Sharon Stone with Madonna encouraging prurient interest at Cannes -- before making her infamous China-Karma remarks were made. This mirrors Madonna's lesbian spectacle with Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera on MTV.Cravings Part II of IIIDevra First (Boston Globe)
Although the world seems to be divided into two camps -- those who crave sweets and those who crave salt -- there's little scientific evidence of this. It is true, however, that women are more inclined to crave sweets than men; men, on the other hand, tend to crave not potato chips but entrees: pizza, burgers, pasta, or even soup. Some have theorized that this is connected to the long-ago roles of men as hunters and women as gatherers. An attraction to meat would be useful for the former, berries and the like for the latter. It's more likely, however, that it has to do with food's emotional resonance.
Wansink finds that people favor foods they have positive associations with. For example, Wansink questioned men and women about their food preferences. He discovered that men associate entrees with being cared for - with a wife or mother who prepares them. Women, however, associate them with work. Chocolate and ice cream don't involve preparation and cleanup, however, and women associate them with ease.
Of course, meat is considered manly in our culture, while sweets are thought of as more feminine. Wansink finds people are also drawn to a food because they identify with it personally: "We've found there's a fairly high relationship between how people describe favored foods and how they describe themselves." There's got to be more to chocolate than that it's easy to get out of its wrapper and into our mouths. Why is it so frequently craved?
"Chocolate is perfect," Pelchat says. "It's got fat, it's got sugar, it's got stimulants. And it has these wonderful sensory qualities." In other words, it's simply an extremely palatable high-calorie food, one many people have positive associations with.
Some have theorized that we crave chocolate because it contains high levels of phenylethylamine, a chemical released when we're in love. Not likely, says Pelchat. "People say eating chocolate might be self-medicating, because you feel crummy or premenstrual. But it turns out a salami sandwich has more phenylethylamine than a large serving of chocolate." You don't often hear someone say, "I need salami!" (Or salted black licorice, a craving frequently reported by women in Europe, where that candy is popular).
Then there's the theory that we crave what we need nutritionally -- "the wisdom of the body," as Pelchat calls it. In other words, if we find ourselves craving french fries, we must need sodium. We should eat those fries!
Alas, Pelchat says, wisdom of the body is a myth, unless you're a rat. "When rats are salt deprived, they show a sodium appetite; they seem to be able to detect amino acids when they're protein deprived. But there's actually very little evidence for that in people. A lot of people in our society crave salty foods, but very few are actually salt deficient." Put those french fries down.
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