Book Review: It's Not Your Fault: Weight Gain, Obesity and Food Addiction by Emmanuel Barling Jr and Ashley Brooks

its not your fault cover
Synopsis:  Two-thirds of adult Americans are overweight.In their newest guide to a sane approach for better health, Award Winning health authors Mannie Barling and Ashley Brooks answer the main question for those who have failed in dieting: "Are you addicted to chemical food ingredients.or is the addiction just in your mind?"


In this comprehensive work the authors describe the causes of food craving,overeating and food addiction and they reveal the dangerous addictive chemicals used by food manufacturers which cause the compulsive and obsessive eating that leads to today's obesity epidemic.


The leading addiction of the American public -- surpassing even cigarettes and alcohol -- is overeating to the point of obesity. American obesity rates, in fact, are the highest in the world. Nearly twenty percent of the adult population has been diagnosed as clinically obese and there are ten million overweight and obese children in the U.S. "Americans did not get fat overnight nor did some mosquito spread a deadly virus that causes obesity," write the authors.


Barling and Brooks convincingly show that weight gain and obesity are the result of an addiction to chemical food ingredients, the dangers of genetically modified fruits and vegetables and the damage caused by the synthetic growth hormones, carcinogens and antibiotics found in factory farmed meats and dairy.For any reader who has failed to lose or keep off weight despite conscientious juicing,eating salad diets, drinking healthy food shakes or changing diets like a yo-yo It's Not Your Faultoffers hope.


Review: This is NOT an easy book to get through, but it is one that EVERYONE, especially parents, MUST read! The authors have done an excellent job of compiling all the case studies and breaking them down into ways that are easy for anyone to understand the results. This book will cause you to question literally EVERYTHING you, and your family eat.


On one hand, this book is the best eye-opener about the stranglehold that a few companies have over most of America's food production from literally SEEDS to the products you buy in the store. On the other, it will scare you to death for the same reason, when you realize there is really not much that can be done about it. Especially when I read today that The Organic Organizations who had been battling Monsanto have now decided to let the battle go (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_22449.cfm). 


There IS SO much in this book that I really do not know how to review it!  I could do a long review of EACH chapter! I have SO many pages turned down! I felt like I was back in college and studying for an exam! So I am going to list a few things I learned :

  • MSG (leading cause of migraines) is hidden in Maltodextrin, Yeast Extract, Hydrogeneated Vegetable Oil, Autolyzed Yeast and Hydrogeneated Vegetable Protein. So even if you say no MSG at a restaurant, the odds are you are getting it due to the contents of the food or oil used! 
  • Did you know the transport of MSG is controlled by the Bioterrorist Act of 2002? Yup, it is listed as harmful to the public
  • MSG is an excitotoxin- it excites your brain cells. Which is why manufacturers put in in their products- to get us to want to eat more of the product. When they enter the blood-brain barrier, they affect the appetite control center, and kill brain cells, the same as alcohol! You basically will not be able to stop yourself from eating more (think potato chips and you have an idea).
  • Excitotoxins are in marijuana- they cause the 'munchies'. Legal excitotxins are in over 9,000 food products!  If you eat 3 meals a day that contain MSG or another excitotoxin (knowingly or unknowingly), you are consuming more than 1500 times the daily amount that your brain can process. The results could be seizures or abnormal neural development (in kids). Oh and the average fast food meal has between 50 and 75 excitotoxins in it! Puts the 'Happy" in the kids meal!
  • No matter what the food companies tell you High Fructose Corn Syrup can cause increased weight gain, damage to liver and pancreas, increase your cholestrol and change your metabolism. Maybe the reason the over 30 crowd has such a hard time loosing weight is nor for lack of trying, but because they consume an average of 63.6 POUNDS of high fructose corn syrup (in varying forms) in an YEAR. 
  • Your average soda contains 2 oz of table sugar and 2 oz of high fructose corn syrup or added sweetener. That means that ONE 12 oz can of soda has 1/3 it's volume in SUGAR. The rest? 1 oz synthetic flavorings and 7 oz filtered water= Liquid candy! 
  • Did you know that the Corn refiner's Assc petitioned the government ( and won in 2010) to change "high fructose corn syrup" to "corn sugar", after the public started cutting back on products with it in them? It may sound healthier but it's the same bad stuff!
  • The rise of childhood obesity can be traced to the use of MSG and excitotoxins in baby formula AND prepared baby food. Once a child gets used to having them in their system, they can suffer withdrawl, when switched to purely organic foods, the same as alcohol.
  • In the US, more than 99% of all crops grown are now genetically modified. Either by engineering the seeds so only one crop can be grown from them, to controlling their fertilizer and water and pesticides. When the cattle or pigs eat the engineered feed, everything that is bad in it goes into their systems, and eventually into the meat we eat, and the milk we drink.

As you can see, this is just the tip of the iceberg for what this book contains. I will admit I look at labels a WHOLE lot differently now and find myself ordering much differently at fast food places. The authors offer a 12 point diet tip scale at the end of the book. After reading this book you will be scared, but much better informed. It will also give you some insight as to why other countries have issues with food and seeds sent from the US for aid, or resale.  if you want to be an informed consumer, READ this book! then go read the FDA site thoroughly about these products, and you'll be shocked too! 


About the Authors:The authors joined together for 2 previous books: Arthritis, Inflammation, Gout, Crohn’s, IBD, and IBS , and Mannie’s Diet and Enzyme Formula.  They decided to write this book, after both battled life threatening health issues, which caused them to evaluate their lifestyles, and diets. Their research took them in different directions, but it all came back to food, as the possible cause of their problems. The more they researched, the more they realized a new book was needed. 





Disclosure / Disclaimer: I was sent this book, free of charge, for review purposes, by the author via Bostick Communications. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about the book either

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