When you crave certain foods your body may need something.
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.
