Dr Vera Tarman is a family doctor based in Toronto. She is the medical director of Renascent, an addiction treatment centre that until recently was one of the few inpatient treatment centres for food addiction in the world. Dr Tarman specialises in the innovative field of food addiction, she runs workshops, lectures, and other events on the science of food addiction and comfort foods.
Having made a recovery from food addiction herself, Dr Tarman’s book is an extraordinary tale full of case studies. As some research claim: the evidence of the existence of food addiction is just in front of our eyes; Food Junkies is that evidence.
Vera Tarman’s description of each case is fascinating, from compulsive overeaters to bulimics, there is also the concept of cross addictions with the terrifying story of a man who went from food to drugs.
The scientific explanation about how the brain reward system is highjacked by certain substances is incredibly detailed. Although it is a complex issue, Dr Tarman manages to describe how our behaviours are driven by certain chemicals secreted by our brains in response to substances like sugar or processed foods.
The author is very honest about her own struggles with food addiction and if you are a sufferer of an eating disorder or addiction some of the detailed descriptions of symptoms could make you feel like you are not alone in the world with this terrible disease.
But this book is not only for food addiction sufferers or for professionals in the field, this book is also for all of us. It is a wake up call on how our eating habits have deviated so much from what our bodies need, that the majority of the calories we consume are coming from processed foods packed with sugar and other chemicals. Big companies have pushed their products for years claiming that we need them to live a healthy long life, and now society has forgotten that all we need to keep our bodies and brains healthy is real food. Food Junkies by Vera Tarman is a powerful reminder of this, everyone should read it.
You can find Food Junkies online on amazon.co.uk and amazon.com
