
The Myth of Food Cravings - pseudolus
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190524-food-cravings-are-they-a-sign-of-nutritional-deficit
======
cwkoss
Is this article based on any solid research? It appears a number of
speculative theories concocted by scientists are presented, but with little
evidence to support them.

Seems a more accurate headline would be "Several scientists discuss different
plausible mechanisms for causing food cravings"

This article reeks of scientific illiteracy. The "Myth of Food Cravings" is in
no way invalidated because "if you eat popcorn every time you watch TV, you
might crave popcorn when you watch TV"

~~~
thaumasiotes
I agree that the article doesn't seem to be on a very firm foundation. But
it's reasonable enough that I also don't really hold that against it.

Good points:

> “If you always eat popcorn when you watch your favourite TV show, your
> cravings will for popcorn will increase when you watch it,” he says.

I'm pretty sure this is true. Habit will go a long way.

> Even in languages that do contain a word for craving, there is still is a
> lack of consensus around what a craving actually is. This, Konova argues, is
> a barrier to understanding how to overcome cravings, since we may be
> labelling several different processes as cravings.

I'm pretty sure this ["we may be labelling several different processes as
cravings"] is true too.

They give more attention to "chocolate cravings" than I think that phenomenon
really warrants, but here are a couple of points I thought were well made:

> Chocolate is one of the most common food cravings in the West – which
> supports the argument that cravings don’t stem from nutritional
> deficiencies, since chocolate doesn’t really contain high levels of anything
> we could be deficient in.

> [Female "craving" for chocolate], [uncredited researchers] say, is because
> Western culture has a “thin ideal” of female beauty that creates the
> perception that craving chocolate must be justified with a good excuse.

I would tend to lean toward the theory that people are expressing a "craving"
for chocolate mostly because it contains a lot of sugar, and those people
would find unsweetened chocolate unsatisfying. And I find it plausible that a
lot of people feel they need a special excuse, like an especially strong word,
to indulge themselves.

On the other hand, I am certain that food cravings based on nutritional issues
do exist. You can read the story of the guy they consulted for _Life of Pi_
who was lost at sea, and how he started to crave raw fish eyes. When you're
starving, the eyes taste fantastic, and you daydream about them -- and not
coincidentally, they are a rich source of certain nutrients that aren't so
easy to get by eating the rest of the fish.

I am a very picky eater, and when I first went to China I had a hard time
getting food. When I visited home, several months later, my dad met me at the
airport and the first thing he said was "you look like a skeleton -- where do
you want to eat?"

And I had an answer ready immediately, because I'd spent a lot of time those
past months thinking about pizza.

But modern life generally satisfies everyone's basic nutritional needs, so
again it seems plausible that the majority of food cravings that actually
occur (however we end up defining cravings) are based on something else.

~~~
cwkoss
Good points. I don't debate the plausibility of the mechanisms they discussed,
but rather find the lack of coherency between the initial premise and the
'supporting arguments' confusing.

It reads like they took the 'myth' that "Some cravings are based on
nutritional need" spun it into the strawman "All craving are based 100% on
nutritional need" and then spend the rest of the article smugly congratulating
themselves for tearing down their strawman. Because nobody actually advocates
for the strawman, the meandering content of the article comes across as
bizarre.

~~~
coldtea
> _It reads like they took the 'myth' that "Some cravings are based on
> nutritional need" spun it into the strawman "All craving are based 100% on
> nutritional need" and then spend the rest of the article smugly
> congratulating themselves for tearing down their strawman._

It's not really a strawman if people really believe this (and justify all/most
of their cravings as nutritional needs).

For those people, it makes sense to tear this idea down.

------
zzzeek
this article seemed to be pushing the narrative that cravings are basically a
psychological / cultural phenomenon, but then seems to take a hard right turn
into, "it's your gut microbiome, the dominant microbes that have survived in
your gut can manipulate your moods and cravings via the vagus nerve, dopamine,
and serotonin, so that they get more of what they need". This latter theory
seems way more interesting if not quite ominous to me but I didn't quite
understand where the article was trying to go with these two largely divergent
theories. Is the chocolate craving due to a certain kind of bacteria we have
in our guts? So chocolate cravings localized to the US, that doesn't mean it's
strictly cultural if there is some microbial arrangement we are all getting
due to some other dietary phenomenon that's present in the US, some
agricultural or industrial process, some kind of ingredient, if it's just
about what kind of microbes becomes dominant that leaves it pretty open-ended
for a whole lot to be possible. In any case it's less offensive than the
bullshitty sounding "it's women's menstruation and their feelings of not being
guilty for eating sweets during that time!" theories. I'm male and I crave
chocolate like mad.

~~~
Teracotage
I think there is a more basic need for cravings which could be the shortage of
minerals, iron deficiency causes some cravings:"Craving and chewing ice
(pagophagia) is often associated with iron deficiency, with or without anemia,
although the reason is unclear. At least one study indicates that ice chewing
might increase alertness in people with iron deficiency anemia."
[https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/iron-
deficien...](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/iron-deficiency-
anemia/expert-answers/chewing-ice/faq-20057982)

------
majkinetor
Since simple chemical like THC radically changes your 'craving status' like
everybody knows, this proves that external chemical (which also has endogenous
version albeit not that strong) influence craving hence it is NOT
psychological.

Body also naturally crave specific resources and this happens for more complex
stuff then water.

Some cravings are actually addiction, like craving for sugar (as in mentioned
chocolate).

Implying all of those are myth because some of existing phenomena are actually
based in psyche is click baity.

------
im3w1l
> Research has found that one of the most effective ways to curb cravings is
> to cut the craved food from our diet

This sounds like adaption to me. Like how quitting drugs too quickly can be
dangerous. Might expect the same to hold for foods too, except the
consequences obviously are less severe.

~~~
maxxxxx
Maybe with caffeine you may have problems but with most other stuff you will
most likely feel better.

------
astazangasta
This pregnancy my wife ate enormous quantities of celery seaweed. As in, we
got two heads of celery a week and she ate them all, and would cram an entire
sheet of nori into her mouth at once. Neither of these things was a
significant part of her diet before.

