Exploring the factors influencing salt and sugar cravings on a regular basis, and understanding how to curb sugar cravings.

Are you someone who can eat sweets all day, every day? Do you find yourself visiting the dessert section of the fridge more than normal? And are you concerned that your sugar cravings may be more than just sweet-tooth urges?

Well, you might be right in thinking that your sweet cravings are more worrisome than they look on the surface. There may be some underlying issues that are making you crave sugar all the time! So, what exactly could be the cause of your constant sugar cravings and your consistent visits to dessertland?

There are many reasons why you could be experiencing sugar cravings, but often one of the most ignored reasons is poor gut health! But, before we take a look at the connection between your gut health and cravings, let’s first understand what these sugar cravings are. So, let’s keep a close watch on that sweet-tooth of yours as we understand cravings, before we can learn how to curb sugar cravings!

Navigate to where you want to go:

1. What are Sugar Cravings?

2. What Are Some Reasons for Craving Sugar All the Time?

3. Why Do Some People Experience More Sugar Cravings Than Others?

4. Conclusion (and some healthy alternative recipes!)

What are Sugar Cravings?

Sugar cravings occur when you feel like you need to eat something sweet in order to feel better, or perhaps even more like yourself. In fact, cravings of any kind (sugary, salty, or of high-calorie fatty foods) make you intensely desire a particular type of food that will provide you with pleasure and satisfaction.

Constant sugar cravings occur because of some underlying causes in the body and are most often associated with the release of the happy hormone, dopamine.

This usually occurs because certain foods provide the greatest increase in your happy hormone, Dopamine. Dopamine is responsible for giving you the feeling of pleasure, satisfaction, and a sense of reward. It is also the hormone that is related to your sense of attention, mood, sleep, and learning among other various functions.

Therefore, craving anything with salt, fat, or sugar and then consuming these calorie-dense foods makes you feel an instant surge of energy and pleasure. Studies have shown that multisensory foods (i.e. appealing texture, flavor, aroma) are main causes of sugar cravings, because they are usually a combination of salty, sugary, fatty, and calorie-dense ingredients (i.e. buttered popcorn, ice cream, chocolate-covered donuts). These foods provide you with an instant feeling of satisfaction or happiness.

As a result, it becomes difficult to overcome different types of food and sugar cravings. And once they become a reason for our poor overall health, then identifying the factors that lead up to the cravings becomes more detrimental than ever.

So, what are these causes of sugar cravings, you ask? Let’s take a closer look at the reasons for why your body might be craving sugar all the time in the next section!

What are Some Reasons for Craving Sugar All the Time?

If you or someone you know is frequently experiencing particular food or sugar cravings, then it might be time to consider any underlying issues that may be causing those cravings in the first place.

Salt and sugar cravings occur due to a variety of reasons and it's important to rule out specific factors before you can understand how to curb sugar cravings.

Cravings happen for a variety of reasons, and often, are completely harmless if they happen once in a while (because we’re humans and we love food!). But, they could be troublesome if you find yourself always craving sugary or salty foods to a point where you cannot function without consuming them to satisfy your intense cravings.

So, why do these constant sugar cravings occur? Though they could be happening for several reasons, here are some particular things to watch out for:

Low Blood Sugar Levels:

When your body experiences low blood sugar, you crave food and most often, you crave sugary foods to bring your blood sugar levels back up.

It’s important to understand that your body needs to have stable blood sugar throughout the day, which means that skipping meals will cause blood sugar decline and when you eat calorie-dense salty, sugary foods that will cause blood sugar spikes.

This roller-coaster of blood sugar levels will cause you to have more sugar cravings, because your body doesn’t like these unstable blood sugar levels. What this means for you, is that you have to avoid skipping breakfast or your meals throughout the day, and feed your body healthy, balanced diets that don’t contribute to spikes in your blood sugar.

Nutritional Deficiencies:

Your body may experience sugar cravings or salt cravings if it is suffering from a lack of vital nutrients since nutrient deficiencies and sugar cravings often go hand-in-hand.

Nutrient deficiencies and sugar cravings go hand-in-hand with each other, because cravings are your body's way of communicating that there are some essential vitamins and minerals lacking in your diet.

For instance, if you’re always craving for salty foods like popcorn or chips, then you may have a sodium deficiency in your body. If you find yourself craving chocolates all the time, then that can be a sign of a magnesium deficiency.

In addition, if you experience extreme fatigue on a daily basis and find yourself always on the lookout for instant sources of energy like sugary energy drinks or caffeine, then you might have iron deficiency (or are anemic). Moreover, there could also be other mineral deficiencies like calcium, potassium, zinc, and chromium which can cause different types of food cravings since these minerals are involved in various metabolic processes at the cellular level.

Hormonal Imbalances:

If your body undergoes an imbalance of hormones, then that could also be a cause of your sugar cravings.

For example, women might experience an increase in progesterone levels and a decrease in estrogen levels after a menstrual cycle or during menopause, and that can cause them to have intense food cravings. This also happens to be the reason why most, if not all, women experience intense food cravings when they are on their periods.

In addition to these hormonal fluctuations, their levels of ghrelin (hunger hormone that stimulates appetite) can also increase leading to increased hunger and cravings and decreased serotonin levels. It’s interesting to note that about 80% of your serotonin is produced in the gut, which is why if your body is suffering from lower levels of serotonin (influences mood, sleep, and digestion), it may crave for calorie-dense carbohydrates since carbohydrates are able to boost serotonin and improve your overall mood and energy.

An imbalance of cortisol (stress hormone) levels can also make you crave sugary and salty foods. Consuming these foods on a regular basis can lead to insulin resistance. This occurs when higher insulin levels make you experience intense sugar cravings, because your body is struggling to regulate your blood sugar levels effectively. And when it cannot support those declines and spikes in your blood sugar, it will eventually lead to diabetes, inflammation, and weight gain.

Stress:

Stress and sugar cravings share a very close relationship; stress increases your cravings for high-calorie food because when you’re stressed, your cortisol (stress hormone) levels go up.

Cortisol increases in the body when you’re in fight or flight mode, because it’s your body’s way of providing you with all of its energy for survival in that situation.

And the physical stress on your body breaks down all of the available sugar in the body and makes you crave more in order to continually survive under that physical stress. This means that the more your body and mind are stressed, the higher your cortisol levels are, and the more fat, salt, and sugar cravings you’ll have.

This is great for when you’re running or fighting for your survival, but not so great when your body is under mental stress instead of physical stress. The reason is that your body is unable to recognize the difference between physical and mental stress. So, it wants more sugar to give you that energy to “run or fight” but because you aren’t doing either, there’s no way to burn that sugar and it becomes stored as fat in the body. This will eventually make you gain weight, which can often lead to even higher stress levels.

Gut Dysbiosis:

If your gut microbiome is undergoing a gut dysbiosis (an imbalance of bad bacteria and good bacteria in your gut), then you might find yourself craving more sugary foods, salty foods, or foods that are a combination of both.

Imbalance in your gut microbiome of bad bacteria being more abundant than good bacteria can also lead to constant sugar cravings.

Bad gut bacteria absolutely love sugar and simple carbohydrates, and they can send signals to your brain to influence your sugar cravings to support their growth. This means that if you have more bad bacteria than good bacteria in your gut, then you will crave more sugar.

The higher your sugar cravings, the more sugary foods you will consume, which will feed your bad bacteria and increase its population in your gut. And before you know it, you are stuck in a cycle of craving and consuming sugar to fuel that bad bacteria leading to your poor gut and overall health.

Yeast Overgrowth:

Sugar cravings can also happen if you have yeast overgrowth in your gut. Yeast feeds on sugar and often grows in abundance when you're feeding your gut bacteria those unhealthy sugary drinks and snacks.

In other words, these organisms crave sugar to sustain themselves and grow, which means that your body will crave sugar to satisfy their needs. The trouble is that having yeast overgrowth makes you crave more sugar and consuming more sugar leads to yeast overgrowth (a vicious cycle).

To break this vicious cycle, you have to starve the yeast (from sugar) and restore balance in your gut microbiome by consuming foods that are feeding the good bacteria in your gut (probiotics, prebiotics, and polyphenols).

Dehydration:

Certain salt and sugar cravings also occur if your body is suffering from dehydration. In fact, studies have shown that people often mistake dehydration for hunger, which is why certain people experience more sugar cravings than others.

Dehydration means that your body is losing out on electrolytes (minerals like sodium, calcium, and potassium) and craves for savory and sugary foods to help retain balance and restore your energy quickly. Therefore, it’s important to pay attention to your salt and sugar cravings as they may be an indication of dehydration in the body.

With all of these factors involved in causing salt and sugar cravings, it’s important to note that everybody is different and some people may be more inclined to experience salt and sugar cravings than others. Therefore, it’s essential that you rule out the root cause that’s fueling your cravings before you can begin to understand how to conquer them.

Why Do Some People Experience More Sugar Cravings than Others?

As discussed above, intense food cravings vary from person to person. While someone might crave chips and pretzels all the time, others may want cookies and cakes all day long. So, why is it that some people experience more sugar cravings than others, you ask?

There are several factors at play for why some people experience more salt and sugar cravings than others and a lot of them have to do with how we associate food to different aspects of our life. — Well, the reason for this variability is that everyone has different reasons for why they like certain foods more than others. Here’s a list of behavioral ways in which we associate food cravings to pleasure:

Brain’s Reward System: Your brain follows a certain reward system that makes you feel good when you do something pleasurable, like eating tasty sugary foods. This is why, sometimes you might feel the urge to “treat yourself” with something sweet when you’ve accomplished the simplest of tasks.

Memories: Your memories can also trigger your cravings. For instance, maybe when you were a kid, you used to have a “Happy Meal” from Mcdonald’s after school, and now everytime adulting gets hard, you crave for a happy meal to take you back to your childhood, worry-free days.

Habits and Routines: If you’re used to snacking on something sweet after dinner, overtime your brain begins to expect it, and it eventually becomes a habit.

Dopamine: When you eat something you crave, your brain tends to release dopamine (a chemical that makes you feel pleasure and satisfaction). The release of this happy hormone reinforces your behavior, and this makes you have repeated salt or sugar cravings.

Conditioned Response: If you have been giving in to your food or sugar cravings for some time, your brain now associates certain cues (time of day or certain activities) with eating that particular food. This is the reason why you might crave a sugary snack to wind down as soon as you get home from work, even when you’re not really hungry.

Gender: Women generally tend to experience more sugar cravings than men, and this is particularly linked to their bodies undergoing a menstrual cycle every month. As mentioned earlier, the menstrual cycle can lower estrogen levels causing intense food and sugar cravings. Studies have also shown that women crave more sugary foods, in general, while men crave more savory foods.

Lack of Sleep: When you don’t get enough rest and sleep on a regular basis, your body begins to produce more ghrelin (hunger hormone) and less leptin (appetite suppressing hormone). This imbalance of ghrelin and leptin makes you feel hungrier than normal and less satisfied after your meals. In fact, lack of sleep can also lead to mood swings and lower levels of serotonin. And as mentioned earlier, lower levels of serotonin can make you feel intense cravings for carbohydrate-rich foods that will temporarily boost your serotonin and improve your mood.

Conclusion (and some healthy alternative recipes!)

As a result, there are a variety of reasons why your body may be experiencing certain food or sugar cravings. But, it’s important to recognize the reason why you’re experiencing those cravings and make changes to your diet and lifestyle accordingly.

If you want to find ways on how to curb sugar cravings, then you have to first start substituting unhealthy, sugary foods with healthier alternatives.

And while you work on making those changes, here are some healthy alternatives for those intense food cravings along the way:

Craving Salty/Savory Foods? You must make these gut-healthy and savory, Spicy Black Bean Tacos for your next meal or snack!
Craving a Combination of Sweet and Salty Foods? Want to curb those sweet and salty cravings, make this healthy Chocolate-Peanut Butter Yogurt Bark for your snack or dessert!

Want to learn more about how you can curb those sweet and salty cravings for good? Stay tuned for next week’s article on Conquering Your Cravings!

Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, often known as Good Gut Dietitian as I truly believe all disease started in the gut and if we can fix our gut health and reduce inflammation, we can definitely improve our overall health.

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Understanding Sugar Cravings