Ten: Cravings and Binges: What Do They Mean?
How many times have we resolved to“ be good,” to take care of ourselves and eat properly, only to ruin the whole thing with some crazy binge? How long could we not stay on a healthy diet if it weren’ t for those uncontrollable cravings for“ bad” yummies? And how often have we not had a craving that we’ ve suppressed, considering it“ unhealthy”? But in fact there are usually good reasons for cravings and binges. They are not the call of the devil, which we lack the will power to resist. Remember: The body, as a living system, will tend to conserve and protect, if not form, at least function. Most of its feelings and activities have the purpose of keeping it functioning in spite of obstacles or breakdowns. Freud has taught us that there are no arbitrary actions arising out of the subconscious, which in our model includes the physical as well as the psychological. The trick is to find out what our cravings are telling us. From my own experience I’ ve been able to discern three major categories, or causes, of cravings: ADDICTION / ALLERGY, DISCHARGE, and IMBALANCE OF SYSTEMS. When you start a healing regimen, you may find yourself subject to any one or all three. It will be helpful to you to understand what is happening in your body. In order to change to a healthier way of eating effectively, we must distinguish between cravings that indicate a malfunction or misinterpretation of our appetite signals and those that indicate a true need. The first kind can be withstood or deflected, the second kind should be listened to. Addictions, allergies, and discharges make us crave precisely those foods that cause us unwanted physiological or psychological reactions. Cravings that arise out of an imbalance of expansive-contractive, acid-alkaline, or nutrient-proportion systems provide us with important information about how we’ re doing and, if not heeded, will provoke uncontrollable binges. ADDICTION / ALLERGY We are addicted to a food or drink( and thus crave it) when( a) the food creates symptoms of imbalance, such as headache, fatigue, skin problems, digestive disorders, or tension, some time after ingestion, and( b) the symptoms can be relieved by consuming more of the same food. If, for example, you give up sweets or coffee, you will initially crave them and feel generally depressed and tense. Eat a cookie, have a cup of coffee, and the symptoms go away— although not the addiction. A food allergy is the opposite of addiction: Unpleasant symptoms appear almost immediately upon consumption of the offending substance 1 and are best controlled by avoiding that substance completely. There are many instances, however, when we do not connect our allergic symptoms with our food intake. We’ ll continue to crave the allergen and suffer through fatigue, tension, and headaches without realizing what their cause is or how simply they could be cured. Addictions are harder to detect than allergies; it’ s not always clear to us that we are attracted to a specific food only because we ate it before and it hurts not to eat it. The most common offender in this category, sparing almost no one, is refined sugar. 2 One bite of cake— if we’ ve had nothing with white sugar for a while— and the next day we want another; we think,“ I must need this,” or“ I have a sweet tooth, that’ s just how I am,” and we go for it. And then we want another, and another, and another. Today’ s sweet tooth is caused by yesterday’ s candy bar. Getting off sugar is akin to getting off an addictive drug. People get cravings and headaches, feel depressed, fatigued, and generally dispirited. Fortunately, these symptoms rarely last more than three or four days after the last taste of the sweet stuff. After that, a remarkable lightness and clarity set in, eventually much more addictive, I feel, than sugar. Addictions to stimulants such as coffee, chocolate, cigarettes, narcotics, and alcohol are common. Willpower is needed to break the addiction, as well as a few other tricks( see this page at the end of this chapter), and abstention for at least four days, if not more, before the craving subsides. Physical cravings for addictive foods or stimulants will vanish after the withdrawal symptoms cease. However, every time you again consume even a bit of the offending substance, you should be very careful and watch yourself as if the addiction were back in full swing, or else it will easily creep up again. If you have been addicted to sugar, try such substitutes as dates, frozen bananas, semimoist dried fruit, or baked goods sweetened with barley malt or maple syrup, and especially sweet orange vegetables, like yams and winter squash; they satisfy the sweet tooth without restarting the addiction. The most common food allergies are those to milk and milk products, eggs, wheat, corn, shellfish, nuts, chocolate, coffee, and alcohol. If the reactions are nonphysical, such as anxiety, sleeplessness, or extreme fatigue, you may not even be aware that you have a food allergy. A great deal of the time, people who are