Food Junkies

Media by Others

The Food Junkies Podcast evolved from the book. Each week, Vera Tarman, Clarrissa Kennedy, and Molly Painschab connect with scientists, Food Addiction clinicians, authors, and recovering Food Addicts to share fresh insights and tackle emerging debates.

Food Junkies Podcast: Food Addiction in Older Adults, with Lucy Loch, 2026

Why do older women show the highest rates of food addiction?
Esp while older men are more likely to meet criteria for alcohol and tobacco use disorder — and why ...does that gap flip when it comes to weight? In Episode 292, we sit down with Lucy Loch, a doctoral candidate in Psychology at the University of Michigan, to unpack her research on food addiction in older adults and what it reveals about decades of diet culture, marketing, and an under-screened generation.

Lucy studies the life course development of addictive-like eating — how early-life experiences and exposure to ultra-processed foods shape appetite, self-regulation, and long-term health outcomes. She's supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, works under Dr. Ashley Gearhardt at the University of Michigan, and her research has appeared in Addiction, Current Obesity Reports, and Physiology & Behavior.

In this conversation, we dig into her recent study from the National Poll on Healthy Aging: why older women meet criteria for food addiction at higher rates than older men, why overweight men in the study were 19x more likely to meet criteria (compared to 11x for women), what a small but striking finding on underweight older adults might mean, and why isolation and food addiction may feed each other in a bidirectional loop. We also talk about why food addiction is so often invisible in geriatric medicine, what it would take to get it screened for the way depression and falls already are, and what decades of "low-fat," heavily marketed diet products may have set up for the women who trusted them.

This one is for anyone who works with older adults, anyone who's ever been told "just eat healthier," and anyone who's still unlearning the idea that this comes down to willpower.

About our guest:

Lucy Loch is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on the life course development of addictive-like eating, examining how early life experiences and exposure to ultra-processed foods influence appetite, self-regulation, and risk for later-life health outcomes. She is supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and works to uncover why certain foods and life experiences may make some individuals more susceptible to overeating. Her work has appeared in journals including Addiction, Current Obesity Reports, and Physiology & Behavior.

POLAND 2027: https://fundacjabraciarodzen.pl/products/international-advanced-training-programme?variant=56860764078458

Connect With Us

Subscribe to Food Junkies Podcast for new episodes
Email us at foodjunkiespodcast@gmail.com

The content of our show is educational only. It does not supplement or supersede your healthcare provider's professional relationship and direction. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, substance use disorder, or mental health concern.Show More

Food Junkies Podcast: Food Addiction in Older Adults, with Lucy Loch, 2026

Why do older women show the highest rates of food addiction? Esp while ...

Food Junkies Podcast: Can changing how you eat affect your mental health?w Dr Mathew Bernstein, 2026

Can changing what you eat treat depression, anxiety, and even ...

Can changing what you eat treat depression, anxiety, and even psychosis more effectively than medication alone? In this episode of Food Junkies, Dr. Vera Tarman sits down with Dr. Matt ...Bernstein, MD, psychiatrist and CEO of Accord, to unpack the emerging field of metabolic psychiatry — and what it means for people recovering from food addiction.

Dr. Bernstein trained at Columbia, Penn, and the MGH-McLean Psychiatry Program before shifting from traditional hospital-based psychiatric care toward lifestyle-based interventions: nutrition, sleep, light, and movement. He now serves on the advisory board of Metabolic Mind and helped organize the first public conference on metabolic psychiatry in 2023.

In this conversation, Dr. Bernstein and Dr. Tarman explore how brain energy metabolism — not just neurotransmitters — may be a root driver of conditions like depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer's, and why ketogenic and low-carbohydrate approaches are showing early but compelling results for food cravings, food noise, and psychiatric symptom relief.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

Why Dr. Bernstein moved away from conventional psychiatric medication models toward metabolic approaches
How brain insulin resistance can contribute to depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia
The role of mitochondria, oxidative stress, and the gut-brain axis in mental illness
How ketones act as an alternative brain fuel — and why that matters for insulin-resistant neurons
The connection between brain insulin resistance and Alzheimer's risk decades before symptoms appear
How ketogenic and low-carb diets naturally reduce food cravings and "food noise" for people with food addiction
What a day in the Accord immersive metabolic psychiatry program actually looks like
Why combining diet, exercise, circadian rhythm alignment, and mind-body practices produces faster results than any single intervention alone
How GLP-1 medications compare to ketogenic diets for reducing food noise and cravings — and where each may fall short
The risks of rapid or unsupported psychiatric medication tapering, and why "hyperbolic tapering" matters
What to watch for (and troubleshoot) if a ketogenic diet isn't producing results after several weeks
Guest

Dr. Matt Bernstein, MD is a psychiatrist and CEO of Accord, an immersive metabolic psychiatry program near Boston. He is a leading voice in metabolic psychiatry, sits on the advisory board of Metabolic Mind, and helped organize the first public conference dedicated to the field in 2023.

Connect with Dr. Matt Bernstein & Accord

Website: https://accordmh.com/

Releasing What’s Not Ours: Healing Food & Body Struggles Through IFS with Vanessa Kredler

👉Learn more here: https://sweetsobriety.newzenler.com/courses/releasing-whats-not-ours

Connect with Food Junkies

🎧 Subscribe for new episodes
🌐 Learn more about food addiction recovery at https://www.sweetsobriety.ca/
📩 Have a guest suggestion or topic request? Send it our way: foodjunkiespodcast@gmail.com

The content of our show is educational only. It does not supplement or supersede your healthcare provider's professional relationship and direction. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, substance use disorder, or mental health concern.Show More

Food Junkies Podcast: Magnesium, Yeast Overgrowth and Sugar Cravings with Dr Caroline Dean, 2026

Fatigue. Brain fog. Cravings that never quit no matter how "good" ...

Fatigue. Brain fog. Cravings that never quit no matter how "good" you're eating. In this episode of Food Junkies, Dr. Vera Tarman sits down with Dr. Carolyn Dean — MD, ...naturopath, and author of more than 50 books including The Magnesium Miracle — to unpack a piece of the addiction and recovery puzzle that rarely gets airtime: magnesium deficiency and its tangled relationship with yeast overgrowth, sugar metabolism, and chronic cravings.

Dr. Dean has spent over five decades in integrative and functional medicine, and in this conversation she lays out her theory that a huge share of chronic symptoms — anxiety, insomnia, heart palpitations, muscle tension, even conditions mistaken for neurological disease — trace back to a mineral most conventional labs never test properly. She also digs into candida overgrowth, why restrictive diets like keto and carnivore may be working for reasons people don't realize, and why sugar cravings might be your gut asking for something other than sugar.

This episode isn't a replacement for individualized medical or clinical treatment, and it isn't an endorsement of any product mentioned. As always, we encourage listeners to bring these questions to their own care team.

In this episode, you'll learn:

Why magnesium is required to produce ATP — the energy currency of every cell — and what happens when your body can't get enough
The difference between a magnesium compound and a bioavailable magnesium ion, and why so many supplements underdeliver
How soil depletion and modern agriculture have quietly lowered magnesium in the food supply over the past century
The link Dr. Dean draws between candida/yeast overgrowth, leaky gut, and persistent sugar cravings
Why she believes some people on restrictive diets (keto, carnivore, paleo) may be managing yeast overgrowth without realizing it
The connection between sugar metabolism, vitamin C, and cardiovascular health
Her recommended starting point for anyone wanting to address deficiency: diet, timing, and sequencing of supplementation
About Our Guest

Dr. Carolyn Dean, MD, ND is a physician and naturopath with over 50 years of experience in integrative and functional medicine. A graduate of Dalhousie University's medical school, she is the author of more than 50 books, including The Magnesium Miracle, Detox Your Body, and multiple works on sugar toxicity and mineral deficiency. Her clinical focus centers on magnesium, mineral absorption, and yeast overgrowth as root contributors to chronic fatigue, cravings, and metabolic dysfunction.

Learn more: drcarolyndean.com

Her product site: rnareset.com

About Vanessa Kredler's Upcoming IFS Workshop:

👉Releasing What’s Not Ours: Healing Food & Body Struggles Through IFS
Not every struggle with food and body belongs to you. Some of it was handed down — a mother's dieting, a culture's obsession with thinness, a family that never said "I love you" out loud but said "eat" instead.

In this 3-part live series, clinical counsellor Vanessa Kredler — a PACFA-registered therapist, certified food addiction professional (INFACT), and Level 2-trained IFS practitioner — draws on her work in addiction, complex trauma, and intergenerational trauma to help you untangle what's actually yours from what you inherited.

Using Internal Family Systems, you'll learn to recognize the legacy and cultural burdens shaping your relationship with food, understand why parts of you hold onto them, and take part in a guided practice to begin letting them go — with the same compassionate, trauma-informed approach Vanessa brings to her own clinical work (and, as she'll tell you, her own recovered life).

👉Link: https://sweetsobriety.newzenler.com/courses/releasing-whats-not-ours
About Food Junkies

Food Junkies is a podcast about food addiction, hosted by Dr. Vera Tarman, Clarissa Kennedy, and Molly Painschab — clinicians, researchers, and advocates working to bring visibility, science, and community support to ultra-processed food use disorder (UPFUD). New episodes feature conversations with leading researchers, clinicians, and people in recovery.

Subscribe for new episodes, and find us wherever you listen to podcasts.

The content of our show is educational only. It does not supplement or supersede your healthcare provider's professional relationship and direction. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, substance use disorder, or mental health concern.Show More

Food Junkies Podcast: How does perfectionism affect Food Addiction Recovery, with Brian Baumal, 2026

Perfectionism in Food Addiction Recovery - is it a strength or a ...

Perfectionism in Food Addiction Recovery - is it a strength or a weakeness?

In this episode of Food Junkies, Dr. Vera Tarman and Clarissa Kennedy sit down with Brian Baumal, ...a registered psychotherapist based in Toronto and owner of Aliva Psychotherapy, where he specializes in weight management, eating disorders, food addiction, and psychological support for bariatric surgery patients. Brian trained at the Gestalt Institute of Toronto and has been a licensed member of the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario since 2015. He's also a food addict in long-term recovery, having lost 100 pounds and kept it off for over 14 years.

Brian shares the moment that changed his understanding of food addiction forever — an intense, addictive reaction to a piece of chocolate at a holiday party that made him realize this was on an entirely different scale than an ordinary craving. From there, the conversation dives deep into perfectionism: how shame and diet culture create an idealized, unrealistic self-image; the difference between adaptive perfectionism (using structure and tools in service of recovery) and toxic or maladaptive perfectionism (an all-or-nothing mindset that treats any slip as total failure); and how perfectionism can quietly become a "runaway train," redirecting obsessive focus from food onto weight, exercise, or other behaviors.

Brian also explains how he uses a Gestalt therapy lens — treating what shows up in the room between therapist and client as the material for the work itself — to help clients build individualized, flexible recovery plans instead of rigid, punishment-driven rules. The group discusses distinguishing an addictive relapse from a psychological or shame-based slip, the role of relapse plans and "gathering data" after a slip, and why using tools (scales, timers, structure) isn't a sign of weakness but a sustainable part of long-term recovery.

The episode closes with Brian's reflections on chairing the Sugar and Food Addiction Professionals Network, a free Facebook community of nearly 200 food addiction professionals offering training, research updates, and access to leading voices in the field.

Topics Covered

Brian's personal food addiction story and his "aha moment" with chocolate at a holiday party
What Gestalt therapy is and how it approaches defense mechanisms relationally
How shame and diet culture create unrealistic, idealized self-images
Adaptive vs. maladaptive (toxic) perfectionism in recovery
Perfectionism as a "runaway train" — when focus shifts from food to weight, exercise, or other behaviors
Distinguishing an addictive relapse from a shame-driven psychological slip
Building individualized, flexible abstinence and relapse plans
Using tools (scales, timers, structure) without turning them into self-punishment
Vulnerability factors: trauma, family food dynamics, anxious or over-controlled personality styles
Adaptive perfectionism as flexibility, not the absence of high standards
The Sugar and Food Addiction Professionals Network on Facebook
Connect with Brian Baumal

Website: Aliva Psychotherapy — https://alivapsychotherapy.com/
WORKSHOP LINKS:

🚨Curious why cravings hit harder some days than others? Viktoria Hamma's two-part Circadian Rhythms & Red Light Therapy workshop breaks down the biology behind your body's internal clock and shows you exactly how morning light, meal timing, and red light therapy can work with your recovery instead of against it.

Grab your spot for Part 1: https://sweetsobriety.newzenler.com/courses/circadian-rhythm-and-red-light-therapy-educations

And Part 2: https://sweetsobriety.newzenler.com/courses/circadian-rhythms-red-light-therapy-part-2-understanding-your-body-s-internal-clock

The content of our show is educational only. It does not supplement or supersede your healthcare provider's professional relationship and direction. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, substance use disorder, or mental health concern.Show More

Food Junkies Podcast: the Six Year Folllowup of Bright Line Eating with Susan Peirce Thompson, 2026

How successful is Bright Line Eating with food addiction control and ...

How successful is Bright Line Eating with food addiction control and weight loss? Listen to this interview with Food Junkies team and Dr Susan Peirce Thompson

A quick announcement from ...the Food Junkies team: For the first time, we're moving to a new release schedule — new episodes every other week, still featuring one Recovery Story each month. We'll share more about this decision in our next Clinician's Corner. Whether you've been with us from the beginning or just found us, thank you. This is also the perfect time to dive into our archive of hundreds of conversations with experts, clinicians, researchers, and people with lived experience. Our next episode launches on July 17th.

About Today's Guest
Dr. Susan Peirce Thompson is a cognitive psychologist with expertise in the psychology of eating and the founder and CEO of Bright Line Eating, a global program for abstinence-based recovery from ultra-processed food addiction and long-term weight management. She is an adjunct associate professor in Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Rochester and the author of Bright Line Eating, ReZoom, On This Bright Day, The Official Bright Line Eating Cookbook, and her newest book, Maintain.

In 2025, Susan published a study in Frontiers in Psychiatry reporting six-year outcomes from the Bright Line Eating program that suggest an abstinence-based food addiction recovery approach can support clinically meaningful, long-term weight loss.

In This Episode
Vera and Clarissa sit down with Susan to unpack her research, her personal recovery story, and the deeper psychology of maintenance. Topics include:

Susan's journey from drug addiction to food addiction recovery — and why she found the food harder to quit
How Bright Line Eating began, and why so many people won't walk into a 12-step room
The honest story behind ReZoom: Susan's own break-and-resume cycles while leading a recovery movement
The six-year follow-up study: methodology, sample, limitations, and what the numbers actually show
How outcomes compare to published GLP-1 (semaglutide) data at long-term follow-up
Why simply learning about the addictiveness of sugar and flour may "inoculate" people against further weight gain
The four Bright Lines: sugar, flour, meals, quantities
Who did best at six years — and the surprising role of morning accountability calls
GLP-1 medications in food addiction recovery: Susan's "pro-choice" stance, the promise, the unknowns, and why we shouldn't pathologize medication for a brain-based disease
The tension between weight loss outcomes and addiction symptom recovery — and protecting listeners in larger bodies who are doing everything "right"
Lipedema: the under-recognized condition affecting an estimated 11% of women that doesn't respond to dietary intervention
The three identity shifts in Maintain: becoming devoted, resourced, and liberated
Grief work: why letting go of foods (and food-centered traditions) is a real loss that deserves real mourning
Finish-line anxiety and the fear of liberation — who am I without the food and weight struggle?
Willpower, habit stacking, and designing a life that works even on your worst day
What's next for Susan: an alternative memoir about the dopamine-dominant brain
Connect with Susan Peirce Thompson

Website: https://brightlineeating.com
Books: Bright Line Eating, ReZoom, On This Bright Day, The Official Bright Line Eating Cookbook, and Maintain
The Food Junkies Podcast

Hosted by Dr. Vera Tarman, Clarissa Kennedy, and Molly Painschab — real conversations about food addiction, recovery, and the science that supports both.

✉️email us at foodjunkiespodcast@gmail.com

The content of our show is educational only. It does not supplement or supersede your healthcare provider's professional relationship and direction. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, substance use disorder, or mental health concern.Show More

Episode 287 | Dr. Jason Fung - Is Fasting Safe for the Food Addict?

In this episode, Dr. Vera Tarman sits down with world-renowned ...

In this episode, Dr. Vera Tarman sits down with world-renowned nephrologist, researcher, and New York Times bestselling author Dr. Jason Fung to explore one of the most pressing questions in ...the food addiction community: Is fasting safe for the food addict?

Dr. Fung's latest book, The Hunger Code: Resetting Your Body's Fat Thermostat in the Age of Ultra-Processed Food, challenges the calorie-centric model of obesity and offers a deeper, more honest look at why we eat the way we do — and what it actually takes to change.

In this episode, you'll hear:

•Why the calories in/calories out model fails — and what the hormonal model of obesity actually means
•The three types of hunger driving overeating: homeostatic, hedonic, and conditioned hunger — and why the social and emotional components may account for 90% of our eating behavior
•How ultra-processed foods are engineered to hijack the brain's reward system — and why that matters for food addicts
•The difference between fasting and starvation — and why the mindset behind fasting changes everything
•The dangers of using fasting as a punishment after a binge — and how to use it safely and intentionally instead
•Why a low-carb, higher-fat diet makes fasting more sustainable for people coming out of binge cycles
•Dr. Fung's honest take on GLP-1 medications like Ozempic — the benefits, the limitations, and why they're not the whole answer
•What Japan and Italy get right about eating culture that the U.S. has lost
•Why public policy — not just personal willpower — must be part of the solution to ultra-processed food addiction

About Dr. Jason Fung:

Dr. Jason Fung is a Toronto-based nephrologist and one of the world's leading experts on therapeutic fasting and low-carb nutrition. He is the bestselling author of The Obesity Code, The Diabetes Code, The Cancer Code, and his newest release, The Hunger Code. He is also the co-founder of The Fasting Method, a coaching program helping people reverse obesity and type 2 diabetes through hormonal and lifestyle approaches.

🔗 Learn more at thefastingmethod.com

The Food Junkies Podcast is hosted by Dr. Vera Tarman, Molly Painschab, and Clarissa Kennedy — dedicated to exploring the science, stories, and solutions behind ultra-processed food use disorder.

🎙️ Subscribe, rate, and review wherever you listen to podcasts.
✉️ Email us at foodjunkiespodcast@gmail.com

The content of our show is educational only. It does not supplement or supersede your healthcare provider's professional relationship and direction. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, substance use disorder, or mental health concern.Show More

Food Junkies Podcast: Is Fasting Safe for the Food Addict? with Dr Jason Fung, 2026

Is fasting safe for the food addict? In this episode, Dr. Vera Tarman ...

Is fasting safe for the food addict?
In this episode, Dr. Vera Tarman sits down with world-renowned nephrologist, researcher, and New York Times bestselling author Dr. Jason Fung to explore ...one of the most pressing questions in the food addiction community: Is fasting safe for the food addict?

Dr. Fung's latest book, The Hunger Code: Resetting Your Body's Fat Thermostat in the Age of Ultra-Processed Food, challenges the calorie-centric model of obesity and offers a deeper, more honest look at why we eat the way we do — and what it actually takes to change.

In this episode, you'll hear:

Why the calories in/calories out model fails — and what the hormonal model of obesity actually means
The three types of hunger driving overeating: homeostatic, hedonic, and conditioned hunger — and why the social and emotional components may account for 90% of our eating behavior
How ultra-processed foods are engineered to hijack the brain's reward system — and why that matters for food addicts
The difference between fasting and starvation — and why the mindset behind fasting changes everything
The dangers of using fasting as a punishment after a binge — and how to use it safely and intentionally instead
Why a low-carb, higher-fat diet makes fasting more sustainable for people coming out of binge cycles
Dr. Fung's honest take on GLP-1 medications like Ozempic — the benefits, the limitations, and why they're not the whole answer
What Japan and Italy get right about eating culture that the U.S. has lost
Why public policy — not just personal willpower — must be part of the solution to ultra-processed food addiction

About Dr. Jason Fung:
Dr. Jason Fung is a Toronto-based nephrologist and one of the world's leading experts on therapeutic fasting and low-carb nutrition. He is the bestselling author of The Obesity Code, The Diabetes Code, The Cancer Code, and his newest release, The Hunger Code. He is also the co-founder of The Fasting Method, a coaching program helping people reverse obesity and type 2 diabetes through hormonal and lifestyle approaches.

🔗 Learn more at thefastingmethod.com

The Food Junkies Podcast is hosted by Dr. Vera Tarman, Molly Painschab, and Clarissa Kennedy — dedicated to exploring the science, stories, and solutions behind ultra-processed food use disorder.

🎙️ Subscribe, rate, and review wherever you listen to podcasts.

✉️ Email us at foodjunkiespodcast@gmail.com

The content of our show is educational only. It does not supplement or supersede your healthcare provider's professional relationship and direction. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, substance use disorder, or mental health concern.Show More

Food Junkies Podcast: Tackling the Voice to Binge with Dr Glenn Livingston, 2026

What if the voice urging you to binge isn't really you — and you could ...

What if the voice urging you to binge isn't really you — and you could learn to talk back to it?
This week, Dr. Vera Tarman sits down with psychologist ...and bestselling author Dr. Glenn Livingston, whose unconventional path from Fortune 500 food industry consultant to food compulsion researcher led him to develop one of the most distinctive frameworks in recovery: Never Binge Again.

Glenn shares how his own 80-pound weight loss journey — and nearly 2,000 clients later — shaped a method built on structured food rules, cognitive refutation, and understanding the neuroscience of cravings extinction.

In This Episode:
Why Glenn left lucrative food industry work and what he saw from the inside about how hyperpalatable foods are engineered
The "inner pig" framework — and why separating from the voice that drives bingeing is the foundation of his approach
How his self-funded study of 40,000 people shaped his thinking (and why the results surprised him)
The four food rule categories: Never, Always, Conditional, and Unrestricted
Why 1 in 3 people genuinely need abstinence — and how to tell if you're one of them
The extinction burst: why cravings often get worse before they disappear (and why this is actually good news)
The "screw it, just do it" response — what causes it and how to address it with self-regulation
Commit with perfection, forgive with dignity — how to handle slips without derailing recovery
Abstinence vs. moderation: where Glenn agrees with food addiction models, and where his philosophy diverges
His take on GLP-1 medications and how they fit into the bigger picture
The difference between his original Never Binge Again and his newer book Defeat Your Cravings
Resources Mentioned:

📘 Defeat Your Cravings — free at defeatyourcravings.com
🎙️ Glenn's podcast on binge eating and food addiction recovery
90-day coaching program with Glenn (details at defeatyourcravings.com)
Connect with Food Junkies:
🌐 foodjunkiespodcast.com
📱 Email us at foodjunkiespodcast@gmail.com

If this episode resonated with you, please leave a review and share it with someone who needs to hear it.

The content of our show is educational only. It does not supplement or supersede your healthcare provider's professional relationship and direction. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, substance use disorder, or mental health concern.Show More

Food Junkies Podcast: Can Sugar Create Dry Eye? with Dr Radka Toms, 2026

Your eyes might be revealing metabolic disease long before your doctor ...

Your eyes might be revealing metabolic disease long before your doctor catches it in bloodwork — and most people have no idea. In this episode, Dr. Vera Tarman sits down ...with Dr. Radka Toms, ophthalmologist, functional medicine practitioner, and founder of My Sugar Stop, to explore the fascinating and largely unknown connection between sugar, gut health, and your vision.

Dr. Toms shares her own story — from a "hardcore conventional doctor" eating chocolate bars for lunch to developing rosacea and insulin resistance and eventually pioneering the field of nutritional ophthalmology.

What You'll Learn:
👁️ The Eye-Metabolic Health Connection — How your ophthalmologist may spot insulin resistance, pre-diabetes, and inflammation before your blood work does
💧 Dry Eye & Sugar — Why so many dry eye patients have a metabolic root cause, and how improving diet can reduce or eliminate symptoms
🔬 The Gut-Eye Axis — How bacteria in your gut produce metabolites that travel through the bloodstream and directly affect eye tissue — including the link to macular degeneration, glaucoma, and Sjögren's syndrome
🌿 The 7 Types of Eye Conditions Linked to Metabolic Health:
Dry eye & ocular rosacea
Diabetic retinopathy
Age-related macular degeneration
Glaucoma
Cataracts
Vascular/cardiometabolic changes in the eye
Sjögren's syndrome
☀️ Light as Medicine — Circadian biology, why 10 minutes outside within 20 minutes of waking matters, when to wear sunglasses (11am–3pm), and how ceiling lights at night are confusing your brain
🥑 The PFF Framework — Dr. Toms' practical nutrition approach: Protein, Fat (especially omega-3s), Fiber, and Fermented foods — and why fiber is "the king"
💊 The DRRN Method — Define, Replace, Rebalance, Nourish: Dr. Toms' four-phase approach to helping patients reverse metabolic eye conditions through lifestyle change

Mentioned in This Episode:
My Sugar Stop — https://www.mysugarstop.com/
Matrix Eye Clinic & UHealth (UK-based in-person care): https://matrixeyeclinic.com/our-services/nutritional-ophthalmology/
Lipopolysaccharides as an early inflammatory marker
Robert Lustig's early work on sugar and inflammation

About Dr. Radka Toms: Dr. Toms completed her medical training in the Czech Republic and ophthalmology specialization in the UK, later adding functional medicine and integrative nutritional coaching. She is the founder of My Sugar Stop and Oko Health, and a pioneer in nutritional ophthalmology. She reversed her own rosacea and insulin resistance using the methods she now teaches.

"When you look at an acorn in isolation, you just see an acorn. You don't see its transformative capacity to become an oak tree. People have that same capacity." — Dr. Radka Toms

The Food Junkies Podcast is hosted by Dr. Vera Tarman, Molly Painschab, and Clarissa Kennedy. New episodes every week.

📧Email us at foodjunkiespodcast@gmail.com
👍 Like, subscribe, and share if this episode resonated with you.

The content of our show is educational only. It does not supplement or supersede your healthcare provider's professional relationship and direction. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, substance use disorder, or mental health concern.Show More

Food Junkies Podcast: Clinician's Corner on Shame and Stigma in Ultra Processed Food Addiction, 2026

In this episode of Clinician's Corner, Molly and Clarissa get real ...

In this episode of Clinician's Corner, Molly and Clarissa get real about one of the most pervasive and painful barriers in recovery from ultra-processed food use disorder: shame and stigma.

Fresh ...off facilitating two back-to-back retreats (with Vera joining both!), they bring the depth of those in-person conversations directly to you. This is the kind of episode that meets you where you are — no toxic positivity, no oversimplified "just love yourself" advice, and absolutely no shaming you into change.

In this episode, you'll hear:

The ancient roots of stigma and how it evolved from physical branding to the labels we carry today
How external stigma becomes internalized — and why that inner critic is the real battleground
Why shame is rarely a catalyst for sustainable change (and why "hitting bottom" is not a recovery strategy)
The ways shame quietly shrinks our lives: postponing travel, relationships, photos, joy — until we're "fixed"
Whether shame can ever be an ally, and when it becomes maladaptive
Why self-compassion is the antidote to shame — but it's not the whole story
The difference between doing this work cognitively vs. somatically, and why both matter
What it looks like to stop fighting shame and start collaborating with it instead
Exploring Shame Resource
A note for listeners: This is a big ask. Everything we talk about today is deeply ingrained — not a simple reframe. Give yourself permission to take it slowly. You don't have to figure this out in 60 minutes (it's taken us decades, and we're still in it).

Connect with us:

📧 FoodJunkiesPodcast@gmail.com

🌐 https://www.sweetsobriety.ca/

If this episode resonated with you, please leave a review and share it with someone who needs to hear it. And remember — your life is happening right now. Get in there and live it.

The content of our show is educational only. It does not supplement or supersede your healthcare provider's professional relationship and direction. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, substance use disorder, or mental health concern.Show More

Food Junkies Podcast: Are Your Kids Picky Eaters - how to change that with Natalie Peltro, 2026

What do you do when your child will only eat three foods — and none of ...

What do you do when your child will only eat three foods — and none of them are vegetables? For Natalie Peltro, certified nutritional therapist and lifestyle medicine expert, that ...was her reality. Her son was diagnosed with severe nonverbal autism at 18 months, and the journey to help him heal through food became the foundation of her entire career.

In this episode, Natalie shares the framework she's used with hundreds of families to overcome picky eating — not through force, pressure, or sneaky tricks that backfire — but through biology, nervous system awareness, and what she calls the Four E's.

Whether you're navigating picky eating in your household, supporting clients who struggle with ultra-processed food habits from childhood, or just trying to understand why your kid will eat mac and cheese but nothing green, this conversation is full of practical, compassionate strategies you can start using today.

In this episode, we cover:
How Natalie's son went from eating only 3 foods (nonverbal, severely autistic) to graduating mainstream school with honors
Why "fed is best" may be an outdated framework in today's ultra-processed food environment
The biology of picky eating — zinc deficiency, taste perception, and why green foods taste bitter to nutrient-deficient kids
The 10% Fading Rule: how to transform mac and cheese into a nutrient-dense meal without your child noticing
The Three Stages of Picky Eaters: Resistor, Adventurer, and Negotiator — and why the approach must be different for each
The Four E's Framework: Expectation, Emotional Intelligence, Environment, and Encouragement
Why "taste training" works faster in kids than adults (3–5 days vs. 7–14)
How your nervous system is sabotaging mealtime — and what to do before you even pick up the plate
The coupon system, safe plates, and other creative strategies that actually work
How to talk to grandparents and caregivers about food changes without blowing up the relationship
About Natalie Peltro: Natalie is the co-founder of Blue Life RX and creator of the Neuronutrition Program (formerly "Bring the Fun Back to Mealtime"), which helps families with picky eaters — including children with autism and ARFID — expand their food diversity through biology-first, fun-first strategies. She's also the host of the upcoming Brilliant Brains podcast.

🌐 Website: https://www.blueliferx.com/neuronutrition
📱 Instagram: nataliepelto_blueliferx
ⓕ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BlueLifeRx
🎙️Podcast: Out in June 2026 – keep checking the website!!

The Food Junkies Podcast is hosted by Dr. Vera Tarman, Molly Painschab, and Clarissa Kennedy. New episodes every week.

📧Email us at foodjunkiespodcast@gmail.com
👍 Like, subscribe, and share if this episode resonated with you. Leave a comment below — we'd love to know: what's your biggest challenge around picky eating or feeding your family real food?

The content of our show is educational only. It does not supplement or supersede your healthcare provider's professional relationship and direction. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, substance use disorder, or mental health concern.Show More

Food Junkies Podcast: What if a Food Addiction diet is better than Meds? w Dr Erin Bellamy, 2026

What if the most powerful tool for mental health recovery isn't a ...

What if the most powerful tool for mental health recovery isn't a medication — it's your metabolism - and your diet?

Dr. Erin Louise Bellamy joins Dr. Vera Tarman ...for a deep dive into ketogenic metabolic therapy: what it is, how it works, and why it may be one of the most underutilized interventions in both psychiatric care and food addiction recovery.

Dr. Bellamy is a chartered psychologist, CEO of IKRT (International Ketogenic Research & Therapy), and a research fellow at the University of East London. She has been researching and applying ketogenic metabolic therapy in clinical settings since 2014, with a background that bridges eating disorders, psychiatric research, and metabolic health.

In this episode, Vera and Erin discuss:

How Erin went from eating disorder and alexithymia research to ketogenic metabolic psychiatry — and why the field's "biopsychosocial" model was missing the bio

The difference between metabolic psychiatry, ketogenic therapy, and therapeutic carbohydrate restriction — and why the terminology matters

What carbohydrate range actually produces therapeutic ketosis (and why "dirty keto" doesn't cut it)

The shared mechanistic pathways across psychiatric diagnoses — including mitochondrial dysfunction, insulin resistance, and neuroinflammation

Why antipsychotic medications create metabolic dysfunction, and how ketogenic therapy can help offset those side effects

The GABA/glutamate shift that makes ketones naturally anxiolytic — and why this may work differently than the serotonin model of depression

The "buffer effect": what it feels like to be in ketosis when you're a food addict — and why some people describe it as a pane of glass between themselves and a trigger food

How ketogenic therapy compares to GLP-1 medications (Ozempic/Wegovy) for reducing food noise — and Erin's concerns about the long-term research

MCT oil vs. exogenous ketones: when each is useful, and when exogenous ketones are counterproductive

Applying ketogenic therapy to people with ADHD, bipolar disorder, and co-occurring food addiction

How to support vegan or plant-based clients who want to pursue ketogenic therapy

Why the first week matters most — and how to help clients through withdrawal without triggering a binge

The 19-person IKRT group program published in Frontiers — and what's coming next in the research

Connect with Dr. Erin Bellamy:

🌐Web: Integrative Ketogenic Research and Therapies | ketogenic diet and mental health

Shape

Food Junkies Podcast is hosted by Dr. Vera Tarman, Molly Painschab, and Clarissa Kennedy. New episodes every week.

Connect with Food Junkies Podcast:

🌐Web: Food Junkies Podcast
▶️ YouTube: Food Junkies Podcast - YouTube

💌Email: foodjunkiespodcast@gmail.com

The content of our show is educational only. It does not supplement or supersede your healthcare provider's professional relationship and direction. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, substance use disorder, or mental health concern.Show More

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Food Junkies

The Food Junkies Podcast evolved from the book. Each week, Vera Tarman, Clarrissa Kennedy, and Molly Painschab connect with scientists, Food Addiction clinicians, authors, and recovering Food Addicts to share fresh insights and tackle emerging debates.

Food Junkies Podcast: Food Addiction in Older Adults, with Lucy Loch, 2026

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