Cravings

I just walked out to the kitchen to get a slice of cheese. A thick slice. It was my second thick slice. And this one didn’t satisfy either.

That’s what cravings are — your body is trying to tell you something but you don’t translate the message into an action that actually helps. So you keep craving the same thing and it still doesn’t help.

Sometimes cravings drive your entire life. For breakfast you open the fridge and see what entices. For lunch you drive down FastFood Avenue until something strikes your fancy. For dinner you look over the miscellaneous prepared items in boxes in your freezer.

Or sometimes you have good eating habits but maybe that chicken you ate for lunch was off a bit and didn’t get digested properly, or maybe you overate so it didn’t get digested properly, or maybe you haven’t been getting enough good oils, or maybe . . .

Maybe we need a chart to remind us how to translate cravings into something that brings peace.

Actually, I do have that chart. Excuse me a moment while I go remedy this situation:

Yup, I had the juice of one lemon followed by one nice belch and I’m at peace again. The problem was that I hadn’t completely digested the meal before and I needed protein. Adding the lemon helped me to digest it.

How to Beat the Cravings:

• If you are craving milk or dairy products, ice cream, yogurt, cheese, or other proteins, this is an LL problem — drink the juice of a fresh lemon or lime and cut down on your protein intake a bit because you’re having problems digesting them. And squeeze lemon juice over your protein foods for a few days to get you out of this craving pattern.
• If you are craving simple carbs, pasta, or baked goods, this is an LO problem — increase your high quality oils because your liver is in need of them. And make sure every meal has about 30% good fats to get you out of this pattern.
• If you are craving tannins and caffeine (coffee, colas, chocolate, tea, or other brown stuff), this is a 4C’s problem — increase the natural green and red foods in your diet, and add vinegar and cayenne.
• More info on the above may be found here.

But here’s the problem with this little chart:

If you’re not eating a balanced diet (30/30/40), with a variety of raw veggies and fruits, or if you’re eating most of your calories in one meal, or not eating enough food, or overeating, then you won’t be getting enough minerals and you just need to start eating right in order for this chart to work.

I’ve seen quite a few charts on how to translate cravings into what your body needs. They all have the same thing in common: they tie it to a lack of minerals. And here’s the hard part, for all you vegetable haters out there:

We get our minerals from veggies.

Three easy ways to get raw veggies into your diet:

• Marinated greens — recipe here at bottom of page.
• Fresh green salads — no iceburg lettuce though. Add lemon & oil.
• Green smoothies — recipe here.

There are plenty of other ways to get good greens and red foods into your diet, but the green part seems to be crucial in regaining health. And there can be a problem with green smoothies — they need to be made with hard greens: collards, kale, chard, turnip greens, something that is usually cooked. And most people don’t add enough oils so they overeat their smoothies. The above recipe solves those problems. If not, add more olive oil. I need to.

Eat greens, save a life (yours!).