Investigating Food-Craving Details

Most of us have some sort of food craving at some point or another. Monell Chemical Senses Center researchers note that somewhere between 90% and 100% of women aged 18 to 35 have them. For men of the same age, that figure drops to just under 70%.

However, the causes of cravings are rather nebulous. USDA research has shown a common thread of fat combined with carbohydrates. Brian Wansink, executive director of USDA’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, notes that “physiologically, we’re hard-wired to want to eat fat because if our ancestors ate a lot of fat, they were more likely not to starve.”

In the end, the key to controlling cravings may lie not in preventing them, but in learning to control portion size.