I am definitely one for gun control – but for trigger foods I would make an exception. Here’s a list of my top 5 trigger foods to avoid, as well as what to do if you’ve got ‘your finger on the trigger’.
What are trigger foods?
When you take a bite, does your mouth water?
Do you get an uncontrollable ‘ Oh how I’ve missed you, I’ll just eat you all up!’ type of reaction?
Do you find that one bite just isn’t enough?
Then congratulations – you’ve just bitten into a trigger food.
My top 5 trigger foods
1. Cheese
For some of you this could be a different form of dairy such as sugary yogurt (putting it in the sugar-plus-fat category), but for me cheese was top of my trigger foods list.
Some cheeses seem to be ‘worse’ than others: for example for me, cheddar was really ‘bad’, whereas I was able to eat a small amount of mozzarella or feta and not get that ‘oh wow I need more’ feeling.
I now make nut cheese instead by soaking cashews with vegan probiotic powder. You can read more about nut cheeses here.
2. Bread
This is another big one. Is there a kind of bread that’s a trigger for you? For me it’s the brown, soft, full-of-crunchy-seeds-and-grains bread where the bun practically tears itself in half for you. Sigh!
Thank goodness I can make sprouted bread!
What is it for you? Bagels? White bread?
Know thine enemies, as they say!
3. Bacon
Oh, the combination of salt and fat could really shoot me down, that’s for sure! (If I listen, that is).
I find the best alternative for me is sweet and sour type sauces with crunchy vegetables: for example a Chinese-style recipe with a mixture of tamari and spices, such as my Quick Oriental Veggies recipe here.
4. Brownies or cookies
I just don’t eat these. Ever. It isn’t worth the guilt trip afterwards, and I’ve found that raw chocolate treats taste so good that I don’t really need these anymore.
If I bite into a brownie I can literally feel the sugar (or a chemical something!) shoot straight up into my brain. Plus the raw alternatives actually taste better, once you know how to make them. (See my suggestions at the end of this article).
5. Tortilla chips or potato chips
The first thing I wanted to make raw? Tortilla chips!
This is because I knew I needed a healthy alternative to eating an entire bag of Doritos.
I’ve identified my trigger foods…so now what?
Avoid them if you can, or hide them!
Try not to buy trigger foods at all, then they won’t be in the house.
But if like me you have people in your house who want and eat them, you can hide them in hard-to-find places, or ask other family members to hide them. Tell them they are NOT to tell you where they are, on pain of death.
(Well maybe not pain of death, but perhaps pain of a crabby-you-who-is-coming-down-off-of-a-sugar-high and looking for someone to lash out at in a chemically-fueled state of guilt.)
That would certainly be a big enough threat for my family!
Otherwise you can try option 2 which is to…
Have healthy alternatives on hand at all times
This is where raw food is such a huge help. Once you’ve identified the foods that most often cause you to ‘slip up’, learn how to make healthy alternatives, even if they’re not raw.
You’re better off having homemade foods that aren’t all raw rather than the added chemicals and preservatives that are part of the whole junk food addiction problem in the first place.
Change your habits
You can make this really fun. One thing I learnt with Tony Robbins in my NLP-style trainings was how you can interrupt a pattern of behavior…and have a blast at the same time! If you feel your ‘finger on the trigger’, stop! Stop! Stop! Immediately do something completely different, and if it’s ridiculous, even better.
I’ll start with milder options to not scare you off and put the more zany stuff at the end.
So in the midst of reaching for that donut, you could:
- Start counting backwards (out loud preferably)
- Run from the room and start doing a math problem (definitely not my choice but if you’re mathematically minded this could work for you)
- Jump up and down or spin in circles, saying the first thing that comes to your mind (beware if there are small children in the room though)
- Scream ‘Get thee hence, Satan!’ (I owe Tony for this one, which worked for him in a restaurant…)
The idea is to ‘fool’ your brain, to make it form a new neural pathway between the food and your emotional state. I’ll go more into this in another post, but this should give you some ideas to get started.
If emotional eating is an issue for you, you can read more about it here.
If you want to read more about cravings, you can read about why we have them here, and how long it really takes to beat them here.
And speaking of getting started, I’d love to hear how you get on with this!
What are your trigger foods? How have you been dealing with them?
Any good tips you’d like to share? Post ’em in the comments below!