So...you don''t smoke Crack, like at ALL? I mean can you do that? Is it safe? I would be worried.

I am a survivor of a life threatening addiction.  I have many friends who are survivors as well.   Me and my krewe cover the gamut, drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, eating disorders and food.  I and my pals have managed to stop acting out (for the most part) on these addictions.   Our friends and family are generally supportive.  But none of them would suggest to us that drinking or using drugs or gambling or anonymous sex with a stranger in a bus stop bathroom is a good idea.  Even though most of what I know about life I learned in a mens room on the turnpike, but I digress.

Now that I'm trying to stop eating addictive,  processed foods and go vegan, friends and relatives are actively encouraging me to stop.  They seem truly worried that I'll get sick. Worried that it's dangerous.  People who have seen me eat three double Quarter Pounders w/cheese are worried that my quinoa, kale, onion, pepper stir fry is going to leave me anemic, weak and ill.  Now that's a triumph of marketing.

A cousin who is a college administrator and former professor sent me a recent study about vegetarians and increased risk of certain diseases*.   My family and friends often cite imagined statistics about the need for meat, the dangers of veganism, how I'm going to hurt myself by quitting "real" food.

The processed food loddy juggernaut has truly changed reality.  We even joke about rewarding ourselves with food we KNOW to be awful for us.  "I deserve to eat something bad, I've been good all week"

The food industry has hit on the perfect drug.  And that's really what it is, a drug.  The drug that addicts EVERYONE who uses it.   Basically combinations of processed sugar, flour, animal fat and salt. Each food company hopes to tweak the formulae to achieve the perfect combination and produce a product that is universally addictive.  McDonalds is the Cali-Cartel of the food industry drug pushers.  They have it down to a science and believe me there are guys in lab coats who work for McDonalds.

In fact every big food company has guys in lab coats researching their food.  Not to make it better for you but to make it more addictive.

Even the diet food, no ESPECIALLY the diet food.  Diet food is a trap.  Oh, let me tell you about "Diet" food.

The 12 step group for this addiction is Food Addicts Anonymous.  Their program is strict and rightly so.   Here is where it ties into diet food.  FAA was founded by a woman, lets call her Linda, who was briefly an executive with a international diet food company that bears a womans name.  Linda a dietitian with an MBA who struggled with her weight all her life had just joined the company with high hopes and a sense of real purpose.  Linda dutifully reviewed the food plans and recipes of the company and discovered some problems. Linda worked up some fixes that would make the program MORE successful.  Really help clients lose weight, get healthy and keep the weight off for life.

Linda brought these fixes to the big diet food company founder and president, let's call her "Jenny".  Linda made her presentation.  Jenny looked at Linda, shook her head, then explained as though to a child "We can't make those changes."  "Why?" asked Linda.  "Because that would kill our repeat business.  And repeat business is ALL of our business".  The diet foods are DESIGNED to fail.  To work short term and then have you fall right back into your addiction.  A stunned Linda quit and founded FAA.

Look I'm not saying everyone has to do what I'm doing.  Just as there are people who can drink a little and not ruin their lives, there are people who can eat addictive foods and remain healthy.  People who can hang out in the mens room, at the park, at night and play "just the tip".  I'm not one of them.

So while I appreciate the concern if you come at me with your uninformed bullshit I will respond.  If you suggest to me my diet is unhealthy, you will get the vegan rant in full force.  But hey if you adopt my philosophy of "eat and let eat" we can all just get along.

* An Austrian study (click here to read the study) of vegetarians not vegans.  Vegetarians tend to consume more dairy which is the likely culprit in the increase in some health problems.