why cooked food is a SNEAKY drug!

[Amii]

Maybe this is just me but, last week I did 7 days on the master cleanse and during this time I had a vast range of cravings and I indentified one of the reasons why cooked food is so addictive...

...It bloody REEKS!!!

I don't mean it smells bad. I mean it smells, full stop. And 95% of taste is in smell.

Every time I had a chocolate craving, I picked up the offending food item and smelled it as deeply as I could until I felt the craving die. I genuinely felt satisfied by this and honestly felt like I wasn't going without. Then something happened I wasn't expecting... I had a craving for an avocado raw salad.

And, none of it smelled of anything. Raw vegetables don't smell. So it's nigh-on impossible to kill cravings for them without eating them. Cooked food is the opposite. Our bodies are damn clever!

So next time you feel yourself straying back to the SAD lifestyle, or you find yourself craving a bite of that chocolate, just take a few massive sniffs of it.. and I'm 95% sure you'll be cravingless :P

[streetsurfer]

It's not just you. You've found the key. This has been studied extensively at a local research center. Dr. Alan Hirsch in Chicago has developed some food scent sprays and sprinkles that are working to help people lose weight. I pretty sure one was chocolate. IIRC one news story showed a subject spraying it on a specific SAD food and becoming satiated much sooner. Surely this technique can be applied to raw foodists, just as you have discovered. http://www.smellandtaste.org/ (http://www.smellandtaste.org/)

Scroll past his bio and you can view a description of how smell and taste affect hunger. You can also read about some of his research http://www.smellandtaste.org/index.cfm?action=research. He's also written a book called Scentsational Weight Loss.

[EZ rider]

streetsurfer,

I liked that changing picture and description section just past the biography. I am going to spend more time smelling and tasting my foods from now on. Thanks for your comments and the link. :)

[Tsurugi_Oni]

You know what they say about smell, it plugs directly into the memory section of the brain.

Funny you mentioned this. I've been thinking about baking bread for aromatherapy and then giving away the bread lol. In Biblical days roasted meats were considered one of the finest aromas for the gods. An olfactory cure for meat for me is a sniff if XO sauce I have stashed in the fridge, and routinely you can catch me sniffing ground garlic/ginger in the freezer.

[krisiw]

That is so interesting! I have found that to be true as well but I couldn't have put it into words as such. I just did four weeks of raw and I would SMELL everything. I would cook for my husband and just breathe it in, but after I smelled, I wouldn't really want it--I just wanted to smell it.

[Green_Woman]

*laughing*

I thought I was alone. :D Although I disagree with one thing: you said raw veggies don't smell, but I've noticed that they DO!

I actually love drinking in a long whiff of fresh avocados + limes, or a big dish of Mushroom Tikka Masala, or a bowl of freshly chopped carrots... call me weird, but even my Green Smoothies smell good. :D

[ReneeH]

Hey Greenie!!!! MINE DOES TOO!!!! :D

But, I've heard that TWINS have similar SENSE OF SMELL!!!!

~~~~~~~:D~~~~~~~

[Green_Woman]

*LOL*

Nee!!! My Crazy Twin. :D :D :D