In other words, sugar makes you want to eat more food. (Why you don’t feel full.)

So the food industry only provides what people want. Right? And people want, time after time, what they crave. So sugar is sinking America’s health.

To be sure, there are many culprits — more sedentary lifestyles (read: gaming), for example. Also of surety, sugar is a huge villain.

That two of three adults are chubby? Um, yes.

Are we surprised that 30% of boys and girls under 20 are overweight in 2019 — up from 19% in 1980?

Is it any wonder that 160 million Americans are obese?

Sugary foods represent a double whammy for health. First the calories add on the fat. Then the overeating, induced by sugar, brings on the fat.

Consider a college grad student named Anthony Sclafani who was only being nice to lab rats under his care: As a treat, he’d give them Fruit Loops.

But then Sclanfani noticed they really loved the sugary cereals. So he started conducting experiments in the 1960s: Would rats abandon their wall-hugging rambles to venture into the dangerous center of the room for Fruit Loops? They did.

(And so do our teenagers.)

When he needed to fatten up mice for another experiment, he found the critters stayed slender no matter how much chow he gave them. They ate to satiety — feeling full — and no more. He remembered the Fruit Loops and quickly got fat rats.

Still more experiments. They loved sugar — even when they couldn’t taste it — and never stopped scarfing it. Sclafani has made a lifetime of studying sugar-indulging  rodents and his findings are frightening: sugar suppresses satiety.

The implications? The food industry has made lab rats out of us all.

What now?

Excess body fat leads hypertension, high LDL cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, gallbladder disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea, cancer, mental illness and depression, and body pain.

It’s easy to slam the food producers. They fill up the supermarket with sugary items — up to 73% of grocery store items contain added sugar. Because we reward them for it.

So what is to be done? Read the rest on Medium:  how the food industry made rats of us with sugar.

‘You can fight back from mental illness’

One-way Jesus, he signals with the forefinger

Emery Lambus, 63, an artist who works outside Smart & Final just East of Santa Monica, is fighting.

“Mental illness is not a dead-end street,” he says, sipping a coke under the October sun. “You can fight back. But you got to have some good support and be willing to take directions. You can bring yourself back from total insanity.”

Emery, a Phoenix native, battles schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, instability and drug addictions, he says. His is the cheering picture of societal dropouts who can work, with support networks and faith, to come back from the edge.

“I still hear the voices,” he says. “They harass me when I don’t go along with the program of doing aberrant things. They’re happy when I’m a total f—k-up. But they get mean and nasty when I’m doing to the right thing – enjoying myself, finding people who enjoy my art, holding conversations with people without mental problems.

Emery strikes the observer an easy-going local with loads of artistic talent. Recently, he was finishing a commissioned splash of pastel colors with four music stars: Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Tupac Shakur and John Lennon. He called it “A Blast from the Past.”

Smart & Final shoppers have taken a liking to Emery, as evidence by more than one buying him a drink or snacks as they head to their cars. He’ll always have some friendly words to share with whoever wishes to engage him. Read the rest of the article.

Editor’s Note: Emery has accepted Jesus, but he believes a salad bowl of ideas. Really, I rejoice in all people’s efforts to reconstruct their lives and overcome their demons, regardless if their theology is not exactly mine.