What does it take to turn personal pain into policy change? In this episode, Dr. Vera Tarman sits down with Chérie St. Arnauld, Executive Director of Metabolic Revolution and a passionate advocate for metabolic health, to explore the power of grassroots mobilization in the fight against ultra-processed foods.

Chérie grew up in a household shaped by economic constraints and ultra-processed food. It was her sister's cancer diagnosis, and the radical dietary intervention that gave her 10 more years of life, that forever changed how Chérie understood the relationship between food and healing. Today, she's channeling that lived experience into one of the most dynamic grassroots organizations in the metabolic health space.

In this conversation, Vera and Chérie explore what the food addiction and metabolic health communities can learn from each other, and what it actually looks like to build a movement from the ground up.

🎙️ What We Cover:

• Chérie's story: growing up on ultra-processed foods, her sister's illness, and the whole-food dietary shift that changed everything

• How a ketogenic diet transformed Chérie's mental health and clarity

• The founding of Metabolic Revolution and its mission to empower individuals to demand change from their institutions

• The October 2024 Rally for Metabolic Health at the Washington Monument — how it happened, who spoke, and what it sparked

• The petition to ban ultra-processed foods from school meals — and the volunteer-led school lunch committee it inspired

• A halted ketogenic therapy research study at the University of Maryland — and how Metabolic Revolution took action

• The parallel between Big Food and Big Tobacco — and what a master settlement agreement could look like

• Grassroots strategies: rallies, community walks, petitions, state attorney general investigations, and more

• Why individual stories + research + cost data may be the most powerful combination in advocacy

• The intersection of food addiction and metabolic health — and why these movements are stronger together

• What the food addiction world can learn from Metabolic Revolution's bottom-up approach

🔗 Resource(s) Mentioned:

• Metabolic Revolution: metabolicrevolution.org

🙌 If you or someone you love is struggling with ultra-processed food use disorder, please visit us at sweetsobriety.ca and foodjunkiespodcast.com

Connect with Food Junkies:

🎙️ Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts

💻 Website: foodjunkiespodcast.com

▶️ YouTube: Food Junkies Podcast - YouTube

💌 Email: foodjunkiespodcast@gmail.com

👍 Like, subscribe, and leave a review — it helps more people find us.

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

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.

If you're considering personalized assistance, CJ, a Certified Addiction Professional specializing in Food Addiction, is here for one-on-one coaching. Reach out to CJ at cjnguy@myfoodaddictioncoach.com

Interested in sharing your recovery story on our show? We'd love to hear from you! Please email FJRecoverystories@gmail.com

What's really happening inside your child's body when they eat ultra-processed food? In this episode, Dr. Vera Tarman sits down with Dr. Jacob May — mitochondrial researcher, registered dietitian, and Associate Professor at Pennington Biomedical Research Center — to explore the cellular and metabolic consequences of a diet dominated by ultra-processed foods, particularly in children.

Dr. May leads the Mitochondrial Energetics and Nutrient Utilization Laboratory, where his team investigates how dietary patterns shape metabolism at the cellular level. He's a keynote speaker, precision nutrition researcher, and practicing clinician — and his insights here are both science-forward and refreshingly practical.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• Why mitochondria can't tell the difference between a McDonald's burger and organic beef — and why that still matters
• What phytonutrients and zoonutrients are, and why ultra-processing strips them out
• How ultra-processed foods drive insulin resistance through a damaging feedback loop
• Whether children are more resilient or more vulnerable to the effects of UPFs — and why the answer is complicated
• What the research actually says about saturated fat, ketogenic diets, and insulin sensitivity
• How the gut microbiome is affected by ultra-processed food intake
• Why breath biomarkers may be the future of non-invasive metabolic screening
• What GLP-1 medications mean for the future of nutrition science — and why dietitians aren't obsolete
• Practical, real-world advice for feeding children in an ultra-processed food environment

About Dr. Jacob May:

Dr. Jacob May is an Associate Professor at Pennington Biomedical Research Center and head of the Mitochondrial Energetics and Nutrient Utilization Laboratory. His research focuses on how dietary patterns — including ketogenic and ultra-processed food diets — affect cellular metabolism, insulin sensitivity, and metabolic disease. He holds a PhD in nutrition science and is a Registered Dietitian with an active clinical practice. He was a keynote speaker at Pennington's 2025 Childhood Obesity Conference.

Email Dr. May: Jacob.Mey@pbrc.edu

Connect with Food Junkies: 🎙️ Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts 💻 Website: foodjunkiespodcast.com ▶️ YouTube: Food Junkies Podcast - YouTube 💌 Email: foodjunkiespodcast@gmail.com

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

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.

Are you working hard, caring deeply, and still feeling like it's not enough? You're not alone, and this episode is for you.

This week, Molly and Clarissa sit down with Dr. Ellen Hendriksen, clinical psychologist, core faculty at the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University, and author of How to Be Enough and How to Be Yourself. Ellen brings warmth, science, and radical compassion to one of the most common, and most quietly painful, struggles in recovery: perfectionism.

In this conversation, we explore:

🔹 Where perfectionism actually comes from — genetics, family of origin, AND the culture we're swimming in 🔹 Why shame fuels the binge-restrict cycle and how to begin replacing self-punishment with self-kindness 🔹 The crucial difference between rules and values — and how that distinction can transform your recovery 🔹 Why procrastination is never really about time (and what it's actually telling you) 🔹 How to build a stable, grounded sense of self-worth that isn't constantly up for evaluation 🔹 Why comparison is hardwired — and what to do with it instead of fighting it 🔹 The "already enough" practice that rewires how we see ourselves

Whether you're navigating food addiction recovery, disordered eating, or just the exhausting weight of never feeling like you measure up — this episode offers real tools, real grace, and real hope.

ABOUT DR. ELLEN HENDRIKSEN Dr. Ellen Hendriksen is a clinical psychologist specializing in anxiety and perfectionism. She is core faculty at the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders (CARD) at Boston University and author of two books: How to Be Enough (perfectionism) and How to Be Yourself (social anxiety). Find her newsletter How to Be Good to Yourself When You're Hard on Yourself on Substack.

🔗 Find Ellen's books wherever books are sold 📬 Ellen's Substack: Search "How to Be Good to Yourself When You're Hard on Yourself"

CONNECT WITH US:

Food Junkies Podcast on YouTube: (2) Food Junkies Podcast - YouTube

📧 Email us at: foodjunkiespodcast@gmail.com

If this episode resonated with you, please leave us 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.

Have you ever left a session feeling smaller than when you walked in? In this episode of Food Junkies: Clinician's Corner, Clarissa and Molly explore one of the most important — and least talked about — dynamics in eating disorder, food addiction, and substance use treatment: what happens when the clinician's model gets in the way of the client's healing.

🔑 What We Cover in This Episode:

⬡ The Rosenhan Experiment — how psychiatric patients were misdiagnosed and then had their normal behavior interpreted as worsening symptoms, and what it reveals about clinical bias today

⬡ Epistemic dismissal — the active or passive rejection of a person's own knowledge and lived experience by the very professionals meant to help them

⬡ How diagnosis can be a flashlight or a floodlight — illuminating patterns vs. erasing the person

⬡ What happens when clients start performing recovery instead of living it

⬡ The role of ego in clinical practice — and why it doesn't always look like arrogance (sometimes it looks like certainty)

⬡ Why ambivalence is not pathology — and why allowing clients to explore moderation can be clinically sound

⬡ The difference between recovery and discovery, and why one may feel more alive than the other

⬡ How behaviors that look like symptoms are often solutions — and why treating the smoke instead of the fire keeps people stuck

⬡ Why autonomy predicts engagement and long-term change — and what that means for how we design treatment

⬡ Whose anxiety is actually driving the treatment plan?

🔗 Connect With Us:

📧 Topic suggestions & questions: foodjunkiespodcast@gmail.com

▶️ Watch on YouTube — subscribe to help us grow and reach more people who need this content!

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.

In this powerful episode of Food Junkies, we're joined by Amber Romaniuk, emotional eating and digestive health expert, to unpack the real drivers behind binge eating, food addiction, and the relentless restrict–overeat cycle.

Amber shares her personal recovery journey from binge eating, bulimia, and food addiction—and explains why lasting healing requires more than another diet or food plan. Together, we explore how hormones, thyroid function, nervous system stress, and shame shape our relationship with food in ways most people are never taught.

This conversation is especially important for women who feel like they "know better" but still struggle—and wonder why nothing seems to stick.

🎯 In this episode, we cover:

• Why emotional eating is communication, not a lack of willpower
• How cortisol, thyroid dysfunction, and low progesterone can drive cravings and binge cycles
• Why fasting, restriction, and over-exercise often worsen food addiction patterns
• How shame keeps people stuck—and what actually helps dissolve it
• What "Body Freedom" really means beyond weight loss
• First steps to identify emotional eating triggers without self-blame
• Why healing your relationship with food must come before hormone repair can work

This episode is for you if:
✔ You struggle with binge or emotional eating
✔ Diets and food rules keep backfiring
✔ You suspect hormones or stress are part of the picture
✔ You're exhausted by shame and ready for a deeper, kinder path forward

🔗 Connect with Amber Romaniuk

🌐 Website & free resources: https://amberapproved.ca
🎙 Podcast: The No Sugarcoating Podcast
📱 Instagram & YouTube: @AmberRomaniuk

👍 If this episode helped you, please like, subscribe, and share—it helps more people find compassionate, evidence-informed conversations about food addiction recovery.

▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FoodJunkiesPodcast

💌 Email us at: foodjunkiespodcast@gmail.com

💬 Comment below: What part of this conversation resonated most 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.

Is there a built-in "fat switch" in our genes—something nature designed to help us store fat for survival? And if so, what does that mean for food addicts living in a world saturated with ultra-processed food?

In this episode, Dr. Vera Tarman sits down with Dr. Richard Johnson, Professor Emeritus at the University of Colorado, former Chief of the Division of Renal Diseases and Hypertension, author of The Sugar Fix, The Fat Switch, and Nature Wants Us to Be Fat, and a researcher with 700+ scientific papers to his name.

Dr. Johnson explains how fructose (from sugar and high-fructose corn syrup—but also produced inside the body under certain conditions) can activate a powerful metabolic pathway that increases hunger, lowers cellular energy, and shifts calories toward fat storage. He connects this to uric acid, salt, high-glycemic carbohydrates, and the modern "perfect storm" of ultra-processed foods engineered to intensify cravings.

Together, they explore the evolutionary logic of fat storage, why visceral fat may have had survival value, why "calories in/calories out" fails to explain the whole picture, and what practical steps can help people restore metabolic flexibility—including carbohydrate reduction, movement that supports mitochondrial health, and the emerging role of GLP-1 medications as a tool (not a replacement) for nutrition change.

What You'll Learn

🔥Why Dr. Johnson argues sugar isn't "just a calorie," and how fructose changes metabolism differently

🔥The role of uric acid in blood pressure, metabolic disease, and the fructose pathway

🔥How salt + starch + fat can amplify the "fat switch" (and why chips and fries are a perfect example)

🔥Why the body can make fructose from glucose, even if you aren't eating fructose directly

🔥The survival biology behind fat storage—and why visceral fat may have had an adaptive purpose

🔥How insulin resistance can be a short-term protective mechanism (and how modern life turns it chronic)

🔥Why low-carb approaches may "reboot" sugar absorption and cravings in as little as 7–14 days

🔥What Dr. Johnson believes is a major dietary driver of Alzheimer's risk

🔥How to support mitochondria through movement and nutrition

🔥Dr. Johnson's perspective on GLP-1s: benefits, limits, and relapse risk after stopping

Resources Mentioned

Dr. Richard Johnson's books: The Sugar Fix, The Fat Switch, Nature Wants Us to Be Fat

About Our Guest

Dr. Richard Johnson is Professor Emeritus at the University of Colorado, a former Chief of Renal Diseases and Hypertension, and the author of The Sugar Fix, The Fat Switch, and Nature Wants Us to Be Fat. His research explores how sugar—particularly fructose—drives kidney disease, hypertension, diabetes, and obesity, and how modern food environments may overactivate ancient survival pathways.

If this episode helped you understand your cravings or your biology with more clarity and less shame, please share it with a friend, leave a review, and subscribe so more people can find recovery-focused science.

✉️ Email us: foodjunkiespodcast@gmail.com

Follow us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FoodJunkiesPodcast

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.