A Quit Smoking Diet ?

by Liz on March 5th, 2008

Can what you eat help you give up smoking ?

Yes, according to Duke University psychologist F. Joseph McClernon. Based at the Duke Center for Nicotine and Smoking Research, McClernon “… kept hearing smokers say that certain foods and beverages made their cigarettes taste much better. He began to wonder exactly which foods these were — and whether any foods made smoking a worse experience.”

Which, of course, got him thinking about the connection between foods and smoking. He enlisted 209 long term smokers (who smoked at least a pack a day for at least 21 years) and had them list the foods that seemed to enhance the smoking experience and the foods that seemed to worsened the smoking experience.

The results…

70% of the participants found that meat, alcohol, and caffeinated beverages appeared to make cigarettes taste better.

But for 45% of the participants, foods such as fruit, vegetables, dairy products, and beverages such as water, juice, and non caffeinated drinks appeared to make their cigarettes taste worse.

What this means…

Getting people to eat health, with lots of fruit and vegetables, and have them drinking plenty of water might just enhance the quit smoking process.

So what do the smokers out there think?

Have you tried diet modification in your quit smoking campaign ?

(source)