My eating habits are, truth be told, pretty much governed by cravings.

Want sushi, eat sushi. Want chocolate, eat chocolate. My husband and I once went on a four-hour walk in search of decent cherry pie, which we did not find.

But I know I have to put the brakes on or I’ll weigh eleventy-four million pounds pretty soon. 

Is it true that food cravings mean a nutrient deficiency? 

That’s too easy. 

We’re way more complicated.

What the experts say

“One study deprived people of chocolate or vanilla. Chocolate can’t be substituted for, but vanilla can. It turns out that if subjects were deprived of chocolate, they ate a lot more of it after, whereas vanilla doesn’t show such a strong effect. There’s something about craving a food you can’t easily substitute for. In a later study we deprived people of actual nutrients, either carbohydrate or protein. There didn’t seem to be the same level of craving for protein as for carbohydrate. The foods people report craving are foods they like better to begin with. Our research indicates it’s definitely not a nutritive craving, but a psychological one. The more our freedom to eat a specific food is curtailed, for example by a diet, the more we crave it.” 

JANET POLIVY, professor of psychology, U of T

“A lot of variables impact cravings: genetics, stress, environment, physiological conditions. Cravings affect pregnant women, people in weight reduction programs and doing extensive exercise. There is no evidence that cravings are our bodies’ ways of trying to tell us we’re lacking a particular nutrient. We tend to look for foods that satisfy us, and that gratification is variable amongst people. As we begin to understand the genetics that trigger that chemistry, we’ll be able to address the issue.”

ROGER CLEMENS, professor, USC School of Pharmacy, Los Angeles

“In Chinese medicine, if the craving is for sweets, your digestive system is sluggish and not good at extracting nutrients. Say there are 100 units of vitamin C in an apple; if your system is sluggish, maybe you only get 50. To get the nutrients you need, your body craves more, so you have to eat twice as much, meaning you get twice as many calories.”

KALEB MONTGOMERY, doctor of Chinese medicine, Toronto

“If you have a diet high in fibre and low in fat and sugar, your mood, energy level and cravings are all 

regulated and you aren’t going to crave foods that pick you up out of the unnaturally low places. If I am super- tired and have a bagel and 

yogurt, my blood sugars are going to skyrocket and I’m going to feel okay and then crash. Some foods have components that make you crave them. Fat is one. If I’m craving chocolate, it’s not the cocoa but all the fat and sugar. You have to go cold turkey to get fat off your palate. Same with salt. If you can stop for 21 days, you can break the cycle. Sugar is addictive. It’s like an opiate. Cheese has casomorphins that have an opioid effect. Get it out of your diet for at least 21 days.”

SUSAN LEVIN, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Washington, DC

“Cravings can offer clues to some interior processes but never provide a definitive diagnosis. An iron deficiency is sometimes associated with cravings. Women have noticed a desire for red meat even if they’re not red meat eaters. Craving for chocolate is sometimes tied to magnesium deficiency, though this is controversial. There are a lot of reasons for the craving. If someone craves caffeine, it suggests the adrenal glands might be burned out. A yen for sugar can be a result of a yeast overgrowth in the digestive system.”

RUTH ANNE BARON, naturopathic doctor, Toronto

“Sometimes cravings occur when blood sugar levels dip too low. Combining protein and fibre with simple carbohydrates instead of eating simple carbohydrates alone helps reduce the spike (and subsequent drop) in levels. Eating regularly also helps. Some cravings mean the body is deficient in certain nutrients. In Chinese medicine, each organ is associated with a different flavour; cravings can indicate a disharmony in that organ system (e.g., sweets relate to the spleen, salty foods to the kidneys).”  

VANESSA LEE, naturopathic doctor, Toronto