Food Cravings

Do you crave chocolate, bread, cheese, fries, or other foods? If so, there's a reason why, as Doreen Virtue's breakthrough book explains. Each food craving actually corresponds to a specific underlying emotion; so once you understand the meaning behind your particular craving and apply the information and affirmations within these pages, you'll be able to heal your cycle of emotional overeating. In addition, you'll read scientific studies about the mood- and energy-altering properties of each food, which will help you see how your appetite perfectly mirrors your emotions. This comprehensive and empowering guide will also show you how to give "food readings" to yourself and others, allowing you to accurately interpret the meaning behind many cravings. Constant Craving is a one-of-kind book that will give you the emotional, physical, and spiritual tools you need to make friends with food . . . and your appetite!

Maybe she’s on a photo shoot in Zanzibar. Maybe she’s making people laugh on TV. But all Chrissy Teigen really wants to do is talk about dinner. Or breakfast. Lunch gets some love, too. For years, she’s been collecting, cooking, and Instagramming her favorite recipes, and here they are: from breakfast all day to John’s famous fried chicken with spicy honey butter to her mom’s Thai classics. Salty, spicy, saucy, and fun as sin (that’s the food, but that’s Chrissy, too), these dishes are for family, for date night at home, for party time, and for a few life-sucks moments (salads). You’ll learn the importance of chili peppers, the secret to cheesy-cheeseless eggs, and life tips like how to use bacon as a home fragrance, the single best way to wake up in the morning, and how not to overthink men or Brussels sprouts. Because for Chrissy Teigen, cooking, eating, life, and love are one and the same.

Food craving refers to an intense desire or urge to consume a specific food. In Western or Westernized societies, these craved foods usually have high palatability and are energy dense, that is, they have high sugar and/or fat content. Accordingly, the most often craved food is chocolate. Food craving is a multidimensional experience as it includes cognitive (e.g. thinking about food), emotional (e.g. desire to eat or changes in mood), behavioral (e.g. seeking and consuming food), and physiological (e.g. salivation) aspects. Experiences of food craving are common, that is, they do not reflect abnormal eating behavior per se. However, very intense and frequent food craving experiences are associated with obesity and eating disorders such as bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder. The aim of this research topic was to gather new contributions to a variety of aspects of food craving, which include its assessment, cognitive and emotional triggers, moderators, and correlates of food craving, and the relevance of food cravings in clinical issues, among others.

A fact-filled guide to coping with compulsive overeating problems by an experienced addictions doctor who draws on many patients’ stories of recovery. Overeating, binge eating, obesity, anorexia, and bulimia: Food Junkies tackles the complex, poorly understood issue of food addiction from the perspectives of a medical researcher and dozens of survivors. What exactly is food addiction? Is it possible to draw a hard line between indulging cravings for “comfort food” and engaging in substance abuse? For people struggling with food addictions, recognizing their condition — to say nothing of gaining support and advice — remains a frustrating battle. Built around the experiences of people suffering and recovering from food addictions, Food Junkies offers practical information grounded in medical science, while putting a face to the problems of food addiction. It is meant to be a knowledgeable and friendly guide on the road to food serenity.

The international bestseller from award-winning writer Mark Schatzker that reveals how our dysfunctional relationship with food began—and how science is leading us back to healthier living and eating. For the last fifty years, we have been fighting a losing war on food. We have cut fat, reduced carbs, eliminated sugar, and attempted every conceivable diet only to find that eighty-eight million American adults are prediabetic, more than a hundred million have high blood pressure, and nearly half now qualify as obese. The harder we try to control what we eat, the unhealthier we become. Why? Mark Schatzker has spent his career traveling the world in search of the answer. Now, in The End of Craving, he poses the profound question: What if the key to nutrition and good health lies not in resisting the primal urge to eat but in understanding its purpose? Beginning in the mountains of Europe and the fields of the Old South, Schatzker embarks on a quest to uncover the lost art of eating and living well. Along the way, he visits brain scanning laboratories and hog farms, and encounters cultural oddities and scientific paradoxes—northern Italians eat what may be the world’s most delicious cuisine, yet are among the world’s thinnest people; laborers in southern India possess an inborn wisdom to eat their way from sickness to good health. Schatzker reveals how decades of advancements in food technology have turned the brain’s drive to eat against the body, placing us in an unrelenting state of craving. Only by restoring the relationship between nutrition and the pleasure of eating can we hope to lead longer and happier lives. Combining cutting-edge science and ancient wisdom, The End of Craving is an urgent and radical investigation that “charts a roadmap not just for healthy eating, but for joyous eating, too” (Dan Barber, New York Times bestselling author of The Third Plate).

In this first book on the topic written from a Catholic perspective, award-winning writer Mary DeTurris Poust offers personal, hard-won wisdom on the complex relationship between food and spirituality in Cravings: A Catholic Wrestles with Food, Self-Image, and God. Poust draws on the rich appreciation of meals she first gained at the tables of her childhood in an Italian-American family, leading readers into reflection on the connections between eating, self-image, and spirituality. Like Geneen Roth in Women, Food and God, but from a uniquely Catholic point of view, Poust helps readers spot ways they use food to avoid or ignore their real desires—for acceptance, understanding, friendship, love, and, indeed, for God. Poust draws from scripture and the great Catholic prayer forms and devotions to assist readers in making intentional changes in their use of food. She also offers reflections on fasting, eating in solidarity with the poor, vegetarianism, and the local food movement.

A page-turning memoir that “will give comfort and guidance to the many people trying to improve their relationships with food” (Andrew Weil, author of Eating Well for Optimum Health). Since childhood, legendary folk singer Judy Collins has had a tumultuous relationship with food. Her issues with overeating nearly claimed her career and her life. For decades she thought she simply lacked self-discipline. She tried nearly every diet plan that exists, often turning to alcohol to dull the pain of yet another failed attempt to control her seemingly insatiable cravings. Today, Judy knows she suffers from an addiction to sugar, grains, flour, and wheat. She adheres to a strict diet of unprocessed foods, consumed in carefully measured portions. This solution has allowed her to maintain a healthy weight, to enjoy the glow of good health, and to attain peace of mind. Alternating between chapters on her life and those on the many diet gurus she has encountered along the way, Cravings is the culmination of Judy’s desire to share what she's learned—so that no one else has to struggle in the same way she did.

Can certain foods hijack the brain in ways similar to drugs and alcohol, and is this effect sufficiently strong to contribute to major diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, and hence constitute a public health menace? Terms like "chocoholic" and "food addict" are part of popular lore, some popular diet books discuss the concept of addiction, and there are food addiction programs with names like Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous. Clinicians who work with patients often hear the language of addiction when individuals speak of irresistible cravings, withdrawal symptoms when starting a diet, and increasing intake of palatable foods over time. But what does science show, and how strong is the evidence that food and addiction is a real and important phenomenon? Food and Addiction: A Comprehensive Handbook brings scientific order to the issue of food and addiction, spanning multiple disciplines to create the foundation for what is a rapidly advancing field and to highlight needed advances in science and public policy. The book assembles leading scientists and policy makers from fields such as nutrition, addiction, psychology, epidemiology, and public health to explore and analyze the scientific evidence for the addictive properties of food. It provides complete and comprehensive coverage of all subjects pertinent to food and addiction, from basic background information on topics such as food intake, metabolism, and environmental risk factors for obesity, to diagnostic criteria for food addiction, the evolutionary and developmental bases of eating addictions, and behavioral and pharmacologic interventions, to the clinical, public health, and legal and policy implications of recognizing the validity of food addiction. Each chapter reviews the available science and notes needed scientific advances in the field.