Sometime we get this craving out of nowhere, and most of the time we can’t shake this craving off. Thankfully, we managed to decode these cravings. We crave certain foods, when our body is lacking specific nutrients. These nutrients create a reaction in the body, causing it to crave food.
Let’s decode these cravings and find out what is causing your cravings!
Tea or Coffee
– You suddenly get the urge for a quick caffeine boost, but it’s close to dinner time and you don’t want to ruin your sleep cycle and appetite. Skip the caffeine, a person should only be allotted two caffeine filled drink in a day. Excessive caffeine will get in the way of your sleep cycle, digestion, heart rate and mood.
– You may be lacking minerals associated with caffeine, such us Sulfur, Salt, Iron, phosphorus. Instead of grabbing a cup of Joe opt for some healthy alternatives to remove the craving.
– Healthy Alternative – egg yolk, chicken, beef, dairy, nuts, vegetables, fish, black cherries, apple cider vinegar, red pepper, onion and garlic.
Alcohol
– We don’t really know how you can categorize alcohol as a craving, but this is for the days when drinking alcohol is not allowed. If a few days has passed and you still crave alcohol you may be lacking in calcium, Avenin, potassium, glutamine and protein.
– Relieve your alcohol craving with this healthy alternative.
– Calcium – broccoli, cheese, sesame, legumes and kale.
– Avenin – oatmeal and granola.
– Potassium – seaweed, potato peel and black olives.
– Glutamine – Raw cabbage juice.
– Protein – dairy, nuts, meat and poultry.
Unusual Snacking and General Overeating
– This is a craving that any type of feed will be able to satisfy. This is probably the unhealthiest craving pattern. It’s best to practice not to abide by, the cravings. Fight the cravings off with healthy alternatives or keep your mind and hands busy.
– Lack of silicon, tyrosine and tryptophan can cause this type of craving. Eat these healthy alternatives and see which food will satisfy it the most.
– Silicon – nuts and seeds
– Tyrosine – Vitamin C supplements, red fruits, orange and vegetables.
– Tryptophan – liver, raisins, sweet potato, spinach, cheese and lamb.
Salty Food
– This is a very common craving, especially for women if you seem to be craving a lot of salty food recently. You may be lacking chloride in your system. Satisfy your cravings with these healthy alternatives.
– Chloride – fish, unrefined sea salt and raw goat milk
Processed Breads
– Eating excessive amounts of processed bread are unhealthy, it can cause weight gain and increase in cholesterol. Craving processed bread may mean lack of nitrogen in the system. Satisfy your craving by consuming this healthy alternative.
– Nitrogen – fish, beans, nuts and meat.
Premenstrual Craving
– Complete and utter nightmare, those are words to describe pre-menstrual cravings. Even people with the strongest will tend to break during this period. Not only is the female hormones going haywire, so is your craving. You will tend to crave different types of food from, spicy junk food to salty chips and more.
– One of the major causes of this craving is the lack of zinc. Our body before menstrual cycles tend to alter, especially the amount of zinc in our system. You can try to prevent it by taking in some zinc supplements before your period, but this is only advised to women that have severe and abnormal pre-menstrual cravings. You can help satisfy the craving and zinc deficiency by adding more red meat, leafy vegetables, root vegetables and seafood to your diet.
Chocolates
– Chocolate is one of the hardest cravings to “get over”. It takes a long time for this craving to go away. They say a regular craving will only last no more than 15 minutes. If you crave chocolate for more than this allotted time, it may mean you lack magnesium. Instead of grabbing a chocolate bar from the market, satisfy your cravings with magnesium rich food such as fruits, legumes, seeds and raw nuts.
Oily and fatty snacks
– This is a common craving between men and women, craving this type of foods may mean you lack calcium. Control your craving by adding calcium rich food such as kale, cheese, legumes and broccoli.
Half of the time our body craves certain foods due to the emotional connection we have we them. We eat ice cream when we are sad, we crave pizza when we are happy and so on. These emotional connections with food can be unhealthy. It may take some time to recondition the body to ignore these cravings. You will need patience and will power to fight off these cravings.
