Have you had a food craving? Of course! We have them for all kinds of reasons. It might be that “hangry” feeling because you haven’t eaten for awhile and anything will do. It might feel more specific. Maybe it’s for comfort foods because you’re feeling stressed or emotional. It might be for fresh veggies and fruit because you’ve been eating too many of those traditional comfort foods while on holiday!

Being mindful in eating is all about paying attention to our body’s cues and signals, as well as the why and how we eat, and that ties into thinking about why we might be craving food. While skipping or delaying a meal may be part of your hectic lifestyle or your intermittent schedule, the best we can do to support that “hanger” is to plan ahead for what that meal will be when the cravings set in. If we’re at a very low point in the hunger scale, meaning feeling the shakes, the tummy grumbles, lack of focus and irritability, we may make a less optimal choice for food if we haven’t planned it out. Ideally we also don’t want to get to the point of those symptoms as they don’t equate with well-being.

In pregnancy, food cravings can be common and many can be very funny! We’ve all heard about pickles and ice cream. Do you remember craving something in pregnancy or whether your mom did? Well in this photo you can see that I’m trying to fill the insatiable craving I had for grapefruit in my pregnancy with my daughter. I had never really loved grapefruit before—my grandfather always seemed to have sour white ones and he sprinkled them with artificial sweetener! Yuck. But when I was pregnant this time, I couldn’t get enough and my daughter has always been a grapefruit lover! Is that a coincidence or was she a driving force in my body that I had to listen to?

But sometimes cravings in pregnancy or in other times of our lives, can signify something deeper going on, including perhaps a nutrition deficiency. A condition that can occur in pregnancy and other life stages is called Pica and it’s a craving for non-food substance. No I don’t mean edible food-like substances (Michael Pollan) aka junk food. I mean non-food like dirt, laundry soap, chalk, ice and other potentially toxic substances. Pica has a strong connection to iron deficiency (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/577928). and we know that iron deficiency is the most common nutrient of concern around the world so this is something to be aware of!

In my pregnancy with my son, my insatiable craving was not for grapefruit. This time it was protein and I was consuming a predominantly plant-based diet and had been for 15 years including during the grapefruit pregnancy. I ate the beans, the nuts, eggs, dairy, even fish but I felt drawn to chicken! So one day after work I stopped to pick up some sustainable chicken I hoped my partner would cook for me (he was not as plant-based). Once I got there I realized he would be late picking up our daughter so I had to cook the dinner. I opened up my fave Mark Bittman How to Cook Everything cookbook and checked the index for chicken, EASY. All I found was Easy Fried Chicken and that spoke to my pregnant body like no food ever had! I even made the mashed potatoes and gravy. My husband almost fell over when he got home. He said “You made chicken? Real chicken? Fried chicken?” then started licking his lips. It really was delicious. And my son, well he was 9lbs7oz when he was born—obviously he had some major growth needs that I just had to eat this protein for! And he is still a major protein guy but luckily he also loves nuts and tofu.

Overall, listen to your body! Pay attention to symptoms of excess hunger/depletion and those opposing symptoms of over-consumption. Try to stay in that moderate zone as much as possible. Definitely speak to your health professional if you are experiencing a nutrition deficiency or a craving for something that is not food or in an amount that seems excessive. Not to mention when you’re pregnant.