Cravings are the curse of all dieters.
Some long for specific foods — steak or donuts or soda — while others, such as myself, have more generalized cravings. I crave sugar and salt.
Of course, non-dieters suffer cravings, too.
Jennifer, who does not diet (she has no need), is fond of butter. She puts it on everything. She slathers butter on bread. She uses alarming quantities of it when preparing vegetables for dinner. Indeed, Jenn has passed this love of butter on to her children, Harrison (5) and Emma (3). Emma's love of butter is such that she has been known to seize an unattended stick of the stuff, to eat it raw.
I grew to adulthood without a taste for butter. In fact, it's only in the past several years that I've learned to tolerate the stuff. As a child, and a young adult — even as a grown man — I would eschew buttered popcorn and, especially, buttered bread. Now I deal with it (though I never choose a buttered option over a non-buttered option). When served a piece of buttered bread, I "close my eyes and think of England".
That is not to say that butter ought to be considered evil. Not at all. I realize that Jennifer and her family are representative of the greater population and that I am the anomaly. I consider their butter addiction to be of dubious merit; they believe my sugar addiction warrants close scrutiny.
When I began this diet, Jeremy and I had a conversation about the current fad for low-carb regimens. I re-iterated my disdain for diets that shunned carbohydrates for fat, at those that cautioned against an addiction to sugar. Jeremy fixed me with a serious gaze: "J.D., you could stand to cut some sugar from your diet."
He was right. Moreover, I think there might be something to this idea of an addiction to sugar.
When I allow my cravings to direct my menu, they invariably lead me to meals such as these favorites: honey toast and hot cocoa; donuts and orange juice; fresh chocolate chip cookies and milk; Fruit Loops or Cocoa Puffs or Lucky Charms; a bag of jelly beans.
During the first two months of this diet, it's been a challenge to limit my sugar intake. I eat a burrito for lunch and find that my body craves sugar. (And so I walk into Tony's office and pilfer six SweetTarts from an open box.) I eat chicken and peas for dinner and find that my sweet tooth impels me to find a source &mash; any source! — of sugar, so that I discover I am standing in the pantry with a bag of jumbo marshmallows in my hand. Mmmm.
It's not just sugar I crave; I also crave salt. I sometimes wonder if I couldn't get by on a diet comprising only granulated sugar and rock salt. Perhaps I should try it some time.
Just as Emma has been known to feast on raw butter, I've been known to snack on a pinch of salt. In a restaurant, hungry and waiting, I just might pour a bit of salt in my hand and snack on it while I wait for the meal to arrive. More often, if I am introduced to a particularly good salt (a gourmet salt, for example), I cannot help but sample it. Repeatedly. (Damn that Craig and his Portugeuse salt! That stuff is fantastic.)
Kris, too, seems to share this predilection for salt. From time-to-time, as a snack, she allows herself a Big Papa pickle. She even saves the juice. She drains the salty pickly juice into a glass and stores it in the fridge until several days later, at which time she indulges her salt tooth a second time. Yes, I know: gross.
Why Jenn's love of butter? Why my love of sugar? Why Kris' love of salt? Do they serve a biological purpose?
Experience has taught me to listen to my body's cravings. If I'm thirsty, I drink. If I crave protein, I have a piece of meat. If I crave complex carbohydrates, I eat rice or pasta. It's surprising how attuned one can become to the body's signals with just a little effort.
But why is it that so often my body seems to be crying, "Sugar! Sugar! Sugar!"
On this day at foldedspace.org
2005 — Warm and Hearty Paul and Susan allowed me to spend an evening and a morning with them in their new home. I had fun, despite a long quest for warm and hearty food.
2003 — Character Camp "How could you not know?" Byron asked, his temper rising. "This is what we had planned. We each spent the night alone, and then came back together as a group. That was the Whole Point."
2001 — Knock Knock I was just awakened by a soft, rhythmic knocking. What was it? (Also: capsule reviews of the book and film versions of Lolita.)
You could be craving sugar because of an overabundance of insulin. Insulin demands sugar. This condition is commonly known as hypoglocemia and runs in our family. Or you could be craving sugar because it's something everybody is born with. You probably do not know this, or at least do not rememeber tasting this, but mothers milk is very sweet! Incredibly sweet. A newborn baby loves sweet milk. It's universal. That craving for something sweet has kept the human race alive all these thousnds of years. If breast milk were salty or bitter or spicy you and i wouldn't be here to complain about our sugar cravings. Embrace it. It's the staff of life!