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Cravings are hard to control sometimes. They can border on – or turn into – addictions if we let them go too far.
There’s a lot to dealing with cravings and addictions, and some of it goes beyond the scope of simply eating healthier and is affected by emotional, psychological, hormonal and neurological balance.
What I want to get into here is just one aspect of overcoming your cravings: replacing your indulgences with healthier options.
It’s a really important piece of the puzzle, and although it seems simple it can have a big effect because it works on a few different levels.
First of all, the unhealthy indulgences like chips and chocolate bars have things in them that are addictive: refined sugars, refined and hydrogenated oils, salt and other even more sinister stuff.
That stuff interferes with your body’s normal metabolism and other feedback systems, so you can eat way more than you should without getting cues to stop.
It’s addictive to your taste buds, which you’ve probably noticed, but it goes deeper than that. There’s starting to be research showing junk food, fast food and processed foods to be as addictive as alcohol and cigarettes.
They’re also so easy to buy and so cheap that there’s a seemingly endless supply, encouraging you to eat more and more and more.
Not to mention they often come in big packages, so you can easily sit down and mindlessly munch your way through a whole bag of chips or box of chocolates.
I’ve also noticed that when people indulge in junk, they tend to give up and just keep going. The mindset of ‘I’ve screwed up, so I might as well wallow in my failure.’
But if you indulge in healthier treats, you can still satisfy the craving without getting any of the addictive junk and without feeling like a failure. And maybe you’ll value the treat more, and be aware of what goes into it – especially if you make it yourself.
I put together a list of some of the most common cravings, and some ideas for treats that might satisfy the craving in a healthy way, so that you can feel free to indulge.
Sweet
Lots of people just have a general sweet tooth. That’s me, I would eat sweet things all day, every day if I could.
Your body was designed to crave sugars and carbohydrates, since they’re your main source of energy. So it’s no wonder that a super-sugary treat gives your brain a little celebration.
You’ll never shut off your sweet tooth, but giving it sweet treats that don’t feed the cycle of endless cravings makes it a lot more manageable.
Feel free to go for any of the more specific suggestions below, but the basic idea is just to use whole foods that are sweet. Then you’re getting the fiber and nutrients to help digest and absorb the sugars in a more balanced way.
Fruit is the best sweet treat, since it’s really healthy as is, but there are also unrefined sweeteners you can use to make cookies, muffins and cakes.
Chocolate
Pure chocolate actually has some health benefits, from all its antioxidants, but those benefits get wiped out if the chocolate is full of refined sugar and/or hydrogenated fats and/or used to coat toffee or nougat or whatever else is in candy bars.
Here are some of my favorite ways to indulge a chocolate craving:
- Banana and/or dates pureed with cocoa powder
- Above, plus almond or peanut butter for some fatty goodness
- Sweet potato or squash with cocoa powder and healthy sweetener
- Cookies made with cocoa powder and/or some dark chocolate chips
- Homemade chocolate bar
- Hot chocolate made with pure cocoa, non dairy milk and unrefined sugar
- Pure dark chocolate is ok, too, just check the ingredients for the type of sugar and fat used
Ice Cream
The easiest and healthiest ice cream is frozen banana pureed in a food processor, with other frozen fruits and flavors:
- raspberry
- cocoa powder
- peanut butter
- healthy cookie dough
- mint extract and chocolate chips
- orange zest and cocoa powder
- fresh mint and goji berries
You can also made an ice cream base with coconut or other non dairy milks, thickened with arrowroot or something similar, flavored however you like and put it in the freezer or an ice cream maker.
That method will be more authentically like ice cream, but I have to be feeling pretty ambitious to make ice cream that way because I don’t have an ice cream maker, so have to stir it manually while it freezes.
Soda
Mix sparkling water or soda water with some pure fruit juice – simple and a lot less sugar than a soda!
Cookies, Cakes, Brownies
This one’s easy: I just make healthy versions of my favorites!
Sometimes I make them on the healthier end of the spectrum, and sometimes I make them on the yummier side of the spectrum (but still healthier than store-bought).
Pie
I love to bake fruit with some healthy sweetener a simple oat crumble topping as a really simple way to have a pie-like treat.
Applesauce baked with cinnamon and dried cranberries is pretty tasty, too.
Salty
Cravings for salty foods are pretty easy to deal with in general. If you use salt in your cooking, you can make some healthy dishes that are moderately salty.
Chips and other salty snacks are really heavily salted, and the salt hits your taste buds directly. That’s when salt gets really addictive.
When you use salt in cooking, it gets diluted and doesn’t usually have as strong an effect.
If you add a bit more salt in your food when you feel a craving, it’s definitely better than giving in to those super salty snacks.
Savory/Umami
Savory cravings often involve similar foods as salty cravings, but are a slightly different underlying cause. Umami is another word for savory.
Some healthy savory foods to use in your cooking are sundried tomatoes, olives, nutritional yeast and tamari (soy sauce) or miso (fermented soy paste).
Onions and garlic also hit that savory part of our taste buds, as well as mushrooms. Onion and garlic powders are often even better than using fresh for rich, savory flavor.
I find that if I toast whole grains before I cook them (like a brown rice pilaf), it’s really satisfying when I feel like something savory.
Some spices and seasonings can create a savory taste, too. Cumin and paprika are two of my favorites when I want to bring out a savory flavor.
Chips
- Air popped popcorn or puffed cereal tossed with seasonings and a spray of oil
- Rice cake with almond/peanut butter and a sprinkle of sea salt
- Cucumber slices sprinkled with sea salt
- Kale chips (kale tossed with seasoning and baked or dehydrated)
- Zucchini/eggplant chips
Dip
Salsa is just fine, especially if you find a fresh salsa or make your own. Even salsas in a jar are ok, as long as you check the ingredients to make sure there’s not much added sugar or refined oils.
Hummus and guacamole are pretty easy to find, but they’re often made with refined oils. Try to find one that uses extra virgin olive oil rather than canola. Guacamole really doesn’t even need any added fat, since the avocado makes it super creamy.
I also make my own healthy dips, which is a lot easier than you might think.
Bread
Cravings for bread are often just cravings for carbs. There’s nothing wrong with carbs, no matter what the newest diet craze might lead you to believe.
Carbohydrates are your body’s main source of energy. Refined carbohydrates are the ones that cause problems and addictions, and they give healthy carbohydrates a bad name.
If you eat whole grains like brown rice, quinoa, barley and other things, you’re getting all the fiber and nutrients that make them healthy.
Whole grain flours are much better than white flours, so buy breads that use them. Just be careful, because breads can be listed as ‘whole grain’, but still have white flour as the main ingredient.
Or try making your own bread. It’s actually not hard at all, it just takes some time. A bread maker simplifies things even more.
Cheese
I have trouble with this craving, because I’ve been allergic to milk since I was born. But here are a few ideas that I’ve found work pretty well:
- Parmesan sprinkle: sunflower seeds ground and mixed with nutritional yeast and sea salt
- Feta: above, mixed with lemon juice and/or olive oil to moisten
- Cheese sauce: white beans pureed with nutritional yeast, onion powder and garlic powder
- Solid cheese: there are some vegan options, and you can make your own out of nuts or seeds.
- Cheese with crackers: try peanut or almond butter sprinkled with a bit of sea salt, or a salty bean dip.
Pizza
I make pizza all the time – I just make my own whole grain crust or use whole wheat pitas as the base.
Then I top it with homemade sauce (tomato, or a bean dip or pesto), tons of vegetables and maybe the cheesy sunflower seed topping I mentioned above.
With my dairy allergy, I’ve always eaten pizza without cheese, so it’s not strange to me at all. When I was in Italy, I thought they would look down on me for ordering cheese-less pizzas, but they actually make a lot of their pizzas without cheese.
Coffee
Caffeine is a major part of coffee addictions. Caffeine is a stimulant, and has a drug-like effect on our brains.
If you can’t go straight to decaf, try blending it with caffeinated coffee. Start with a higher ratio of caffeinated, and you can slowly shift to more and more decaf to wean yourself off the caffeine hit.
There are also other less intense forms of caffeine. Black tea has about half the caffeine of coffee, and green tea has about half the caffeine of black tea.
Some people crave the flavor of coffee. If you aren’t drinking too much, and either drinking decaf or the caffeine doesn’t affect you, there’s nothing wrong with it.
In fact, some studies show that a small amount of coffee on a regular basis is actually healthy.
But if you want an alternative, there are caffeine-free drinks made from toasted grains or chicory or things like that. They aren’t going to taste like coffee, but they have a similar roasted flavor.
I’m not really the best person to advise on options to replace coffee since I personally don’t like the flavor. If you have any good suggestions, leave a note for me and others in the forum.
Comfort Meals
There are a whole range of unhealthy comfort foods, from casseroles to stews. If you look at the seasonings and textures in the meal, you can find replacements for almost anything. It might not be the same, but you can usually get close.
I try to include some of those types of meals in my meal plans, and if there are any specific comfort meals you like try searching for a healthy version or leave me a note in the forum.
Just Enjoy It
Alright, now I know sometimes the healthier options just don’t cut it. In those cases, as long as you’re aware that the food isn’t something you should be eating in huge quantities or too often and you eat healthy food otherwise, it’s not the end of the world.
For some people, giving in to those kinds of things every so often is the only way to stay sane and stick to healthy eating for the long term.
When you do have something that isn’t perfectly healthy, be sure to really enjoy it. If you feel guilty about it, it’ll just reinforce the feeling that you shouldn’t eat it and make you crave it even more.
Some women get really intense cravings with menstruation, and sometimes it’s just a natural instinct to eat more food. As long as you keep it mostly healthy, like extra fruit or servings of meals, it’s totally fine to eat a bit more once a month.