What Are Food Cravings All About?

I've always heard that people crave food that their body needs. The classic example is menstruating women who are craving foods high in iron like chocolate, greens, and beef because their body needs iron. I have personally know many women who crave these foods at that time of the month so I do think there is something to it. These are examples of "good cravings" and you should learn to listen to your body more in these instances.

 

What about other cravings? For example, when you're lying in bed and you suddenly start craving popcorn. What is that about? You aren't going to tell me that your body actually "needs" popcorn for pete's sake.

Some people with metabolic disorders such as pre-diabetes have a very high fluctuation in their blood sugar and some cravings are just the body trying to compensate for this. You may start craving cake, chips, or popcorn because your body wants a carb injection. Of course, these are the kinds of cravings that you should try to curtail. It would be much better to eat something that is high in healthy protein than carb in these situations.

 

Carbs are often "empty calories" and don't provide as much nutrition to the body and the body senses that. So, if you eat lots of carbs, you will probably have lots of cravings. On the other hand, protein and healthy fats provide lots of nutrients and they also tend to be very high on the satiety scale compared to carbs. This means that proteins and fats make you feel more full than carbs which also helps you reduce your cravings.