What food makes your mouth drool and sit longingly thinking about it for hours on end? Is there any particular thing that you could easily eat for days on end (or have!). Is there some strange combination of foods that make you think you’re crazy but you don’t care because it’s so good to your taste buds?
Don’t worry, you’re not crazy! Your body is sending you messages in the only code it knows: the foods you regularly put into your system. Your body uses memories, smells, and other cues to help let you know it needs something. If you’re a vegetarian craving a burger but you don’t eat meat or can’t even remember the last year you ate animals, it’s not a mind game! Your body needs something it remembers getting from meat. Or your body smells something delicious and is triggered thinking of all the ways in which it could use whatever it’s smelling. So believe me, you really do want that candy bar even though you might feel guilty or gross after eating it.
So without further ado, here are some of the most common and mysterious food cravings to help you get some sense back into food and control back into your habits. If you know what it means when you crave chocolate cake, you can feed your needs and avoid the side effects of… chocolate cake!
And as you’ll notice, this chart includes vegetarian and omnivorous options—just because you abstain from meat or eat meat does not mean that you don’t have crazy cravings! So use this information in the manner that is appropriate to you!
Here are some cravings and what they mean:
Craving Liquids Over Solids—you need water! The minimum amount a person should drink per day is 8-10 glasses. You’re almost certainly not getting that so drink up!
Craving Solids Over Liquids—you need water! You know when you can go the whole day and never want water or even anything to drink? That’s not good. You are dehydrated and your body is past the point of craving! Fill ‘er up!
Pre-Menstrual Cravings—Zinc. You can find this in high quality animal meat (especially the organs), fish, leafy greens, root veggies, and seaweed.
Can’t Stop Eating—minerals and vitamins in general! Specifically, amino acids tryptophan and tyrosine and silicon. You can find tryptophan in cheese, liver, raisins, sweet potato and spinach. Tyrosine in oranges, greens, red fruits, and red veggies. Silicon is in nuts and seeds (and some herbs like horsetail too!).
Don’t Want Food at All—you are low in B vitamins (B1, and B3), Manganese, and Chloride. Try: nuts, seeds, beans, organ meats, fish, pineapple, blueberries, and unrefined sea salt.
Craving Dirt, Paint, Paper—mineral deficiency! This is also called pica. Eat some sea veggies, celery and other naturally salty foods (this indicates the presence of minerals), and avoid regular table salt which has been processed to remove all the minerals from it. Salt in its de-mineralized form will just make you sick and hyper-tensive (makes the heart hurt).
And a handy chart that many have printed to remind them of what they actually need when they need it. 
