Ever Get Bizarre Food Cravings?

[veggieprincess]

Do you ever find yourself strangely drawn to certain foods that others would think sounds strange?

 

I wonder if it means my body is trying to stack up on any one vitamin or mineral, but here is mine...

 

Tomato Paste.

 

I can eat a whole can of tomato paste in one sitting. It's not the same kind of craving as lets say sugar or potato chips... but I can't seem to ever get enough tomato paste once I start eating it. Straight out of the jar with a knife.... Could it be the lycopene? I eat alot of veggies and the only thing I crave in the veggie family is tomato paste.

 

Any opinions on that?

 

What do you crave physiologically... not psycholically?

[Marcina]

Lol I spoon out the tomato paste and eat it too. It's so yummy! I eat tomatoes all the time but tomato paste seems to be more enjoyable for me for some reason

[thendanisays]

a lot of times i feel like i NEED to have greens. kale mostly. not even that i necissarily want it, but that i need to have it. its a good thing, its one of the few cravings that i'm thankful for

[bodybag]

Tomato Paste out of the can!

 

I eat greens everyday so no cravings for that here.

 

I forgot to bring lunch to work one day recently so I grabbed a jar of peanut butter on the way there. I threw it down in a minute. I just couldn't stop eating it. Peanut butter and raisins. Yummy! jaleel don't put any ideas in my head. I'm going grocery shopping tomorrow. I haven't had raisins in a long time.

[Marcina]

a lot of times i feel like i NEED to have greens. kale mostly. not even that i necissarily want it, but that i need to have it. its a good thing, its one of the few cravings that i'm thankful for

 

I crave spinach salads!

[sydneyvegan]

1. Soy Tasty style cheese covered with chocolate hazelnut spread

[vivalasvegans]

VP and Marcina, I wonder if you have a sensitivity or allergy to tomatoes. They come from the nightshade family and are a pretty common allergen.

 

Do you crave fresh tomatoes? I would assume most of the vitamins in mass produced tomato paste are probably destroyed with the high heat and cooking times it takes to make low quality paste tomatoes into paste. Some people with odd food craving attacks are actually craving their body's response to the allergen.

 

BTW, jaleel and Bodybag, peanuts are a notorious allergen too. But yummy!

 

I crave salt. On thanksgiving, I was actually eating pickles with pumpkin pie. I'll put lemon or lime juice on most of what I eat too. It must be great for my teeth.

[bodybag]

BTW, jaleel and Bodybag, peanuts are a notorious allergen too. But yummy!

Peanuts are also the cheapest nuts.

I crave salt.

vivalasvegans, how's your blood pressure?

[Gaia]

Found this on line:

 

Processed tomatoes (e.g. canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, ketchup) contain even more lycopene because cooking breaks down cell walls, releasing and concentrating carotenoids. Eating tomatoes with a small amount of fat enables lycopene to be better absorbed.

 

In one study, 10 healthy women ate a diet containing two ounces of tomato puree each day for three weeks, either preceded by or followed by a tomato-free diet for three weeks. The researchers measured blood levels of lycopene and evaluated oxidative damage to cells before and after each phase. They found that cell damage dropped by 33% to 42% after consuming the tomato diet.

 

The tomato is also an excellent source of vitamin C (one medium tomato provides 40% of the RDA) and a good source of vitamin A (20% of the RDA).

 

On the minus side, as a nightshade relative, tomatoes contain glycoalkaloids, which some people believe contribute to arthritis symptoms. Research, however, has not backed this up.[/color]

 

And that is what I thought second was the Vitamin C and Vitamin A content of tomatoes. Now processed tomatoes would not have a whole lot of Vitamin C as it is heat sensitive, but Vitamin A actually likes to have heat.

 

Also saw:

 

They are well known for their high vitamin C content, but also contain significant amount of vitamin A, B vitamins including niacin and riboflavin, magnesium, phosphorous and calcium.

Tomatoes are also a good source of chromium, folate and fiber.

 

So if you are looking for the trace elements, you could be wanting chromium. I also saw 2% RDA for Iron on another site. At least with tomato paste you won't have the oxalic acid from greens binding/chelating your iron (and other divalent cations/minerals).

 

I use to crave Mann's sugar snap peas for years. This year I do not crave them, and in fact haven't eaten them for awhile now (still put them in my kids' lunches though for them to eat).

[GinaKina]

I think sometimes when I crave stuff like this, its just because I like the way it tastes. I try to tell myself that I'm craving peanut butter because I need fat, or I can't get enough cherry tomatoes because I need some sort of mineral, but for the most part, when I really just can't get enough and can't stop eating it, its because of how it tastes.

 

I know there is truth to craving foods that are filling a nutrition gap, but I don't think you'd go so crazy with it if that was the case...you'd just eat it and be over with it.

[Gaia]

I agree, but I call that comfort food. Something that taste yummy and makes you feel good. But what if it is something that you like the taste, but it doesn't make you all that happy to eat it? That is a craving IMO. And the craving could be for some minute nutrient that perhaps we have yet to figure out what is in it (like lycopene wasn't that widely known about 10 years ago), and you need to eat alot of it to just get some of what your body needs.

 

To do this, you do need to distinguish between emotional eating and nutritional eating, which can be tricky (if not impossible).

[veggieprincess]

I agree, but I call that comfort food. Something that taste yummy and makes you feel good. But what if it is something that you like the taste, but it doesn't make you all that happy to eat it? That is a craving IMO. And the craving could be for some minute nutrient that perhaps we have yet to figure out what is in it (like lycopene wasn't that widely known about 10 years ago), and you need to eat alot of it to just get some of what your body needs.

 

To do this, you do need to distinguish between emotional eating and nutritional eating, which can be tricky (if not impossible).

 

exactly. that was my intent of the thread... cravings that almost seem like you're body is wanting the vitamins and minerals from the food. I know I never crave plain tomatoes, but yeah, eating a whole can of unsalted tomato paste straight out of the jar everytime I buy it seems like I must be lacking something... cuz I can think of much funner things to binge on.

 

Interesting that tomato paste is a more concentrated form of lycopene. Definitely makes sense.... this gets me thinking that I'd like to do more research on what foods offer a more concentrated and bio-available source of the vitamins and minerals. Grapes versus raisins... Bananas versus banana chips.

 

I bet some fruits and veggies are better consumed in their natural state, and others have been shown to have more of certain vitamins and minerals in a dehydrated, frozen, canned or concentrated state. I know I stumbled across some articles like that awhile back. The did research on canned/frozen and natural and some foods actually had more nutrients in a frozen/canned state... and others had more when consumed raw.

[Tasha]

When ever I smell the aromas of cooked food coming from the kitchen..

I start craving cooked food.

It was a lot easy on me to eat raw when I was living on my own..

The other day I even craved cheerios, and soy milk, when I could smell it as he was poring it into his bowl...

 

Oh and there's was another time,

I even had Robert breath on me when he was eating a bagel with peanut butter. lol

 

My roomates downstairs, love to cook.. They make it always smelling good in the kitchen