledge, and enlightenment. The natural world is full of hidden passages, and dark unknown scientific secrets; Victor’s goal as a scientist is to grasp towards the light. Light is a by-product of fire that the monster learned quickly when he is living on his own. The monster experienced fires’ duality when he first encountered it in an unattended fire in the woods. He is mesmerized by the fact that fire produces light in the darkness in the woods, but is shocked at the sensation of pain it gives him when he touches it. Victor is defiant of god in the same way that Prometheus was defiant of Zeus. Victor steals the secret of life from god and creates a human out of spare body parts. He does this out of an altruistic wish to spare humankind from the pain and suffering of death. Thus, Victor Frankenstein embodies both aspects of the Promethean myth creation and fire. Victor in a sense has the same experience with the fire of enlightenment similar to his monster; he is “burned” by the fire of enlightenment. Victor also suffers from the classic Greek tragic condition of hubris for his transgression against god and nature.

The book also adopts two other great mythic legends. One is Adam from the Bible. Victor Frankenstein bears striking resemblance to Adam and his fall from grace for eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. The other is Satan, a mythic figure that Shelley admired from her readings in Milton’s book Paradise Lost. In an interesting juxtaposition of booth myths, she expands on the motif of the fall from grace in her book when she portrays the monster comparing himself to Adam; after he read, Milton’s book Paradise Lost. The monster tells Victor, that he at first identifies with Adam God’s first creation. “I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence.” However, after several incidents of mistreatment that he suffered from the humans he encountered in his travels; the monster soon realized that it is not Adam, the perfect being enjoying the world, which he was most alike. Instead, he came to realize that he most represented Satan. The monster’s feelings of hatred and despair stem from the fact that humans found him grotesque to look at and would not accept him as a member of human society. The monster cursed Victor for making a creature so hideous that even his creator turned from him in disgust. Thus, it is obvious for all to see that Shelley’s Frankenstein is replete with mythological references and they are central to the plot.

This was required reading for a graduate course in the Humanities. Recommended reading for anyone interested in history, psychology, philosophy, and literature.

5 Stars amazing a classic
i have always heard about this book and when i found it for free i read it and loved it

4 Stars Great story
I picked this up because it was free and I have not read it in years so I thought it would be a good choice to learn to navigate with on my K2. I tried differnt methods but I really enjoyed readimg along with TTS. Beacuse the language is dated ( though in a good way ) it can make it a little tiring in places. With the TTS on I sailed through this book and loved it.

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New Moon The Twilight Saga Book 2

New Moon The Twilight Saga Book 2

Grade 9 Up–Recovered from the vampire attack that hospitalized her in the conclusion of Twilight (Little, Brown, 2005), Bella celebrates her birthday with her boyfriend Edward and his family, a unique clan of vampires that has sworn off human blood. But the celebration abruptly ends when the teen accidentally cuts her arm on broken glass. The sight and smell of her blood trickling away forces the Cullen family to retreat lest they be tempted to make a meal of her. After all is mended, Edward, realizing the danger that he and his family create for Bella, sees no option for her safety but to leave. Mourning his departure, she slips into a downward spiral of depression that penetrates and lingers over her every step. Vampire fans will appreciate the subsequently dour mood that permeates the novel, and it’s not until Bella befriends Jacob, a sophomore from her school with a penchant for motorcycles, that both the pace and her disposition begin to take off. Their adventures are wild, dare-devilish, and teeter on the brink of romance, but memories of Edward pervade Bella’s emotions, and soon their fun quickly morphs into danger, especially when she uncovers the true identities of Jacob and his pack of friends. Less streamlined than Twilight yet just as exciting, New Moon will more than feed the bloodthirsty hankerings of fans of the first volume and leave them breathless for the third.–Hillias J. Martin, New York Public Library
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Treasure Island

Treasure Island

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Amazing Classic!
I was an adult before I read this book. I am so glad I decided to try it out. It is an adventure in the truest sense. I have yet to see a movie do any justice to this book. The old classics always surprise me more with their plot twists than contemporary literature. Anyway, if you enjoy adventure at all read this book.

1 Star too confusing…
i have read a lot of books in my life and this has been in my lowest ranked books along with chinese cinderalla, kira-kira, and out-of-the-dust. very dissapointing. even though i am just a kid, i think it was too violent and boyish. Yuck.

5 Stars A great book and solid preparation
Hard to complain about the very few text issues in this book given the price (free). The book itself is a fantastic read - I cannot believe I had never read it before. All thanks to the Kindle (2).

5 Stars A Classic
My mother read this book to me when I was much younger, so after receiving a Kindle for Christmas, I found this book and downloaded it.

I forgot about the action and adventure that took place for the original “Pirates of the Caribbean” This is a fantastic read and well worth the cost (HA) Treasure Island should be a book everyone reads at least once and has in the library to share with kids and grand kids.

5 Stars Shiver me timbers!
Arggggg, mateys, a fine read this is! I enjoyed this as a kid and it’s even funner re-reading it as an adult. Now I know where all those silly pirate cliches come from. It’s all there….Long John Silver with his wooden leg and the parrot on his shoulder, the treasure map with “X marks the spot,” and a kid hero taking on the bad guys. You can’t go wrong with this book. Read it, swabby!

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Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking

While the phrase artisan bread typically evokes images of labor-intensive sessions and top-notch ingredients, for authors Hertzberg and François it means five minutes. An intriguing concept—high-quality, fresh bread in less time than it takes to boil water. The authors’ promises of no kneading, no starter, no proofing yeast and no need for a bread machine is based on the concept of mixed and risen high-moisture dough stored in the fridge for up to two weeks (dough is cut into pieces and popped in the oven for fresh loaves as desired). Note: for those tracking minutes, the five-minutes doesn’t include the 20-minute resting time for dough or 30 minutes for baking. After concise, introductory chapters on ingredients, equipment, and tips and techniques, readers are presented with the master recipe, a free-form loaf of French boule that is the model for all breads in the book. Three main chapters—Peasant Loaves, Flatbreads and Pizzas and Enriched Breads and Pastries—are filled with tempting selections and focus on ethnic breads and pastries including Couronne from France; Limpa from Scandinavia; Ksara from Morocco; Broa from Portugal; and Chocolate-Raisin Babka from the Ukraine, but the basics (Oatmeal Bread, Bagels, White Bread) are all here, too. A smattering of companion recipes such as Tuscan White Bean Dip and Portuguese Fish Stew are peppered throughout. While experienced bakers and true gourmands will skip this one, those looking for an innovative approach to making bread just might find it in these recipes. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

User Ratings and Reviews

2 Stars Overlong, overpriced, and overhyped
About a year too late to take advantage of the afterglow of the fandom of the Leahy/Bittman No-Knead Bread that spread like wildfire in late 2006 and early 2007, this breathlessly superficial book reads like exactly what it is — an attempt to capitalize on a fad without ever really acknowledging it. The significant original material in the book can be summed up in a five-dollar pamphelet and certainly doesn’t need a $27 book to cover it, especially a book such as this that repeats its main thesis several times but doesn’t delve much into the food science involved. (In all honesty, the contents of this book could be summed up in a much more concise fashion in a book like BakeWise or Baking Illustrated, and I wouldn’t put it past a better author or authors to do exactly that in the near future.)

Don’t buy this book at cover price. Don’t bother buying it new. In fact, I wouldn’t bother at all unless you can pick it up for less than $10 in a used bookstore or remainder rack, and even then you’re probably better off simply starting with the Leahy/Bittman recipe (from the New York Times website) or the Cook’s Illustrated adaptation (published in 2007 in the magazine and featured in the 2009 season of America’s Test Kitchen) and working your way along with authors such as Silverton or Reinhart; there is not a lot of substance in this book, and no reason you couldn’t go the bread machine route with any of it.

5 Stars wow, wow, and wow!
[[ASIN:0312362919 Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking] I very seldom made bread. Now I do it often. Plus I have taught eleven people to make it from this book. Easy, delicious and inexpensive, and very little time.

5 Stars Finally, a crusty crust
For many years I have attempted making bread trying to duplicate the old world artisan types. After many efforts and failures to produce crusty crust I discovered “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes” and it sure does work. Just follow the simple text and directions and voila - delicious bread. Without a doubt, one of the best book purchases I have ever made!

5 Stars WOW!
This book was a gift and at first glance I wasn’t sure what to make of it. What the authors claimed vs what I knew “needed” to happen in order to make a great loaf of bread parted ways. It only took making the first recipe and tasting the first loaf for me to realize that this method really does work! I can work a full 40+ hours a week and still make fresh homemade bread. I can also not just make it once a week, but everyday. I love this book and recommend it to anyone who likes fresh bread!

5 Stars Best bread book ever!!!
This is the best bread book ever. This book actually lives up to the title. The recipes are easy to follow. I’m a non-baker and an average cook and friends think the bread is from an artisan bakery when they see and taste the bread, they are AMAZED that this bread came out of my oven and with such little effort. A must for anyone who loves good crusty bread. I have purchased over 25 of these books for presents. All recipients have raved about the ease of making bread from this book. You will throw rocks at all other breads……and never think about buying bread again after trying this book!!!

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