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So, since Dover sole fillet are quite thin, I stacked them together and then vacuum sealed to create a nice fat piece to roast in butter. Half way through I added some preserved lemon to the pan, and served it with squash, also cooked in butter, and a drizzle of the cooking butter. It was very tasty.

Certainly, some substances have more addictive qualities than others, but like you said, the mere presence of these substances is not what causes one to become addicted to them. There is always a void that exists prior to one becoming addicted.

I think the greatest misconception surrounding addiction is that the substance itself is somehow inherently addicting. But, this is just not true. Why is it that I would be able to smoke a pack of cigarettes, never touch them again, and you smoke a pack and get hooked for life? One does not tend to get addicted to a substance unless there was an imbalance in their system prior to initiation to the drug. This is not only true with narcotics, but studies have shown the same process occurs with sugar in the case of bulimic women. Sugar acts on the opiate receptors in the brain much like certain drugs do. That is why some people can eat one cookie, and others can't stop until the whole jar is gone.

Dr. Gabor Mate is an excellent author on addiction. In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts is a fascinating read.

Agreed. And everyone knows how hard it is to break a bad habit. I'd like to think that humans are able to exude a bit more compassion for one another. We tend to stop judging others once we stop judging ourselves. I don't think a dime is getting to the root of the problem, and would most likely solve nothing.

I for one have a real issue with that statement. Are people being forcefed McD's burgers? 2 l bottles of pop being shoved into their grocery carts with death threats not to remove? Forced at gunpoint to consume hot chocolate with whipped cream at Stawbucks? Who, then can we blame? Society on the whole? Advertisers? The Senate who just recently allowed that Pizza is indeed healthy and french fries are a serving of vegetables for school hot lunch program? Blame anybody, just not ourselves. We have nothing to do with what we put in our mouths and how we use our bodies... It's reasonable to say that, to a degree, we are all responsible for our actions. The problem with this is that while it is quite simple for us to place the blame on the individual for a lack of willpower or self control, it is not so easy for us to understand why anyone would actively chose to be sick and overweight, or over consume in the first place. It really is not about willpower, and choice is often not a part of the equation. The war on drugs is an example I like to provoke in comparison. Nancy Reagan told us to "just say no" and we've all seen how wonderfully that worked. If it were just as simple as saying "no", or telling someone to put down the Milky Way, we might not have a population of sick and overweight Americans. The problem goes much deeper, and in order to solve anything, one must go to the root. We can trim the hedges all we want, but until we pull the root, the weed will just keep growing back, and people will just keep gaining back the pounds.

Right, but the point I was trying to make was that you're not active because you're eating, you're eating because you're active. When we exercise, say walking 60 blocks, we are burning mostly glucose and reserved glycogen. Our bodies, in the interest of maintaining homeostatic balance, will try to replace those calories expended by asking you to eat. I can elaborate more on this if you'd like. It's difficult to give everyone the same recommendation. Of course, one way may work for you, while it just doesn't jive with another. But, at the end of the day, we are all human, and our bodies, more or less, work the same way. So, implementing a diet that can control the hormonal regulation of fat tissue is something that I would probably recommend to most people who struggle losing weight. I would probably also recommend supplementation for certain things. We can't forget how stress plays a role in both gaining weight, and the inability to lose it, so that needs to be accounted for as well. But, at the crux of this issue, I believe, is sugar and refined carbohydrates. I think our food culture certainly plays a role in why people are constantly eating all the time, or are obsessed with food. The issue is both psychological as well as physiological, and it can be a vicious cycle for some. And as easy as it might be for me to recommend someone to abstain from carbohydrates for weight loss, the truth is that it may not be so easy for some to do. For some because of cost, for others, physical and psychological dependence. Though, I don't believe this is the fault of those who can't help themselves. Placing blame on the individual does nothing but ignore the real issue at hand. It is simply society's way of disregarding its own failings. I have the study somewhere. I will try to find it later and post back more in detail.

No problem. You'll enjoy making it, I think, at least once. The production of roasting 25 pounds of veal bones, and reducing a liquid for over 12 hours is always healthy every now and then. If you lived closer I'd let you borrow a container. But that might take out all the excitement of doing it yourself! Yes. It can be frozen for later use. Thank heaven.

Making "veal jus":

Good question. If you follow the exact quantities for most of the sauces in this book, you will end up with much, much more than you actually need. And veal jus is not exactly a cheap, or quick, ingredient to make. You are basically reducing the amount of jus by half to obtain your sauce. So, think of how much sauce you will need (maybe 1/4 to 1/2 cup for 4 people) and use double that amount of jus in place of the recommended 4 cups. Then just add the other ingredients to taste.

This is untrue. In the 1950′s twenty overweight DuPont executives ate a high-calorie, low-carbohydrate diet and averaged a loss of 2 pounds per week without reported hunger between meals. Several experiments confirm that caloric intake does not inhibit weight loss if carbohydrate intake is low.

They may not go to McDonalds for simple carbs, but it's precisely the simple carbs that are responsible for making them fat from doing so. Read Gary Taubes.

I guess by nature, I meant the "wild". Areas of land, such as the desert, and islands that are inhabited by no one other than me, the flora, and the fauna. It tends to give one a new perspective on things.

The bolded I agree with, and you are basically agreeing with me as well. But there needs to be a distinction made between professional athletes and the general public, which is who we are talking about here. In the case of the latter, it is the same simple carbohydrates that athletes use for quick energy that are making them fat and sick.

I have lived in nature. And I have also lived in society. The two are most definitely not one and the same.

I really don't understand what you mean here. Are you saying that only thin people run? Or that no fat people exercise? That's simply not true. No, that's not what I'm saying. I've seen the analogy drawn using Lance Armstrong as an example. He is someone who can eat whatever he wants--I believe a large bowl of fettucini in the mornings--yet does not gain any fat. An the reason is not that he's thin because he rides his bike, but that he rides his bike because he is thin. The hormones regulating his fat tissue do not want to store those calories as fat; his body wants to burn the excess glucose that's floating around as fuel. Fat people can exercise all they want. Though I probably wouldn't recommend it if they are trying to lose weight. We've all heard of the idea of "working up an appetite".

Don't be petulant.

It starts even earlier than childhood. Gestational diabetes affects an increasingly large amount of children, and Type 2 diabetes, once only a disease of adulthood, is now being diagnosed to the youth. We even have an epidemic of obese 6-month-olds. You're not going to blame a baby for a lack of will power, too, are you?

You're describing what is called the "Thrifty Gene Hypothesis". That in nature, man would not fatten because of periods of food scarcity. This was basically the work of Kelly Brownell at Yale, and the theory has been disproven. It may be so that man will reserve adipose tissue for times of need, but never, in nature, would man become obese or develop what's known as Metabolic disorder, including diabetes, antherosclerosis, dyslipidemia, etc.

Actually, the way it was originally phrased by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin in his Physiology of Taste was "Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are". But it's probably more accurate to say that you are what your body does to what you eat. The reason a marathon runner does not store calories as fat is because they burn them through extended cardiovascular exercise. They are not thin because they run; they run because they are thin. Their bodies are primed to burn glucose. It is the same reason the obese are normally sedentary. It is not that they get fat because they don't exercise, but rather their fat tissue hoards energy that they now can no longer expend. A sort of reversed causality to the conventional way of thinking, if you will.

And the human body is not that simplistic. It is not a machine. You are completely ignoring the role hormones play in fat tissue regulation.

Well, yeah, but that doesn't address why people are over consuming in the first place, which is the real question you should be asking.

Ah, I see. You are of the thought that it's someones choice to be overweight, and that it's somehow a matter of a lack of self control. Blame the individual? It's a pretty tired and ignorant thought.

I'm sorry, but you are dead wrong here.

You're misunderstanding me. It's because you are eating the wrong things in the first place that you consume more calories than your body needs. The business of obesity is very profitable. And yes, keeping you fat and sick is unfortunately in the interest of many industries. But if berries and yogurt work for you, then bon appetit!