You just finished a bowl of ice cream and the first thing you grab is a bag or pretzels. You order a milkshake and fry and McDonald’s. You cover your bacon in chocolate. Sweet and and salty are complete opposites yet they go together so well. Did you ever wonder what makes us desire something salty after eating something sweet? These odd cravings come and go, but why?
We have five primary tastes, sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and savory (umami). In a way sweet and salty can balance each other out. Having too much sweetness can cause an overload and having too much salt can just taste bad. Each one of our taste buds are able to sense each of the five tastes. The taste of sweetness is important for supplying us with carbs and the taste of salt provides needed nutrients. Salt is also a flavor enhancer which is why is goes well when mixed with sugar. When a salty flavor and sweet flavor are mixed right (known as flavor layering) our brain is able to process a positive biological response. Since our bodies do not have a sodium storage system, unlike other minerals we are able to store in our bodies, we create a built-in craving for the taste of salt.
Some of the cravings that we get correlate to deficiencies in our diet. For example, craving to chew on ice can mean you have a decrease in iron in your diet. At the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, director Susan Roberts has done some research on 32 overweight women and their cravings. The food that was craved the most contained either high percentages of salt, such as french fries and chips, or high in sugar and fat, like ice cream. All together the woman craved foods that were very high in calories.
Another study, published in NeroImage, was done that showed which parts of the brain are 
activated when we have a food craving. After each participant drank a nutritional drink, they had to think of a food that they craved. The parts of the brain highlighted on the MRI were the hippocampus, caudate, and insula. What’s interesting about this, is that these parts of the brain are also involved with drug addiction. Our food cravings are causing us to stimulate the same parts of the brain as when someone is addicted to drugs because we are craving something and putting it in our memory to form a habit and an emotional connection between either a food or drugs.
We are always going to have those weird cravings late at night that ends with us eating way too much and asking ourselves, “why did I just eat that?” There is no stopping those late night cravings.
I always crave food when I’m studying at night and it takes so much effort for me to resist eating junk food! Something that helps me is replacing snacks like chips for carrots and celery because its a healthy alternative. I thought that having a craving just means that you really want to eat something, not that there may be deficiencies in my diet. Here are some helpful tips I found on how to curb your craving, especially if you need to satisfy your craving while studying at night.
The brain is so interesting in so many ways and I never knew that it is junk food activated when we crave certain foods. I found this blog to be very interesting as I always crave these foods late at night but then will wake up and regret any food I eat. Studying late at night always increases my likelihood of eating junk food and a main reason why most students gain weight their first year at school.
This is a very interesting topic that has been pondered by many. When I searched for more information online, I found this chart that breaks down what you’re craving, the nutrient in that food that your body is most likely lacking, and a healthier alternative to supply your body with that nutrient. This excerpt from the book “Choose Your Foods: Like Your Life Depends on Them” further explains this concept by stating, “while your body may know that you are missing potassium, your conscious mind is not aware of the flavor of potassium. Instead, because of familiarity, you can reminisce and feel hungry for the flavor of salty foods, which are high in sodium”. Even though the cravings may continue, at least we know there are healthy ways to deal with them.
This is a great post, as it provided a lot of insight to something I’d never even thought twice about before. When I’m hungry, I eat. And when I eat, I eat whatever I feel like eating- to me it’s just an instinct. It’s just a feeling and I’ve never thought of it as anything more than that. I combat it how I deem it necessary to be combatted, and for the longest time, that simple method has always been enough to work for me. However, I’ve never known how much a food craving could tell you until this blog post.
Sure, I’ve heard of it in pregnancies, and I’ve heard of it regarding certain types of foods, but never to this extent. I never knew it could be this elaborate. The questions that arise after this post got me thinking… how does our mind know what is in the foods? After all, it’s not like iron or calcium or carbohydrates have a particular taste (that I know of, anyways). So when our body needs protein, how does our mind know it needs to drink milk, or eat some good meat or vegetables? According to these comments , protein has a bad taste…Although I’ve never consciously tasted it, I wonder if my subconscious mind has. Furthermore, I would assume that these elements our body needs do not have taste. Instead, our body associates something like that meat, with protein satisfaction. What receptors then link with our tastebuds, which must collaterally link with our eyes and nose also to seek this food we desire? The whole process is immensely complex, and will definitely take a lot of looking into on my part. Some more information on sensory receptors can be located here .
Now, I am craving ice cream. This article definitely made me think about the unhealthy, salty and sweet treats I am currently craving. It is easy for me to see how food cravings stimulate the same areas of the brain that deal with drug addition because cravings feel uncontrollable to resist at times. I am very intrigued by the fact that different parts of our brain can identify exactly what we want to eat at the moment. Personally, I wish there was a way to curb these cravings and tricking the mind into craving vegetables instead. Unfortunately, these foods are very threatening to a person’s diet and lifestyle. It would be fun to see how often these cravings occur within a day or week. The willpower needed to fight these cravings must be pretty strong. There is still an argument over whether Kate Moss’s famous quote “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” is accurate. I have conflicted thoughts about this quote, but I know that feeling healthy is definitely priceless. I have recently experienced this feeling after losing weight since getting to college due to the amount of walking I do to each class.
In your blog, you said that “some of the cravings that we get correlate to deficiencies in our diet”. I find this very interesting because a majority of cravings are unhealthy. I always crave cookies or ice-cream. I would think that our body would want us to crave healthier options, instead of ones high in sugar and salt.
Wow reading this late at night was not what I should have done, because now all I want to do is order some Insomnia Cookies! I truly have wondered why at 2 in the morning I’ll crave the weirdest foods, so I’m glad your post could answer that question. I really enjoyed reading this article on foods you crave and why you crave them. I think it’s interesting how your body can be telling you different things that it wants, like how parts of the brain are junk foodactivated when we have a food craving. Overall, I appreciate the thought behind this post, and how I should now balance out my diet in order to prevent myself from gaining extra pounds.