Being at home during a pandemic has taken my cravings to another level. I'm working from home, assisting my 6th grader with virtual school, and I barely leave my house. Not being able to "DO" as I once did, has allowed the metaphorical warm and fuzzy 'food blankie' to comfort me more times than I care to admit. The good news is, I can now identify what my cravings are trying to tell me, and so can you.
Cravings hold the power to nudge us into a pattern of over-eating, or empower us to listen to our bodies in a deeper way. I'm not saying that giving in to a craving from time to time is a bad thing. Understanding the meaning of our cravings can actually allow us to have that thing we crave, while giving our bodies exactly what it needs. A craving can be your body sending you an S.O.S. trying to alert you of possible mineral deficiencies, macro-nutrient needs, harmful sleep patterns , or dangerous habits that need to be broken.
For instance, when I get the craving for an "ooey gooey" chocolate peanut butter brownie, I ask myself a few questions:
Am I hungry? Am I thirsty? Is my body telling me that I might need a mineral? Will giving in to this craving cause my sleep to be disrupted in any way? How can I get the most nutrients from this craving?
Asking myself these questions can get to the root of why I'm craving the brownie in the first place. After thoroughly interrogating my craving, it slows the process down for me, making it easier for me to make a good decision.
Sometimes the conclusion is, "eat the brownie!" If that is in fact your decision, the next step would be to upgrade your ingredients so that you get nutritional benefits from your craving. Switching out the anti-nutrients for ingredients that fuel your body. Swap processed grain flours for unrefined grain- free flours, keep sugar to a minimum with unprocessed lower glycemic sweeteners such as monk fruit, stevia, maple syrup and coconut sugar. I would caution that using sugar (as well as any sweetener in excess) can still cause a spike in blood glucose levels. If you are working on weight management or you have blood sugar dysfunction, stick to the sweeteners that are less likely to cause a spike in your blood sugar. Find the sweetener that best works for you and your health goals. Lastly, try upgrading your chocolate, find a good quality chocolate (organic and minimally processed) containing at least 70% cacao with a lower sugar content. Doing a few of these swaps will ensure that giving in to your craving, will come with a few nutritional benefits.
Overall, what stands above your cravings is the ability to truly understand what they mean. Working with a skilled Nutritional Therapy Practitioner can help with decoding those cravings, getting you closer to what your body is really trying to tell you.
Below is a quick chart that shows a few popular cravings, what mineral you might be deficient in, and a few foods you can eat to address those deficiencies.
Monica Ewing, NTP
Noire Nutrition
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