What’s your addiction?
You know you have one. Is it sugar, caffeine, alcohol, a particular food, perhaps even drugs?
At some point in our lives, we have all resolved to kick some sort of addictive behaviour and “be better.” We’ve tried will power to break the habit. Perhaps you’ve had some breakthroughs and gotten through some of these forces of nature or perhaps you’ve just given up and succumbed to them full force.
I’ve always been fascinated by the workings of the body in conjunction with the mind. In AnneMarie Colbin’s book Food and Healing, she discusses the meaning of cravings and binges. What do they mean?
She reminds us that binges, cravings or addictive behaviour is just our body’s way of trying to tell us something. The trick is to discover what that something is.
She categorizes cravings into three major areas: addiction/allergy, discharge and imbalance of systems.
An addiction can be can be pinpointed if the food does one of two things. One, creates an undesirable symptom such as headache, fatigue, tension, or digestive disorders shortly after consumed; or two, if those symptoms are relieved sometime after consuming that particular food. For example, if you get a headache if you haven’t had a coffee — this is an addictive substance for you.
An allergy, on the other hand, is when an unpleasant symptom manifests immediately after consumption.
When it comes to “discharge,” this is what many people will discover particularly if you’ve ever tried a cleanse of some sort.
You’ve broken some addictions, you’re feeling really good and then out of nowhere you must have a big, greasy chicken burger from a particular fast food restaurant — that was always my “discharge” craving.
What’s happening here is the body is releasing toxins stored over all these years within your body’s intercellular spaces. Now, your immune system is kicking in and those toxins are dumped into your bloodstream and getting circulated through your body to be processed by the cleaning and disposal organs: kidneys, lungs, liver and skin.
But as they circulate through the body, they pass through the hypothalamus in the brain, which as described in Food and Healing acts “like a tape recorder head, picking up information from the bloodstream as if the latter were a magnetic tape running by.”
This is what activates those cravings for childhood memories of mom’s strawberry cheesecake, or those famous french fries from the little café on the beach.
You will recognize these cravings because they will be of a familiar nature — something you used to really love.
The way to deal with them is to succumb to them in small amounts. Have a couple of bites of the steak or a small piece of that cheesecake. Typically that’s all you will need.
The final reason we crave things is through an imbalance of systems — between expansive and contractive foods, nutrient proportions, or acid/alkaline imbalances.
This is, for example, when you have been eating an excessive amount of protein, fat or salt why you will then crave something sweet (carbohydrates).
A chart of the typical cravings and how to deal with them is posted on www.somethingtochewon.ca. So be sure to check out how to deal with your cravings!
Kristin Fraser, BSc, is a registered holistic nutritionist and local freelance writer. Her column appears every second Wednesday. She can be reached at kristin@somethingtochewon.ca.