What Your Food Cravings Really Mean

When Your Body Craves Certain Foods, It Actually Is Looking For Nutrients

If you crave this…	What you really need is…	And here are  healthy foods that have it:
Chocolate	Magnesium	Raw nuts and seeds, legumes, fruits
Sweets	Chromium	Broccoli, grapes, cheese, dried beans, calves liver, chicken
	Carbon	Fresh fruits
	Phosphorus	Chicken, beef, liver, poultry, fish, eggs, dairy, nuts, legumes, grains
	Sulfur	Cranberries, horseradish, cruciferous vegetables, kale, cabbage
	Tryptophan	Cheese, liver, lamb, raisins, sweet potato, spinach
Bread, toast	Nitrogen	High protein foods: fish, meat, nuts, beans
Oily snacks, fatty foods	Calcium	Mustard and turnip greens, broccoli, kale, legumes, cheese, sesame
Coffee or tea	Phosphorous	Chicken, beef, liver, poultry, fish, eggs, dairy, nuts, legumes
	Sulfur	Egg yolks, red peppers, muscle protein, garlic, onion, cruciferous vegetables
	NaCl (salt)	Sea salt, apple cider vinegar (on salad)
	Iron	Meat, fish and poultry, seaweed, greens, black cherries
Alcohol, recreational drugs	Protein	Meat, poultry, seafood, dairy, nuts
	Avenin	Granola, oatmeal
	Calcium	Mustard and turnip greens, broccoli, kale, legumes, cheese, sesame
	Glutamine	Supplement glutamine powder for withdrawal, raw cabbage juice
	Potassium	Sun-dried black olives, potato peel broth, seaweed, bitter greens
Chewing ice	Iron	Meat, fish, poultry, seaweed, greens, black cherries
Burned food	Carbon	Fresh fruits
Soda and other carbonated drinks	Calcium	Mustard and turnip greens, broccoli, kale, legumes, cheese, sesame
Salty foods	Chloride	Raw goat milk, fish, unrefined sea salt
Acid foods	Magnesium	Raw nuts and seeds, legumes, fruits
Preference for liquids rather than solids	Water	Flavor water with lemon or lime. You need 8 to 10 glasses per day.
Preference for solids rather than liquids	Water	You have been so dehydrated for so long that you have lost your thirst. Flavor water with lemon or lime. You need 8 to 10 glasses per day.
Cool drinks	Manganese	Walnuts, almonds, pecans, pineapple, blueberries
Pre-menstrual cravings	Zinc	Red meats (especially organ meats), seafood, leafy vegetables, root vegetables
General overeating	Silicon	Nuts, seeds; avoid refined starches
	Tryptophan	Cheese, liver, lamb, raisins, sweet potato, spinach
	Tyrosine	Vitamin C supplements or orange, green, red fruits and vegetables
Lack of appetite	Vitamin B1	Nuts, seeds, beans, liver and other organ meats
	Vitamin B3	Tuna, halibut, beef, chicken, turkey, pork, seeds and legumes
	Manganese	Walnuts, almonds, pecans, pineapple, blueberries
	Chloride	Raw goat milk, unrefined sea salt
Tobacco	Silicon	Nuts, seeds; avoid refined starches
	Tyrosine	Vitamin C supplements or orange, green and red fruits and vegetables

Food cravings can seem strong enough to pick you up and carry you straight to the refrigerator or convenience store independent of your will and better judgment. For many women, cravings are especially intense in the week or so before menstruation. But many men, older women, teens and children can have strong cravings too. Let’s look at what is behind this force. Naturopathic physician Tori Hudson, ND, describes the condition as a mild malnutrition, certainly not with severe overt consequences as say scurvy or rickets. Rather, a great many people on the Standard American Diet (SAD in more ways than one) suffer from a milder malnutrition from eating only depleted, processed foods and not enough whole, nutrient-rich foods.

As a result, we end up craving the vitamins, minerals and other nutrients that we lack. But while your body may know that you are missing for example potassium, your conscious mind is not aware of the flavor of potassium. Instead, because of familiarity, you can reminisce and feel hungry for the flavor of salty foods, which are high in another cation, sodium, and which have their appeal partly rooted in sodium and potassium. The salty foods that your conscious mind desires has its greatest ability to quench those cravings due to the salty foods’ high sodium content.

Sugar Cravings

As we have seen, cravings are actually the manifestation of a mild malnutrition, which is very widespread, even in well-to-do societies. So we end up craving the vitamins and especially minerals that we lack.  The chocolate that your conscious mind desires has its greatest ability to quench those cravings due to chocolate’s high magnesium content.

Of course, the sugar in commercially prepared chocolate is another desperate desire when you have ridden the sugar-insulin roller coaster long enough to plummet to the abyss of hypoglycemia. The food cravings of PMS are due to poor glucose tolerance brought on by diets that are high in refined carbohydrates. Refined sugars deplete the body’s supplies of B-vitamins, chromium, magnesium, zinc and manganese, and the resulting deficiencies then manifest as cravings for other foods. What adds insult to injury here is that whole sugar cane is actually high in these minerals. In fact, of all known plants, the one with the highest known proportion of chromium is, of all things, sugar cane. Chromium is necessary for insulin function and to modulate blood sugar levels. Then the refining process strips out the minerals, so that the whole food, which nature put together so wisely, now becomes something that destroys our health, heaves our blood sugar and blood insulin into grotesque chaos, and leaves us craving what the refining process threw away.

This simply adds to the mountain of evidence that nature knew what she was doing when she made whole food. This is not to say that sugar cane or the minimally processed molasses should be consumed. The torture of the huge sugar-insulin assault on your pancreas and liver and brain is really not worth the minerals gained from eating it. Those minerals are available from healthier sources.

From Nature Works Best