Food Junkies Podcast

Are you exhausted from chasing motivation that never lasts? In this Clinician's Corner episode, Molly Painschab and Clarissa Kennedy break down why motivation is actually an outcome, not a starting point — and what truly drives sustainable recovery from ultra-processed food use disorder. 

Using the lens of Self-Determination Theory (SDT), they unpack the three psychological needs every person in recovery must have met: autonomy, relatedness, and competence — the often-overlooked key that separates short-term compliance from lasting change. 

🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE: 

Why "just get motivated" is the wrong advice — and what to focus on instead 


The three pillars of Self-Determination Theory and how they apply to food addiction recovery 


Why external pressure (shame, fear, "I should") can actually increase relapse risk 


The difference between a stick-and-carrot and real motivation 


What competence actually means  


How the Foundations Program (81+ skills and tools!) was built around these principles 


Why recovery is a learning process, not a decision 


What the research now says about forced compliance 


Small, practical ways to start building self-trust today 


🛠️ WHAT'S IN THE FOUNDATIONS PROGRAM? The Sweet Sobriety Foundations Program includes 81+ skills and tools covering: 
✔️ Nervous system regulation 
✔️ CBT & DBT frameworks 
✔️ Mindfulness & self-compassion practices 
✔️ Recovery planning 
✔️ Craving and urge management 
✔️ Emotional awareness and distress tolerance 

📬 CONNECT WITH US:  

📧 Email: [email protected]  

🌐 Website: foodjunkiespodcast.com 

🍓 Learn more about Sweet Sobriety: www.sweetsobriety.ca 

If you found this episode helpful, please leave us a review and share it with someone who needs to hear that the problem was never their motivation. 

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.

CJ welcomes Heather to the podcast, a guest whose bright, charismatic energy lights up the conversation from the start. Heather is exceptionally open and instantly warming, sharing her journey with honesty and heart. She speaks candidly about living with diabetes, her long battle with sugar and ultra-processed food addiction, and the moment everything changed,  when she realized she wanted to become a healthy, active grandmother for her grandchild. That love became her fuel for transformation. Heather's story is one of resilience, clarity, and choosing herself and her family again and again. I cannot wait for you to meet her.
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 [email protected] 
Interested in sharing your recovery story on our show? We'd love to hear from you! Please email [email protected]

What does recovery look like — and how do we measure it? In this episode, we're joined by Dr. John Kelly, one of the world's leading addiction researchers and founder of the Recovery Research Institute at Harvard Medical School, for a deep dive into the science behind what makes recovery possible, sustainable, and real.
Dr. Kelly breaks down the difference between remission and recovery, shares what decades of research tells us about who gets better (spoiler: most people do) and unpacks the active ingredients that help people build lives they love. We also get into the language we use around addiction, why it matters more than you think, and what the latest science says about stigma, stages of change, and recovery capital.
Whether you are in recovery, supporting someone who is, or working in the field — this episode is packed with hope, science, and practical insight.
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🔑 IN THIS EPISODE
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• What recovery actually means — and how it's different from remission
• Why 75% of people with substance use disorder do recover (and what that means for you)
• The CHIME model: the 5 active ingredients of lasting recovery
  → Community | Hope | Identity | Meaning & Purpose | Empowerment
• Stages of Change (Prochaska & DiClemente) — and why just thinking about change counts
• Recovery Capital: what's in your "recovery bank account"?
• The power of language — why words like "abuser" cause measurable harm
• Stigma, genetics, and why addiction is nobody's fault
• What excites Dr. Kelly most about the future of addiction research
• Psychedelics and addiction treatment: cautious optimism from a Harvard researcher
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👤 ABOUT OUR GUEST
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John Kelly is the Elizabeth R. Spallin Professor of Psychiatry in the Field of Addiction Medicine at Harvard Medical School and founder and director of the Recovery Research Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is one of the world's leading researchers on addiction recovery, mutual help organizations, and reducing stigma in the addiction field.
🔗 Recovery Research Institute: www.recoveryanswers.org
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🎙️ FOOD JUNKIES PODCAST
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The Food Junkies Podcast explores food addiction and ultra-processed food use disorder through honest conversations with clinicians, researchers, and people in recovery. Hosted by Dr. Vera Tarman, Clarissa Kennedy, and Molly Painschab.
📲 Subscribe so you never miss an episode
▶️ Find us on YouTube
👍 Like this video if it gives you hope
💬 Drop a comment — what 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.

What if the key to understanding your relationship with food isn't willpower — it's neuroscience? In this fascinating episode, Dr. Vera Tarman sits down with Dr. Rachel Herz, neuroscientist, leading expert on the psychology of smell, and author of Why You Eat What You Eat and That's Disgusting. From the evolutionary roots of disgust to why ultra-processed foods bypass our natural aversion responses, this conversation will genuinely change how you think about what ends up on your plate — and in your mouth.
What You'll Learn in This Episode
Why disgust is almost entirely learned — and what the one innate exception is
The neuroanatomy of smell and why scent is so deeply tied to emotion and memory
How one bad experience with a food can create a lifelong aversion (one-trial learning)
The difference between disgust and fear — and why that distinction matters for disordered eating
Why non-tasters may be more prone to overeating than super tasters
How ultra-processed food is engineered to bypass our natural "this isn't real food" signals
Whether disgust could be a therapeutic tool in changing our relationship with UPFs
Why Dr. Herz believes disordered eating is psychological and behavioral — and where she and the Food Junkies team respectfully differ on the addiction model
Practical, science-backed strategies for becoming more intentional around eating
About Dr. Rachel Herz
Dr. Rachel Herz is a neuroscientist and faculty member at Brown University, widely regarded as the world's leading expert on the psychology of smell. She is a TED 2019 and TEDx 2024 speaker, has published 108 peer-reviewed research articles, and serves as an expert witness in legal cases involving smell. She is the incoming president of the International Society of Neural Gastronomy.
Her books include:
Sensation and Perception (widely used neuroscience textbook)
That's Disgusting: Unveiling the Mysteries of Repulsion — a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice
Why You Eat What You Eat: The Science Behind Our Relationship with Food — named among the best food books of 2018 by Smithsonian and The New Yorker
Connect with Dr. Rachel Herz
🌐 rachelherz.com
Connect with Food Junkies 
🎙️Food Junkies Podcast — available on all major platforms
🌐 foodjunkiespodcast.com
▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FoodJunkiesPodcast
📘 Sugar-Free For Life: I'm Sweet Enough FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SugarFreeForLife
✨ Back-to-Basics Workshop: https://sweetsobriety.newzenler.com/courses/back-to-basics
The Food Junkies Podcast is hosted by Dr. Vera Tarman, Molly Painschab, and Clarissa Kennedy. We are dedicated to honest, evidence-informed conversations about food addiction, ultra-processed food use disorder, and recovery.
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 highly sensitive — and secretly using food to manage a world that feels like too much?
In this episode, Dr. Vera Tarman sits down with Esther Kane, MSW, a British Columbia-based psychotherapist with nearly 30 years of experience helping highly sensitive people (HSPs) break free from emotional eating and food addiction. Esther isn't just a clinician — she's an HSP herself who nearly died from an eating disorder and has spent decades figuring out what works.
If you've ever been told you're "too sensitive," struggled to explain why food feels like your only relief, or burned out trying to take care of everyone but yourself — this one's for you.

🕐 In This Episode
What is a Highly Sensitive Person? Based on 40+ years of research by Dr. Elaine Aron, HSPs make up 15–20% of the population. Their nervous systems process everything more deeply — emotions, sensory input, other people's pain. It's not a disorder. It's a biological trait. And it comes with superpowers most people never develop.
Why HSPs are so vulnerable to food addiction The world is chronically overstimulating for HSPs. Food numbs the overwhelm. It turns the volume down. Add in chronic people-pleasing, self-abandonment, absorbing everyone else's emotions, and being told your whole life that you're "too much" and food addiction makes complete sense as a survival strategy.
What recovery looks like for HSPs Esther doesn't start with the food. She starts with the nervous system. You can't take away someone's coping mechanism until they have something else to hold onto. She walks through the somatic tools, boundary work, and root-cause healing that move the needle for highly sensitive people.
🎙️ Connect with Esther Kane
🌐 estherkane.com
📺 YouTube: Compassionate Conversations
👇 Are YOU a highly sensitive person?
Drop a 🙋 in the comments if this episode described you — or share it with someone who has always been told they feel too much. They need to hear this.
Subscribe so you never miss an episode of Food Junkies — real conversations about food addiction, recovery, and what it takes to heal.
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.