Also this issue: Bad for the Business A trio of showbiz books walks on the mean side. -A.D. Amorosi artquicks More stuff going on this week... Wozzeck -David Shengold ComedySportz Cares -Juliet Fletcher "Martians and Motorcycles" -Andrew Parks "Privacy Writes: Public Lives, Personal Letters" -Juliet Fletcher Fourth Of U LIE Rebel Party -Ainé Ardron-Doley PII Gallery | Stedman Gallery | And Then Thereâs · -Lori Hill

July 3- 9, 2003

artpicks

Neal Barnard

Is junk food addictive? This once-whimsical question has taken on a vital urgency with the rising number of fast-food lawsuits. Dr. Neal Barnard, head of the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine, answers "yes" in his book Breaking the Food Seduction (St. Martin's Press) and backs it up with scientific research. Sure, we all have our food habits, but Barnard means actual addiction: He shows how foods like sugar, meat, cheese and chocolate work in our system to produce drug-like effects. In some cases, they actually are drugs: Cheese, for example, contains a small but significant amount of morphine, a highly addictive narcotic. "Oddly enough," Barnard notes on the phone from California, "the dairy industry has known about this for 20 years, but the public has never heard about it." His book, though, is no political screed; rather, he outlines a three-week program (with recipes) to break the cycle and deprogram your taste buds. Barnard notes that "foods for which Philly is famous" -- cheesesteaks and Tastykakes -- "have a lot of these addictive components" but we can choose when to treat ourselves rather than craving these foods or just grabbing them unthinkingly. Meanwhile, the doctor foresees a major shift on the horizon: "I remember when my hospital contemplated becoming smoke-free -- it was considered impossible. This will be the same thing: The food industry will win at first, but health will ultimately prevail."

Neal Barnard, Wed., July 9, 7 p.m., free, Northeast Regional Library, 2228 Cottman Ave., 215-685-0512.

—Vance Lehmkuhl