I rarely crave.
Which makes me wonder how many people have cravings and how often?
Do men have more cravings than women? What about age? Do young people experience cravings more or less?
Here is a bit of information I found from Medical News Today and WebMD:
• Food cravings are extremely common, with more than 90% of people experiencing them.
• Every person experiences cravings differently, but they are typically transient and often for processed foods that are high in sugar, salt, and unhealthful fats.
• Research suggests that males are more likely to crave savory foods, whereas females are more likely to crave high-fat, sweet foods.
• Surveyors found that while 70% of men experienced food cravings, almost 100% of women experienced cravings during the time span of one year.
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I’ve mentioned this before, at times. But I quit eating “sweets” when I was 16 years old. No desserts for me. No ice cream, pies, or cakes. Candy bars? Nope. And I don’t eat things like pancakes, waffles, muffins, or any type of sweet. I get my sugar carbs in natural fruit, for sure. I eat about 5 or 6 apples a day. But I’m not entirely sugar free. Every so often, I have things like ketchup. And bread has sugar in it most of the time.
At any rate. Sometimes I will crave something sweet, but it is always something goofy. Like a strawberry Pop-Tart. Or a frozen Zero Bar. A Hostess Ho-Ho. You would think my craving would be something scrumptious like German Chocolate cake with German Chocolate icing, cuddled up next to some Graeter’s vanilla ice cream. But no. I long for a Nutter Butter Peanut Butter sandwich cookie.
As it turns out, sugar and fatty processed foods trigger the same areas of the brain as drugs do. Or so the scientists say. And once that part of the brain is stimulated, it causes a release of the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine. As such, our brains want us to keep going back for more. And that is exactly why we crave the foods that got us high in the first place. Hello Pop-Tart.
There was a time when experts suspected cravings were caused by things our bodies lacked. For instance, if you craved a burger, you were low on iron. Or if you craved chocolate, your body needed magnesium.
But they have since found out this is just not true. Point in case? If the root of all cravings were nutritional needs, we’d all be “jonesing” for kale. The research now says that most cravings have more to do with our brains than our bodies.
Sweet cravings, like baked sweets, pies, cookies, cakes, are supposedly the number one craving, along with chocolate and ice cream. These other lesser cravings include salty foods, crunchy foods, and soft, filling starches, like bread.
They say the way to reduce frequent cravings involves all those healthy suggestions for everything else in life. Reduce stress (easy for them to say). Get enough sleep. Drink water. Exercise. Blah, blah, blah, blah.
I’m no doctor, but I think if you are a moderately healthy person and have a craving for fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies? Drop everything and call the Pillsbury Dough Boy.
It seems to me if the brain feels that strongly about something, we should put its little mind at ease.
So. At ease, everybody. At ease.
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A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.
— George A. Moore
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The happiest people seem to be those who have no particular cause for being happy except that they are so.
— William Inge
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Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.
— Omar Khayyam
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It’s all the rave. I mean, crave.
