How Food Cravings Work

means dance? Right? Uh? Yeah, I don't dance. I don't need the town brown dread while I'm a Weeen fan, so you paint the town brown. What is the name of the god that Weeen worship that tells him to get wasted? The book nish? Is that what it is? Well, that's their little symbol, the little guy with a spiky hair. Right, But there's like a god that they listened to that commands them to just get wasted that Yeah, how about this listeners? What is the name of the god that

ween answer to? Yeah? Godwin Satan was the name of their first album. Yeah, so so, Chuck, Yes, I could go for a sloppy Joe right now, man, I haven't had a sloppy Joe since I was a kid. You haven't, you poor bastard, like the manwich kind any kind of school. It's sloppy Joe. It's like barbecue sauce and catch up with some ground beef on a bun and get better than that. Not since my mom was like cooking for me as a kid, have I had a sloppy Joe?

I've never made one myself. Let me give you a little little secret here, sloppy Joe, fish taco, sloppy Josh. Is it not yet? We're not out of work yet? Um, insert fish taco into sloppy Joe and thank me in the morning. Wait, put a fish taco in the sandwich itself with the beef and everything. That's the weirdest thing I've ever heard of. Just try and let me know

what you think. Grant key that after you have a fish taco sloppy Joe, you will end up with the food craving for it at some point in Yeah, that's a great set up, thanks buddy. Food cravings. Food cravings, that's what we're talking about, right. Do you think that's what I prepared for Yeah, same here. So chuck, Um, you've had a food craving, right, If so, you're part of the seventy percent of males in North America who have had one in the last year. I found that

to be staggering. I thought everyone has had a food craving like once a week. Yeah. The stet on women was much more. Um, I guess in in my wheelhouse, right, yea, but what thirty percent of men don't have a craving in a years? Who are like, I'm not answering that question. I'm going ercent. You and I both know that everybody

knows that everybody's had a food craving in the last year. Well, that's what I couldn't determine if it was an actual classifiable food craving or just like, oh, I'm hungry for a burger. Or maybe they thought that slim gims don't count. That's that accounts for slim gyms aren't food, they're slim jims. That's a good one. Uh yeah, Josh se say yes, and women all say yes. And women in North America

and Europe particularly like the sweet stuff. Yeah, I think chocolate is the most highly reported UM food craving women in North America. We need to specify because it appears that um food cravings are also culturally specific. Yeah, so women in North America like the chocolate, but say women in Egypt like, let's say, a meat stuffed eggplant. That's pretty specifically. Christen Conger wrote this and it's a great article.

But I love that she actually said that they will crave a meat stuffed eggplant, which actually sounds kind of good. And I'm not even hip on eggplant, but I would eat that stuff exactly, wrapping and bacon, stuffing with meat um, or put a fish taco on it, I'll leave it. Even a milk steak, although I've just recently found out what that is. Was that right, I believe? So yeah, we haven't gotten any corrections because one from the nineteenth

century is still around, they can correct us. So chuck um. Actually, food cravings we talked about how they're different in North America and in Egypt for example. There there they appear to be universal. However, while the food craving may differ, or the food that has crave may differ, the food craving is is pretty much a universal human trait because we all have a brain. Uh, well, let's talk about

there's two different kinds. There's a stomach craving, which accounts for hunger, and then there's a food craving, which we'll get to in a minute. It's like all mental, right, you have to have a brain. Yes, actually you have to have a brain for both. But let's talk about like regular old hunger. Like, what is that, dude, That is the stomach telling the brain by way of the vegas or veggics I think vegas vegas nerve basically saying I'm hungry, I need food to live, Sophie. Right, it's

pretty much as simple as that. It is. Uh. And this hormone grilling, which has made an appearance uh incorrectly in a previous podcast. I said grilling um tells your stomach or tells your brain that you're not hungry any longer, actually does the opposite. Yeah, I know, I'm an idiot. It's a it's a hormone that is actually um emitted by fat tissue, right, and it travels up the vagus nerve to the hypothalamus and says, dude, I'm I'm hungry,

and it triggered. It's triggered when your blood sugar and insulin levels start to decline, which is just awesome. I love the human body. I think it's like about as fascinating as it gets. Yeah, I like the brain in particular, and I think articles like this everyone knows how much

we love the brain and studying the brain. But yeah, look for a an audiobook on the brain from Chuck and I little spoiler teaser, But it always amazes me that the brain is so complex and then the rest of the body is almost like just a big dumb, functioning group of organs compared to the brain compared to the well, yeah, but I mean that's like comparing like it together eight Dodge Colt to like, you know, um, a Bugatti, A Bugatti, Thank you. I don't know where

that came from. So okay, So the grilling travels up the vagus nerve hits the hypothalamus, which the hypothalamus also provides some other um function management like sex, drive, thirst, sleep, sleep, yeah, things like pretty smart, Yeah exactly. It's like it's the party part of the brain, right. Um. So the hypothalamus says, all right, we're hungry, and uh, we're going to release neuropeptide y and this is just all right. It stimulates our appetites, right, um, So what have we eat? Yes,

we're eating the sloppy joe fish taco combo. And as we eat, something else starts to happen because it just can't keep on like this, or you would just keep eating and eating and eating. So your body has to do the reverse almost and say you can stop eating now. And it does this by um, in a couple of ways. The first things that happens is, uh, fat tissues expel leptin, and son of a gun, I am never going to get growling. Growling is released from in the stomach. Leptin

is released in the fat tissues. How did you say? I did? I did? I'm just a big dumb animal. Well, so hold your emails, folks. We will get this all right by the end of this thing. Maybe Okay, hate growing. So Lepton gets going and tells our brain basically that hey, you're satisfied. You're you're not hungry anymore, you're satiated. You do not need to keep eating. Right, But this doesn't

take place like immediately. No um. And actually, my half oconow and girlfriend taught me that the Japanese have a little rule of thumb called hara hatchi bo nice funny that mean. It means basically, um stop when you feel about full, and it works like a charm. Actually, well, you don't see a lot of obese Asian people too, and they live forever to Yeah, we should follow that that model. So u Lepton actually does this by turning down the production of the narrow peptide y and cranking

up the production of pro opio melanocortin. I was hoping you take that one. That was an excellent pronunciation, buddy. I had to literally sound it out and spell it out very yeah, but it worked. And that is an apptite suppressant in the bloodstream. So that basically says, uh mind, the hypothalamus monitors the insulin blood sugar, and then everyone's happy, we're eating, we're satisfied, we're full. Right, So there there

you go, we're alive. Right. Yes, So that accounts for normal hunger, right, that actually does begin in the stomach. Crazy enough, right, that's how you have hunger, and that's how your brain tells you that you're not hungry. But that doesn't account for food cravings. Food cravings are pretty much all mental or at the very least. They're all brain centric, right, Yeah, And it's not hey, I need to eat and stay alive, it's hey, I really really

want that sloppy Joe with the fish taco. Well, I don't know about that, but that's mine hunger that you're talking about, which accounts for the craving, right. And one of the reasons, um that it's it's I guess worth writing an article about researching and podcasting is that it's kind of curious. It's a little bit of a mystery because they're not really essential for survival. Uh, there was there.

I actually thought this for a very long time and probably will continue to do so because I don't give up my views very easily. Um, but I tended to think that food cravings where the body's way of saying, um, you need more iron, so you really really want to steak right now? Debunked whatever, debonk care. It's a good way to live life, and I'm going to live it like that. Yeah, But scientists have largely debunked that, basically saying it's really not you're it's not you saying that, oh,

I need a particular nutrient to keep me healthy. And one of the reasons why it was debunked was because most food crave things are for really rich fatty foods trying calories. And do you know why we crave those, Josh, Why because they are loaded with chemicals called opioids. That is true. And this is a this is a depressing moment for me, by the way, Like I've lived like this for years. Uh. Opioids what they do? They bind to your receptors in the brain and they bring you

the like feel good feelings. They do actually, um, the the the same processes followed for um, drugs do drugs? It actually follows the same um, I guess mental process or brain pathway. Excellent, Chuck, thank you. I was flailing there, um that that drugs do. Right, Yeah, I thought that was interesting. So you've got you've got let's let's just use chocolate. It's just so easy. It's a good go to.

So you you you eat a little chocolate. Let's say it's the first time, and uh, the opioids that are released, um, actually form part of your memory of eating chocolate. You have a sensory memory that is very very pleasant associated with eating chocolate. It gets filed away by what part chuck? Uh, is that the hippocampus. Yes, it is. Uh, it's a short sensory data and puts it into long term more short term memory. UM. And when we see chocolate again,

we say, oh, yeah, chocolate, that makes me feel pretty good. Yes. Right, So there's there's one aspect of the craving. It's psychological based on long term memory. And it also stimulates the caught eight nucleus and UM. Basically that helps control the dopamine reward system and dopa. Bean is another feel good chemical in your body. Right, what's your favorite, like drop dead favorite? What would be your last meal you're on death row? Let's say not a stretch would be if

you're really thinking about this all that I really like? Um, the Porterhouse steak at Kevin Rathbun's, Oh very specific. Have you had it? Dude? Awesome? Yeah? Or um there is Uh, there's this fried chicken at Watershed. Have you had that? I've never had their famous fried chicken. You should go Tuesday nights. Tuesday nights and after six if you make reservations. They can't guarantee the chicken. I know I've been. They can't guarantee it's good. Or no, they can't guarantee it'll

be there. We can give each some chicken, but it might be gonna be pretty crappy. Yeah, I've heard about that for years. It's definitely worth it. One of those two probably would be my last meal, I think my I don't I can't get super specific, but I think my favorite last meal would be like a big fried seafood platter. Oh yeah, with like fried shrimp, fish and clams and scallops and hush puppies and French fries and

cole saw. Oh man, we should go to Long John Silver's after this, Long John Silver's, where the fish and the chicken are equally good and tastes much the same. Yeah, so do I so chuck um. We've talked about the reward system, right, And actually there's a study in two thousand and four where people were jammed into the Wonder machine and as to think about food. It's actually the

F m R I, which is the wonder Wonder Machine. No, that's the Wonder machine mr an m r I. It's it's worthless unless it's got that little F attached to it. So they jammed some people in the Wonder machine and say think about food, and then the people started thinking about food, and like you said, the caught a nucleus, the insula, and the hippocampus all. So, but it's very clear that like our reward system is triggered when we

think about food. So that's that explains part of food cravings. Uh. And we also said that it's linked to the same neural pathways as drugs and drug addiction, which also accounts for food addiction. Yeah, it's just a milder version. We also said that um memories like the sense memory. Remember the chocolate chocolate makes me when I eat it, so I want to chocolate, right, Yeah, reinforces all that. That's part of it too. But um or where did the food cravings come from? I guess is my point? Why

if I am to make one? Josh, you know what? You know where the starts? Dude, I know you do. It starts in the womb. You pronounced the bee. No, I just did that as a joke. It actually does happen in the womb. And they found in studies in studies that in utero a fetus can distinguish between different flavors that are passed to them through the amtiotic fluid um and that remarkable. It is remarkable, chuck um. And

although I'm not entirely certain how they figured that out. UM, there have been studies on um post birth children UH and their tastes for food, and a lot of it. Apparently it comes from uh their time in the womb and whatever their mothers eating while they're nursing. Right. Yea. They found that UM mothers who eight lots of garlic, or who ate a steady diet of garlic, their babies nursed longer. I know that crazy um possibly to try to figure out what the heck this taste is. Yeah,

I love that because garlic is tough to miss. It comes out everywhere, and I imagine garlicy breast milk would throw the baby for a loop to the point where they're like, what is this? Oh? I can tell you it throws you for a loop? Yea. Uh, God, garlic is just the best in anything though, it is and really good for you too. Have you ever had a whole roasted garlic roasted just squeezed out onto like a piece of bread, the whole thing, like the whole bulb. Yeah, dude,

what you I do it all the time. I cut off like half of it and drizzle it with some olive oil and take it in some foil. Uh. No, I just throw it, throw it on like a oven. Uh, like a cookie sheet, wrap it and foil and twist the top and just you don't even need the cookie sheet. You just throw it in there on the rack and it just it goes. It's awesome and great for it. Have you ever taken garlic pills? I don't like them.

I'd rather eat like the garlic bulb. Well I would too, but garlic pills are weird because you'll take like a garlic pill in the morning because it's good for you, and like in the morning, you you feel like you're burping up like Italian food and by afternoon's coming out of your breasts if you're nursing, yeah, or your skin purse. Yes. Sweat, Yeah, I'm you know, I mean with my sweat. You don't want to be around me on a hot day after I've had some Lasagnia Brothers. Not good. Oh, I know

it's not. I was getting hungry and now I'm revolted all of a sudden. Yeah, this just took a real nose diet, didn't Yeah. Um, so chuck, you're saying we're first exposed to taste in the womb. Um. And also apparently we carry these on right, those memories stick around, those sensory memories, and that's the beginnings of establishing our food relationship basically, and it can also be established by the mother. Apparently, studies have shown that, um, I should say. Hey.

At least one study has shown that women who have um more adventurous diets have children who have more adventurous diets. Um. I think you could say, well, maybe that has to do with the way they're raised, probably, but it it could go either way. Yeah. You know another thing I thought was cool how you said it was kind of like the same thing as a drug addict seeking drugs, Just like that you need more and more to satisfy you.

Like so, just like a crackhead might need more crack to get high as they progress in their drug career or hobby. If you eat chocolate, just that little bit of chocolate isn't gonna do it. If you keep eating, You're gonna need it more and more to satisfy you. Yeah, pretty cool, it is unless you have a chocolate addiction. Yeah, that's true, or a crack addiction. Um so, chuck, what do you do when you do have a chocolate addiction, you eat chocolate, you do um personally No, No, okay,

I thought you meant me. You know what I'm saying. You know you like anybody? Sure, you're not a chocolate addict. I know you're hard on yourself, but you're not. No. I like chocolate, but it gives me the heartburn too, So it's kind of a fine line I have to walk. Um. Jerry thought that was funny. Laugh. Uh. So they they've they've this is something that people have been paying attention to, luckily,

although they still haven't quite cracked the code. It turns out the body is a little wonky when it comes to food cravings. Um, when you have a lot of fat tissue, this is weird to me. You emit a lot of leptin, which is the thing that lowers appetite, right, suppresses appetite, But it's in fatty tissue. So the more fat you have, the more left in you have. So that's that should mean strangely, Uh that the fatter you are, the less you should eat. Not true, No, it's the opposite. Yeah.

The for some reason, as the body mass index increases, meaning you get heavier and more fat on you. Um, you actually eat more, which doesn't seem odd really if you think about that, but what you know, you're putting out more leptin. Yeah, and it nothing we found, like said, why this happens. It's just is it just one of those things in the human body that we can't account for.

Do you know another cool thing, Josh? What that if you try to diet or quit eating a certain thing, like let's say you're a lady and you have like a big chocolate thing. The more you if you say I want to cut down on eating chocolate, you're gonna crave it more. They did a study in two thousand seven. If you're trying not to, you're gonna crave it more. Right.

It's the imp of the perverse. Remember we've talked about that the more you try to push a thought from your head, the more you're gonna think about it, because not only are you thinking about keeping it out of your head, it inevitably floods in and you push it out. So really, what you're doing is engaging on the cycle of um, constantly obsessing about this one thing. Let me let me try something here, Josh. Whatever you do for the next ten seconds do not think about a sloppy

joe with a fish taco on it? All Right, what's the first thing that just popped into your head? You wanna? No? No, what is it? Donald Duck? Really? Is that your go to? No? That's an odd go to. No, it's not my go to. I read an article on it and somebody said, whatever you do. Um, you know, for the next sentence, don't think about Donald Duck. That was kind of my introduction to the imp of the perverse. So that's why I thought of Donald Duck. I'll tell you what I didn't

think of, and I think ten seconds is past. I didn't think of a sloppy joe with the fish taco. No, I don't believe you. I think you thought of Donald Duck eating a sloppy joe without a pint, right, Like I never wears pants. Yeah, it didn't even wear a diaper or something or was that? Did you know? And no, he just that was just his duck bottom. Um he who was banned in Finland. I think because they didn't wear pants or they had to put pants on the

one they two. That's good stuff, Josh. I think people are learning a lot here. I think we have gotten really far off topic, I think, so, so should we reel it in here? Yeah? Um, if you have a food addiction and you have food cravings, people who didn't deny themselves every food craving managed to lose the most weights. Yeah, they said. The trick is to get into it occasionally to reward yourself, but to just keep that all in check, right,

and how it works. And you're big on the calorie restriction, So what do you think about that? Um? I've found that just not eating I don't eat breakfast or lunch, to just eat dinner. Um. And I found that after probably a week or two of really just doing it hardcore, you just don't even think about it any longer if I stop and think about it, Like right now, I'm hungry because I stopped and thought about it, but I don't think about it. I think you know what I'm

hungry for, chucky sloppy chat with a fish taco. That's right. Uh? Should we talk about weird food cravings? Yeah, like ladies when they're pregnant. Yes, which I was interested to read about this actually because I've always wondered, like, what gets somebody who say never like cheese before to suddenly like cheese once she becomes pregnant or something. Right. Um, well, it has a lot to do with the hormone that

are going berzerko when you get pregnant, right, especially estrogen. Yeah, and it also has to do with their sense of taste and smell really become honed when they're pregnant, So something like um, maybe really pungent like coffee and cigarettes is even more of a turn off than usual, which is probably a good thing if you're pregnant, right, don't you think. Yeah, I think coffee and cigarettes is probably bad for pregnant person. Pregnant woman, and the cravings focus

on like really sweet and really salty, really spicy. It's kind of the extreme, it seems like, right, so chuck. Um, Yes, pregnant women have strange food cravings pickles and ice cream whatever. Yeah, it is, and science has hasn't really figured out exactly why. But yes, it probably does have to do with the hormonal search. Um there is. I used to work in a gas station up in Athens, and people yes too, which one. Well, I worked at the Golden Pantry, so I didn't like pump gas, but I worked in that

little food mark. I didn't punk same here. I worked at the Magnolia station on Atlanta. It's pretty funny. Yeah, both gas guys who knew um and uh, we sell white dirt and people came in and bought it by the bag full. I don't know what that means. It's white clay and they would eat it really, yes, is that what you sold it for to consume? Yes, I don't even know what you're talking about. It's really weird. People chew it and eat it and ingest it and um,

actually it was a real big hit among pregnant women too. Well, I do know what you're talking about. What it's called pica, Yes, and specifically in this case, eating dirt of any kind is called geophagia, right, And there's also one called patophagia, which is eating ice, yeah, which I've heard of it before. Um. Apparently people who have iron deficiencies in amia um eat

ice a lot. But you're not getting any iron for the ice or from the ice, but they think that possibly, Um, there's apparently, um discomfort in the tongue when you have an iron deficiency, and the ice alleviates that, which is why they crave. That makes sense, isn't that weird. Yeah, well, Pike, just specifically, I guess we should say, is craving a or ingesting a non food item, or guess just the craving, and then if you act on it, then you're you're

carrying out the craving, right. And actually, if you have a weird food craving, you should actually probably see a physician because it could mean like an iron deficiency or some other problem with your your body, right, unless you're pregnant. Don't be alarmed if you're pregnant and you want to eat some dirt, because that's actually kind of common about women actually feel this this way. Ice. And the other thing that I thought was weird was this geofagea you

were talking about is more common here in the South. Yeah, oh yeah. You don't find too many people who eat white clay up north? Why not? I don't think there is white clay available up north. It's weird. Well, that's food cravings in a nutshell, in a huge nutshell on a man, which bun. Yeah. Thanks to Christen Conger for writing a really good article for us to podcast on. So I just want to finish up by getting this really clear. You take a sloppy Joe and you take

like just the corn tortilla fish taco. That's that's open face and just put that on top and face it's a taco. Man. Well, it's not a taco until you hold it and roll it up right. You've put it in full and rolled up, half over, doubled over, and then put the bunt of the sloppy Joe on top and go to town with the meat and everything. Yes, just that's the weirdest thing I've ever heard. That's pike

a esque. Well, if you want to know more about pike food cravings or anything your brain can come up with, you, just type some words into the handy search bar at how stuff work dot com and you'll be taking care of straight away. And since I said the handy search bar at how stuff works dot com, that means it's time now for a listener mail, Josh. I'm just gonna call this, uh, Henry Hill exposed. Remember we did our

podcast recently on the Witness Protection Program. We talked about famous gangster Henry Hill basis of the film Goodfellas and My Blue Heaven. In My Blue Heaven, and we had a guy right in that has met Henry Hill and here's what he has to say. And I think he's from England because of all the weird things he said. He say, cheers at the bottom. Yeah, of course I've met Henry Hill and ex entrepreneur and that's in quotes.

I don't know what that's supposed to mean. And myself brought him over to England to do an after dinner gentleman's evening type speech. I don't know what that is either. Uh. He was also on the local TV promoting a book. I think he was an absolute nightmare. He decided that the Witness Protection program was not for him, probably because he'd been kicked out of it a half a dozen times, and he was going to travel far and wide to

help kids from a life of crime, not noble. The problem was when you have a world famous gangster doing an after dinner speech, the paying guests don't want to hear him telling them stay out of trouble and behaved. They want to hear him talk about Jimmy the gent and the lift Anza heist. Naturally, his minder was his UK agent and it was the first time they had

ever met in person. We had a v I P dinner uh drink afterward with a special drink and a posh club in Liverpool, and Henry decided he kept to keep wandering off trying to chat up the girls. Sadly, he'd also have been a little too keen on this imported product. He could hardly string two words together, so it sounds like he got bombed and was hitten on checks.

That's the American translation teen keen. Uh. Still for someone who's killed as many people as he has, he was a nice bloke and despite this sounding wrong, an example of the maxim that you should never meet your heroes. Not that he was my hero, but I couldn't think

of another way to put it. Uh. Lastly, he had to take him to dinner in a cab and we did a quick tour of the Yellow Submarine, the Cavern Club and other famous Beetles landmarks, and he said that he would like to sing on stage at the Cavern Club. And when I chuckled, thinking he was joking, guess what he did the you think I'm funny gag. He did that to him and he said it was the scariest thing you'd ever seen. Cheers, chaps, Jazz. Just in case

we weren't sure he was from England. Cheers Chaps, Chaps from Jazz cheers to you, Jazz, thank you for that story. That's pretty awesome. Actually, it kind of went back and forth, like I would have not liked to have hung out with Henry Hill. I would love to have hung out with Henry Hill. That happened like five times. Sure, I

feel like I'm about to vomit. Okay, Well, if you have a cool story about Henry Hill or any other former gangster celebrity unicorn you name it, send it in an email to stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, is that how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the house. Stuff works dot com home page Brought to you either Reinvented two thousand and twelve Cameray. It's ready, are you