I’m going to avoid any psychological reason for food cravings here. Although I have touched on some reasons before, it is too broad of a subject for this mere blogger to tackle, and I would have a hard time simplifying them. We can talk about the psychological reasons until the cows come home (whatever that means). The countless minute intricacies as to why people associate food cravings with their emotions could fill volumes.
However, none of that matters unless we first look at the fundamental reasons why our physical bodies need and want certain foods. Not our minds.
So here we go with the physiological reasons.
The nutrients needed in the largest quantity by the body are called Macronutrients.
These include:
- Carbs
- Proteins
- Fats
These are mainly what gives our bodies energy to live. Because of this, when we are lacking in them, we feel several effects rather quickly. We get hungry, we get headaches, and we feel weak.
Some Macrominerals we need, but that don’t necessarily provide us with immediate energy, include:
- Salt (sodium)
- Potassium
- Calcium
- Magnesium
When we’re hungry and when we have cravings, our bodies are lacking in these nutrients, and it’s telling us we need to replenish them.
When we’ve waited until the point when we’re starving, our bodies are especially depleted in nutrients. We lose energy, and we can’t think straight. We become irritable.
What are bad foods – especially fast foods – known for? Being extremely high in fat, sodium, sugar, and carbs.
It makes sense that when we are most depleted, we crave the foods that have more of what we need. But this shouldn’t be a regular thing.
Once you’re in a habit of eating incredibly unhealthy food on a regular basis, your body functions on the never ending cycle of spiking and plummeting of blood sugar and intake of fat and sugar. When you are on this cycle, you have intense cravings all the time. Your brain is accustomed to that spike.
If you are in the habit of eating healthy, balanced foods, there are no spikes! Energy and nutrient intake is much more balanced. The usual intense cravings go away.
This doesn’t mean your food has to be cardboard.
“Health Food” is seen as bland, or lacking in taste.
What enhances flavor? Salt, sugar, and fat. When everything you eat needs to have it’s flavor enhanced with these things added, then you probably aren’t eating well. Of course “health food” tastes bland if your diet is filled with added sugars, sodium, and fats. However, when your diet is mostly “health food”, you get used to not being bombarded with more of these things than you need, and cravings for bad foods diminish greatly.
Of course those cravings will still be there from time to time, but usually only when you let yourself get extremely hungry. Have you ever gone shopping for groceries when you were hungry and came home with twice as much junk as you had planned on getting?
When the only sources for those macronutrients that you consume are those found naturally in the foods you eat, triple bacon cheeseburgers, soda, ice cream “bad” foods don’t quite have the at-any-time, at-any-meal appeal any longer. Here is an example: If the only source of sugar in your diet is fruit for a long period of time, then if you have a soda, it will taste EXTREMELY sweet. It will taste like pure syrup, rather than a refreshing beverage.
I imagine people that constantly eat terrible foods, like fast food, have a love-hate relationship with food. They may not actually even realize it, but their moods fluctuate wildly because of their diet. It’s a constant cycle of feeling bad, ravenous cravings/hunger, scarfing of food, euphoria, feeling overstuffed, being tired and lethargic, and doing it all over again.
The reason – evolutionarily speaking – that we have taste buds is so we can identify the foods that have what we need. It’s probably to our detriment that today, when most food products are made in factories, that our taste buds still rule our diet choices. We still seek out the foods that are most fulfilling to our needs, even if those needs are met, AND THEN SOME.
There’s no danger of scavenging through a wild grocery store and accidentally eating something poisonous. We’re too educated to let that happen.
Taste buds are a luxury now. Let’s not let that luxury be our downfall.
At the most basic level, we eat to provide energy for the billions and billions of cells that make up our body.
Everything getting broken down eventually to ATP to be used for energy. Without that energy, all of the actions and reactions occurring in our bodies will stop and our ticket is punched.
To fuel our bodies, we can exist on Hot Pockets (loved the post BTW), but it’s like putting regular gas into a Ferrari (actually, it’s much much worse).
The Ferrari will work for a while, but it will eventually break down because of the fuel we put in the tank.
Garbage In, Garbage Out
You know I like those car analogies!
I meant to elaborate more on your point about existing on Hot Pockets. Thanks for reminding me.
In large part, due to fortification of foods with vitamins, we can survive on foods like Hot Pockets because they do provide us with the macronutrients needed.
The problem is, unhealthy diets are almost never balanced enough to include enough different foods so that we get all of the MICROnutrients needed for exceptional long-term body functions.
This can lead to sickness, weakened immune systems, disease, and duh… obesity. Not to mention a shortened life span.
“Taste buds are a luxury now. Let’s not let that luxury be our downfall.”
HA! I never thought of it like that.
It’s not like we have to worry about eating something that might hurt us. Everything has labels on it. Well, except fruits and veggies of course, but there’s never anything wrong with them, unless we go tromping through a rainforest and start eating mystery berries.
Cool site, I like your perspective.
Arthur DeVany suggested a big part of the reason for overeating is that we evolved to be “lazy overeaters”, which makes perfect sense in a pre-agricultural environment, where calories are scarce and require effort to obtain. For 250,000 years or so, our human ancestors (or a few millions of years if we include our pre-human ancestors going back to the australopithecines) had to forage or hunt for food, and when they found some had to eat what they could, not being certain of when they’d find or kill their next meal. There was no McDonald’s around the corner, no fridges full of hot pockets. In such an environment, it makes perfect sense to conserve energy (be “lazy”) and eat as much as you can when you find it.
The environment has changed dramatically, but from a genetic standpoint, we haven’t.
And over the past few decades, the effort required to obtain high calorie foods has continued to decrease. It is no longer necessary to spend time baking cookies or cakes or preparing big meals from scratch, which may have been a deterrent to overeating for some. If you wanted a slice of cake or a pizza you had to make it yourself.
The food industry has made it possible to now obtain massive amounts of calories with barely any effort, so being a “lazy overeater” is now a threat to one’s health rather than a necessity for survival.
I imagine if we turned the clock back only a few decades and got rid of the majority of packaged foods, fast-food restaurants and delivery services and convenience stores so people had to at least spend some time and effort making their own food, there would be far fewer obese people, since they wouldn’t have the ability to stuff their faces on a whim.
Well I also think one of the main resons of over eating is that people are board and dont have anything better to do with their life.Or (like me) people also eat to fill a sertain gap, to fill up a specific hunger.And food does help, for about that split second but after you have eaten your self half way 2 death, you feel even less filled than before and feel super mad at yourself for your lack of self controle.Basicly I think people, or atleast I over eat myself because of lack of fufilment and just that hunger in me that I know cant be filled with food, but I dont know what must fill it so I cram it full of food any way.
Eating and gaining and loosing weight is a very sensitive and personal topic for alot off people, and I realy dont blame them.
It is hard to over come temptation esp. when your mind just shuts off and you just CHOW CHOW CHOW!!!!
Is there a light (and I mean a true light, not diet pills!) at the end of this horible and depresive tunnel??
[...] following is my response to a post on another blog about why people crave bad foods. It references something Arthur DeVany said on his Evolutionary Fitness blog about humans evolving [...]