Understanding and Handling Cravings

"... We have tolerances in our body that have been developed over years from foods that we eat that are highly toxic. Its just like drugs. If you take a drug into your body the drug is poison, but at the same time your body rises up to fight this poison so you develop a tolerance. Then if you remove the poison you still have the tolerance Your body is still pushing against that poison even though the poison isn't there anymore and you feel that. And that tolerance is what you feel when you feel a craving. You want to bring that poison back into your body because your body is pushing against it, its developed a tolerance, and now it requires that poison in order to maintain balance. Food is the same way. So for that period where you have the tolerance for a cooked food even though you're not putting that particular toxin into your body it will push against your body in the form of a craving. But after a while your body sees that it no longer needs that tolerance because the poison is no longer in your body, then it stops pushing against your body and the craving goes away. So no matter how strong the craving is for some particular food, if you don't eat that food the craving will eventually go away, and will be replaced by healthy cravings. If you need protein, you'll crave a nut burger. If you need certain kinds of vitamins, then you'll crave a salad. Cravings in themselves are not bad. They're basically set up to tell our body what we need at any given moment so that we can supply the body with that particular building block. But on a standard American diet, our cravings have become distorted. We need to get on a natural path so that our cravings will work FOR us instead of against us." -Victoria Boutenko, author of 12 Steps to Raw Food*

Cravings and what to replace them with:

Desserts: Instead of eating harmful desserts filled with sugar, try eating fresh fruits. If that isn't filling enough to satisfy your craving you can make a super-quick spread to eat with fruit (or alone) by mixing nut butter, honey and dried shredded coconut. This goes especially well with apples and bananas. If you experiment with combining things like: nut butters, ground nuts, dates, honey, carob powder, coconut, chopped apple, bananas, strawberries, raisins, etc. You can invent your own raw treats to satisfy desert cravings. There are also many raw recipes for more elaborate deserts, such as: apple or peach cobbler [recipe available in the recipes section], almond poppyseed cake, and even carob truffles. The Boutenko's book Eating without Heating is a good source for delicious raw cake and other desert recipes

Salt: Salt can be found in most types of cooked dishes, and often a craving for cooked food can really be a craving for salt. However, most salt is iodized, bleached, and processed to make it white and very fine and to make it pour well. This salt has actually had almost all the minerals removed from it (as the minerals make it look gray or brownish rather than white). The refining process also changes the salt into a form the body has a very hard time using. There is a kind of salt, called Celtic Sea Salt, which is not bleached and iodized into uselessness. This salt has all of the naturally found minerals still present and is very healthy for your body. In order to get enough salt you can put it into your salad dressings, pates and onto fresh vegetables (like cucumber). We have found that adding small amounts of salt (just the right amount so you can't really taste it) to sweet things helps to bring out the other flavors more as well.

Milk Shakes, Iced Tea and other drinks: You can make raw milk shakes which are very satisfying by using Almond Milk instead of cow's milk [there is a recipe is on our recipes page]. Also, if you don't have any almond milk on hand you can still make a quick shake. Just take about 2 tablespoons of almond butter (or another nut butter) and blend it with 1 1/2 cups of water and a banana. It's about as fast as you will find, but still delicious. For tea: using fresh herbs, such as Mint, along with slices of lemon will make a good iced tea. Put the herbs and lemon in a jar (with lid) and let it sit in the sun or another warm place for 24 hours, or until it is as strong as you like. Raw smoothies are a no-brainer, just take your favorite fruits and blend them with ice, or freeze them in pieces and blend them with some water. If you add Banana in with the other fruit it makes the smoothies creamer. Adding fresh juices (such as orange juice) works great, too!

Meat: You can make nut loaf or nut pates to substitute for meats. Grind nuts (almonds or walnuts work well) to a fine meal and add Olive oil and Celtic Sea Salt. Then finely chop or food process vegetables such as: carrots, onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, garlic, celery, tomatoes, and mix them into the ground nuts. Add spices or fresh herbs to flavor it the way you like. Using different combinations of nuts, vegetables and spices you can make an almost endless number of different pates.

Spaghetti: By using a Spirooli or potato peeler to make long, thing strands of zucchini or squash you can make raw pasta. The Spirooli makes round, even threads very quickly and the texture and shape is just like cooked pasta. Crush tomato and garlic, then add salt and olive oil for a very simple raw pasta sauce. Or, use pine nuts, garlic, basil, salt and olive oil to make a raw pesto. There also is a recipe for spaghetti on the recipes page.

French fries/potato chips: This craving should be handled by eating something oily and salty. Try nuts with seaweed or Celtic Sea Salt. Mix them together with a little olive or another raw oil to help it stick. Brazil nuts are an especially oily nut and would be good for this. Or try our sprouted Garlic Sunflower or Pumpkin Seeds, which are a salty and oily snack that has been sprouted and dehydrated to enhance the enzymes and make it crunchy.