Can’t shake those food cravings, even if you’ve given up the standard American diet of processed and chemicalized food?
Cravings don’t need any drug or alcohol stimulus to overcome us. Cravings have more than one motive or causality. A slow detox from the bad diet, while eating healthy over time, encourages toxin elimination. And there is more to toxin elimination than you might think. The toxins from the toxic foods you have previously eaten stimulate the desire for another taste of that food as those toxins are eliminated. Sort of like a fading siren call. Another craving syndrome seems more like an addiction to those foods that harm you, the way a heroin addict or smoker is addicted. The immediate gratification wins out over the long-term negative consequences. Yet there are reasons for cravings beyond merely satisfying impulses.
The persuasive power of sugar
An example of how a parasitic growth or condition demands addiction satisfaction is Candida demanding sugar. The Candida needs sugar for its survival. A basic tenet of Candida overgrowth is kicking sugar completely. The same is true for cancer patients. Cancer cells thrive on fermenting glucose because as normal cells they had lost the ability to metabolize with oxygen. So you crave sugar. Before Dr. Max Gerson arrived in the USA from Germany, he was treating cancer patients in France. At one point he was perplexed about the lack of progress his patients were making on his natural vegetarian diet-based juicing and liver cleansing therapy. Then he discovered a clinical assistant was bringing pastries to them. The pastries were banned and soon cancer was on the run again. Sugar is a nasty “feel-good” addiction. One that can exacerbate conditions of insulin resistance, insomnia, hypoglycemia, adrenal fatigue, and cancer. Unfortunately, sugar in various forms that include high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is ubiquitous in processed foods that aren’t even sweet, like French fries. It’s in those foods to make you eat more because sugar is highly addictive. That’s another reason for sticking to fresh, organic bulk foods and produce.
Cravings as signals for lacking nutrients
This craving explanation is more controversial but plausible. There could be a nutritional deficiency your body’s begging to fulfill. After all, thanks to the early-mid-20th century’s Green Revolution of large mono-crop factory farming with chemical fertilizers and pesticides, most of our farming topsoil is mineral depleted. An example of a positive craving was given by Debi Gouge in her article on dailytransfromations. She was having a chronic low iron issue despite taking iron twice daily. Then she was struck by a huge craving for apples, which she indulged. She ate up to eight apples a day. Her iron levels came up. She discovered that the pectin in apples helps keep iron in the body. She didn’t know this until after her cravings were satisfied. So a healthy craving can be a good thing. But what do apparently unhealthy cravings tell say you may need? Craving chocolate indicates you may have a shortage of magnesium. Magnesium is the most influential mineral in our cellular metabolic functioning. It’s needed in over 300 metabolic functions, which is why it’s been dubbed the “master mineral.”Craving white breads and processed flour pastas has been cited as trying to fulfill a chromium shortage. Chromium regulates insulin. Cheese cravings indicate an Omega-3 imbalance. According to naturopathyworks.com, craving sodas demonstrates you need calcium, while coffee or tea binging indicates a shortage of sulfur, phosphorous, or both. One way to beat these kinds of cravings is to get a copy of Earl Mindell’s Vitamin Bible, a comprehensive quick reference book on nutrition. It gives symptoms of each nutritional deficiency written in a way that you can quickly identify your deficiencies. And it tells you how to remediate those deficiencies. Once you have done that, your craving may just disappear.
If you suffer from imbalanced blood sugar levels that cause mood swings, fatigue, and cravings, try two tablets of Sugar Balance before each meal. Sugar works to normalize blood sugar levels so you avoid the ups and downs that let cravings get started.
