From working with clients, my own personal experience, and research, I have found six possible causes of toxic food cravings. Let’s get right into it!

1. Lack of enjoyment in life

When you’re unhappy, and especially if you’re out of balance in one area of your life, food, cravings, and just eating, in general, could be the highlight of your day. Just think about it and slow down, because I know this happens to me. Especially when I was dealing with years of recovering from my injuries, being in a lot of pain, and having to say no to a lot of things that I used to be able to do. I would just go and eat because that was really satisfying.

I have many different worksheets in the Harmony Method®️ that look at these imbalances because when we can get those back in balance, our food cravings really improve.

2. Water 

A lot of times, when we’re craving toxic food, we’re actually craving the water in the food. We’re anywhere upward of 70% water and, in general, people are very dehydrated.

If you have cravings, especially late in the afternoon, you’re probably craving water. I recommend to drink a glass of water when you’re experiencing cravings and start your day right with two glasses of warm water as soon as you wake up.

3. Yin-yang Imbalance 

This is a theory from macrobiotics, showing that certain foods have expensive qualities and others have constricting qualities. Constricting qualities would be meat, salt, and other things like that.

Expensive would be sugar, alcohol, and coffee. If you’re in an extreme yin or yang imbalance, you’re going to crave the other.

Then we have the middle road, which is your vegetables and beans and things like that. If you’re having a lot of salty foods, you’re probably going to crave something sweet. That’s why a lot of times, restaurants over salt their foods because they want you to order more alcohol and dessert. To keep in balance, you need a little of everything, but if you’re going out of balance in one area, you’re probably going to crave the other.

4. Seasonal 

I talk a lot about cycles and rhythms of nature, and our bodies have that as well, especially when the weather changes and we have different seasons. Our body craves different things. Our bodies aren’t meant to have blueberries in the winter—that is a summer food.

Now that we can get fruits and vegetables year-round, it’s something to look at. A lot of times, we have cravings because of the different cycles in nature and rhythms.

5. Lack of nutrients 

This could be minerals, so a quick example would be if you crave a lot of salt. If you have a craving for it, a lot of times, that’s a sign of a deficiency in minerals. I recommend to add some trace minerals, and then also fruits and vegetables that are really high in minerals to balance that out.

6. Hormones

When our hormones are imbalanced, we can have cravings. Especially if we’re stressed out all the time. From chronic pain to gut issues, we have a lot of cortisol and adrenaline happening, which are alpha hormones. This puts other hormones out of balance. This is something I love speaking about, and when we balance our hormones, this can really help with cravings too.

These are just some possible reasons why we crave toxic food. I want to hear about your cravings, so leave a comment below about some other possible causes of why we have cravings!