Health > What to Eat When You Crave These Junk Foods
What to Eat When You Crave These Junk Foods
A food craving is usually due to the body requiring nutrients, either macro (fats, carbs and protein) or micro (vitamins and minerals). A food addiction is where a certain chemical is in the food that passes the blood brain barrier and effects receptors in the brain.
When you begin to eat foods that are REAL as opposed to foods in packaging, which are subsequently laced with additives, preservatives, flavouring, modified foods and non food sources, then your body gives you the right cues as to the right food you need to eat. But because we don’t consider what we eat, we make poor food choices when a craving begins.
In animal husbandry, when cows start eating fence posts and rocks, the farmer knows to put out a salt (mineral) block! It is a condition called cribbing and indicates the animal needs minerals. But humans are not quite that stupid, apparently. Instead, when they need a mineral or vitamin, instead of rocks and fence posts, they eat chips and lollies. Perhaps I was wrong to judge animals so?
Here are some foods that people crave and changes you can make without necessarily losing taste.
Chocolate
There is nothing wrong with 100% cacao. It is filled with fats for energy, many nutrients and antioxidants as well as some carbohydrates and amino acids. It’s a wonderful food. What is wrong with chocolate are the additives that many manufacturers make their chocolate with. If you have a craving for chocolate, choose one with just a few ingredients – cacao, organic sugar and vanilla. The food company Changing Habits sells 100% cacao that you can snack on or make your own healthy chocolate with. But if you’re not prepared to quite go there yet try some Loving earth or Pana Chocolate. You will find that this type of chocolate curbs the craving in smaller amounts then any other chocolate that has been made with many additives.
Coffee
Coffee actually has many benefits. The problem is that many people add milk, sugar, use substandard instant coffee and drink too much. If you love your coffee, there is no need to give it up, just find the best, organic brand if you can and start working toward having coffee like the Italians - freshly ground espresso, short or long without anything added. Coffee is an addictive food however, so minimise how much you drink and use it wisely. It is especially good during brain storming sessions or of a morning! My favourite coffee is normally a long black but on occasion I have a coffee with a tablespoon of unsalted butter, and a tablespoon of Changing Habits Coconut Oil, whipped into a long black. It’s a coffee treasured by Tibetan travellers for energy and health!
Soft drinks
Here is a food that definitely needs the big heave ho! These drinks are made from artificial flavours which add up to about 48 chemicals including solvents and diactyl. Add to that the preservatives and sugar and you have a drink that pushes blood sugar up then drops it down leaving you depleted of energy. If you love your soft drinks, slowly start adding soda water to dilute them down. When you get to 20% soft drink and 80% soda water then you’re ready to leave the soft drink out all together and add a little fresh lime and mint with a drop of natural stevia. Eventually you won’t even need the stevia, you will be happy with just the lime and mint. It’s all about changing habits!
Biscuits
If you have your favourite package of biscuits near you, I want you to turn the package over and read the ingredients. If it reads like a chemical laboratory then every time you eat these biscuits, they are merely adding to your health woes and lack of energy. They may even be apart of the aches and pains you feel. I’ve never been about taking away something without replacing it with something new. Why not try and make yourself up a snack that you can take to work every day so that when the biscuit craving comes you have something to replace it with.
Cake products
Cakes are part of Australian life. Cake and tea has always been tradition, but the cakes of our tradition and the cakes that we find in most stores today are not the same. Old fashion cakes are made with a few ingredients, as opposed to most shop purchased cakes which may have up to 50 ingredients, most of them chemicals. If you are going to eat cake, then make sure it is a good old fashion home made cake. I always make up a Chocolate Chia Cake, so no matter what, my family and I know that we can eat cake. Here is the link to the recipe. It doesn’t take long to make but the problem is it takes even shorter to eat because it is a favourite with all!
Nuts
If you love your nuts then make sure you eat the best. I always encourage office workers to have some nuts on their desks, but there is a caveat on what nuts. I suggest nuts in their shells and there is very good reason for this. Let me spell them out:
- They are preserved by nature and are of the highest in nutrition
- You can’t eat them non-stop. You have to stop what you’re doing in order to crack the shell to get into the nut. This serves two purposes - you can’t eat too many and they have not been salted, flavoured and roasted therefore they are better for you.
- The best nuts to have are brazil, macadamia, walnut, hazelnut and almond.
Cheese and crackers
What’s wrong with cheese and crackers? Especially beautiful fermented soft cheeses with seeded crackers! It’s really hard to find a good, healthy cracker so rather than crackers and cheese, try dried fruit and soft cheese. The dried fruits I use are usually dried pear, apple and date and as they act as great crackers to slather your beautiful cheese onto. Most people believe that cheese is bad for them, but you’ve probably noticed that I am a nutritionist that believes fat is a good macro nutrient - but it must be a good quality. The low fat/lite revolution has been a disaster for our health and waist line. So I would rather you embrace the good quality fats that can be found in a wonderful brie as opposed to having you eat low fat low salted crackers.
Toast
This is one food that has become a bit too convenient and there is a belief that it is healthy. Yes perhaps 40 years ago it was a healthy food, when bread was made from 5 ingredients and made properly in order to counteract any anti-nutrients. But these days some bread is made months before (dough and partially cooked), others are made from premixes that have preservatives and raising agents and things that are non essential for health. And another nail in the coffin for bread is that it is made with a hybridised wheat using dubious chemicals where the gluten is not tolerated by many people. So if you want to snack on toast I’d be replacing, it with a good quality gluten free (check your ingredients and make sure it is made with real foods, not chemicals), or I’d be making bread the old fashion way with the old traditional wheat grain – called Einkorn. ;
Packet chips
There are packet chips and packet chips. There are ones that have many ingredients with flavours and additives and then there are chips that are made from just three ingredients; potatoes, oil and salt. If you have a craving for chips then find an ethical good quality chip with just three ingredients. These days chips are made with all sorts of vegetables including; kale, sweet potato, beetroot and potato. These are not hard to find and many of them have no genetically modified foods or additives and are made traditionally! Failing finding these chips I would suggest make your own, they’re not hard and can be quickly made by slicing thinly your favourite root vegetable, smother them in coconut oil and seaweed salt and place in a hot oven for about 20 minutes. Remember the key to good health is always making sure all of your ingredients are of the highest nutrients.
Muesli bars
Once upon a time muesli bars may have been something healthy. But the big corporations have made them a junk food, filling them with wheat and corn based sugars, flavours, colours, and less then healthy ingredients. If you are looking for a muesli bar that you don’t have to make, look no further than Brookfarm nut and seed bars.
So it’s not all bad news! You don’t have to give up the foods you crave, all you have to do is find them in their better qualities. When you take the time to do this, you will have more energy and health and your body will indicate to you when you’ve have enough. The body is intelligent. We have just taken that intelligence away by feeding it foods it can no longer recognise as food. By eating real foods and staying away from packaged foods your body will thank you by giving you more energy, better health and correct weight.
Written by Cyndi O’Meara