Well, actually that's not totally true. I'm not craving the usual things that most people crave i.e., carbs and especially sugar but the last few days I've been feeling like eating meat. This, for those who know very well, is quite odd. I used to be vegetarian (for ethical reasons) and that for about 15 years, and back then I would never have thought that I could crave meat, ever. We've all heard stories of die-hard vegetarians who suddenly start eating bloody steak but I would never have thought I could be one of them. Mind you, I'm no longer vegetarian since I eat poultry and fish but I don't eat any red meat or pork duck etc. It's not for nutritional reasons, simply because I can picture the piglets, calves, geese etc.
And yet, the last few days I've been drooling at the thought of fish and I've been thinking that I'd like to try meat, that I really would like to. And my head is totally confused over this, I can still see the cows but I couldn't help thinking that the mince I bought today would be rather nice with some caramelised onions, crunchy slivers of carrots and a bit of avocado all wrapped in a large lettuce parcel.
Now you're probably thinking that the diet has gone to my head and that the lack of food is getting to me. But you now what I think? I think that now that my hormones seem to be more in equilibrium (given how great I feel), my body is now tuning in and telling me what I need to eat, on a pure physiological level of course, my body couldn't care less about the piglets.
This is called physiological hunger and as bonkers as it may sound, it is actually a physiology cue that occurs through a genuine need of the body. Before we were told what to eat and not eat (by the media, food industry, nutritionists) we had to make a decision for ourselves in order to survive - we needed to decide. Some say that this is why humans don't tend to be attracted to bitter foods a signal of potential poison.
You probably have heard
cases of pregnant women with pica who eat non-food substances such as chalk (to
palliate to a calcium insufficiency). It’s also common for people who are really stressed and run
down to crave salt, as the level of the hormone aldosterone drops. Aldosterone
is normally in charge of re-absorbing salt from the urine back into the blood,
low levels of aldosterone means lower than needed levels of salt in the blood,
hence the salt craving trying to palliate to a shortage.
I used to travel a lot
with my former job in publishing and every October we’d go to Frankfurt for 5
days where breakfast was in a hotel, lunch a quick sandwich in between clients
and dinner in a restaurant washed down with wine every night. Every year all I
wanted on my return was simple green vegetables, water and very little coffee,
it had all been too much for my body to take and now that the trip was over it
was telling me to go back to simpler and cleaner foods. You might think that
this has never happened to you and only a "certain type of people" can genuinely
want to eat green vegetables but I would argue that with a bit of training we
can all learn to listen to the basic needs of our body. You might also argue,
how can the body know what it needs? Well the body is a carefully run machine
and it is possible that it learns by a process of recognition that meat
contains protein, that bananas contains potassium, kiwis vitamin C etc. After
all how do animals manage?
My body seems to be pushing me towards protein as opposed to sugar and so I'm guessing that the ideal diet for me is one slightly higher in protein and lower in
Now the question is: am I going to be able to eat meat?
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