Sweet cravings often lead to bad places, such as obesity, metabolic diseases, and cancers.
But the problem is not the craving. The problem is what sweet has become in today's culture and the system built around it.
A craving is the body calling out for something. In the case of the sweet flavor, which strengthens the organs and tissues on the one hand and relaxes them on the other, the body is calling out for nourishment and release of tension from stress.
Traditionally, this craving would have lead an individual to a wide variety of whole foods - roots, nuts, fruits, sweet leaves; meats and fish in some cultures.
Sugars on the backs of fibers and fats.
Nature’s sweet, which is mild by today’s standard (a fistful of wild honey notwithstanding).
These foods were often scarce, and when they were available, one had to work for them - walk, dig, hunt, climb. Energy was used in the getting.
Today, sweet means cake, ice cream, chocolate, donuts, a pump of this or that. That's where the craving leads us now.
These foods are abundant and available without (metabolic) expense, only a shuffle to the kitchen or a click.
So why do we have the craving if sustenance abounds?
Because many of today's staple foods are nutritionally weak. They are grown in exhausted soil and/or harvested too early and/or transported from far away and/or modified in some way.
For those who regularly follow the craving to processed foods, nutritional intake is next to nothing.
And then stress. Low grade. Persistent. Chronic. Abundance's byproduct.
Malnourished and stressed out we are. Of course the body is calling out.
Unfortunately it's just using a primitive language.
A bug in our modern systems.
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