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"
What if it were the case that if you believed this to be true then it became true, and vice versa? Don't believe me? People can kill themselves by believing that they are going to die... if that's possible, then why does believing one myth or another change our behavior seem so far fetched? And if that's the case, then how can science possibly tell us anything other than validate that the subject is holding a myth which causes certain behaviors?
That being said the article basically says stop eating stuff you crave altogether and fugetaboutit... as an effective way to stop craving it. The more you eat something the more you want of it -- and thinking about my food addictions like soda that seems to be true. The cite a study that confirms this theory.
> The more you eat something the more you want of it -- and thinking about my food addictions like soda that seems to be true.
In general, the opposite is the case. For most foods, people will get tired of them after a certain amount of exposure. Bread and milk (for the lactose-tolerant) are exceptions.
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.
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.
>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.
It also doesn't address people with actual nutrient deficiencies. Maurice and Maralyn Bailey were a British couple who survived for 117 days in a life raft. They reported craving and consuming fish eyes. It wasn't until after they were rescued they were informed fish eyes contain vitamin C, which they had no other source of.
They don't have to know, at least at first. There's a (super cute) built-in reflex that causes them to move their mouth towards whatever brushes their cheek.
As travisjungroth points out, the most obvious mechanism is feed-back where they eat something, it works, and the body is designed to do more of the same.
But if there is a feed-forward mechanism, i.e. where genetic information tells you "eat this thing now, even if you normally hate it*; then the most plausible thing would a pretty low level mechanism that matches chemicals detected by smell.
Interestingly, I'm told that in Chinese culture the head is considered the best part of the fish, offered to the guest of honor, eyes included. (Source: an expat complaining about being honored with the head of the fish, and having to eat the eye to be polite.)
> 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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 55.8 ms ] threadSeems 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"
That being said the article basically says stop eating stuff you crave altogether and fugetaboutit... as an effective way to stop craving it. The more you eat something the more you want of it -- and thinking about my food addictions like soda that seems to be true. The cite a study that confirms this theory.
In general, the opposite is the case. For most foods, people will get tired of them after a certain amount of exposure. Bread and milk (for the lactose-tolerant) are exceptions.
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.
Chocolate also contains caffeine.
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.
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.
As travisjungroth points out, the most obvious mechanism is feed-back where they eat something, it works, and the body is designed to do more of the same.
But if there is a feed-forward mechanism, i.e. where genetic information tells you "eat this thing now, even if you normally hate it*; then the most plausible thing would a pretty low level mechanism that matches chemicals detected by smell.
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.
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.