Food Junkies Podcast

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: [email protected]
👍 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.

CJ has the privilege of sitting down with Kristy today. Today, I'm honored to introduce Kristy, a devoted homeschooling mom whose life is a powerful testimony of resilience, strength, and hope. Kristy once believed her struggles were simply about weight and exercise, never realizing she was battling food addiction. Through faith, courage, and deep self-discovery, she came to understand the root of her struggle and found freedom on the other side. She is unwavering in her belief that God carried her through every step of the journey. Now, she shares her story to encourage others, offering hope and lifting up anyone walking through addiction.
 
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'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: [email protected]
 
Connect with Food Junkies: 🎙️ Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts 💻 Website: foodjunkiespodcast.com  ▶️ YouTube: Food Junkies Podcast - YouTube 💌 Email: [email protected]

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: [email protected]
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: [email protected]
▶️ 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.