Craving Tri-fecta

 I was reading an article in my grandmother's diabetes magazine this past weekend about food cravings.  The author made a very interesting point about the types of foods we crave, and the foods that we can not "eat just one" of.  Apparently it all has to do with THREE very addictive ingredients...

FAT
SUGAR
SALT

Think about those foods we crave and cannot get enough of.  Every one I can think of has at least TWO of those three components.  And the more irresistable the food, the more of them it has.  Let's think of some examples:

Potato Chips - fat and salt
Chocoalte - sugar and fat
Popcorn - salt and fat (butter, usually)
Donuts - fat and sugar

Some snacks even include all three, like honey roasted nuts, which include fat, sugar AND salt.  Not that fat, sugar and salt are necessarily bad by themselves, but combined with processed, empty calorie snacks, they can really wreak havoc on your health. 

 It is a fact that our bodies crave certain things because we NEED them in order to survive.  Cravings are our body's way of encouraging us to eat those things which will sustain life.  However, we have strayed so far from the food chain that our bodies are thoroughly confused.  We think of M&M's when we crave sweets instead of fresh fruit, for example.  When we just want to bite into something we go for a meatball sub instead of a big juicy apple.  Sugar and salt in excess send all kinds of mixed signals to our brains, causing us to reach for the chips and dip instead of more natural alternatives. 

I do belive that its possible to reprogram outselves to crave foods that are healthy and wholesome, but its certainly not easy!  We need to be willing to say "NO" to processed, preserved, salted and overly sugared foods.  It may cost more money, and it may cause us to feel deprived and sorry for ourslves at first.  In the end, however, it is SO GOOD for our over all health.  Our weight will drop and our organs will start working more efficiently.  We will build muscle and improve our skin tone and gain our energy back.  We cannot hope to change over night, but we can make small changes over the coarse of a period of time and gain back our ability to crave the foods that will help instead of hurt us.  We can do it.