“Don’t you ever go anywhere without your water bottle?” I asked as I walked into a concert hall with a friend. As she hastily tucked the bottle into her bag, she answered, “ I must be addicted to water. I sip at this bottle all day long. The problem is that after I do a lot of exercise in the morning, I find myself thirsty all day. And working in a dry heated office doesn’t help.”

As we sat listening to the concert, I thought how strange it was that my friend used the word “addiction” to describe something entirely natural and biological. She, like all of us, had a dependency on water and if her body did not get enough she suffered from thirst. And no matter how much she drank today, tomorrow she would have to drink water again. As I found myself nodding off at a particular dull musical offering, I thought about sleep. Our bodies demand that we sleep nightly and when we do not get enough sleep, we suffer from sleep withdrawal. Our moods change, we cannot concentrate, we feel tired, muddled, have trouble finding the right word to say, and our memory becomes frayed along with our temper. We are most aware of this when we suffer from jet lag and our bodies put us to sleep at inappropriate times.  But no one would say that we sleep because we are addicted to this biological activity. 

The same can be said of consistently craving certain types of food such as sugar or starches. These cravings are also, like water or sleep, biological and are controlled by the brain. When brain serotonin levels drop too low, the brain sends out a signal telling you to eat something sweet or starchy. And like the need for water or sleep, if you do not eat these foods in the appropriate amount, the craving will not go away. Is it an addiction to want to eat sweet or starchy foods? No, it is a biological necessary initiated by the brain. And for many, eating carbohydrates daily is as inevitable as drinking water or sleeping.

An Italian friend told me that her grandfather who lives in Italy will not leave the country, even to visit her in the states. “He is afraid he won’t get his pasta at lunch and dinner and he is convinced he won’t survive without it. You might say he is addicted to pasta but he is just Italian. For him, it is a way of life.” My own father told me once that he had to eat bread at every meal; without it he felt the meal was not complete.

For some of us, the need to eat carbohydrate becomes particular urgent   between 3 and 5 pm. There was a woman in our lab who ate 4 graham crackers precisely at 4 pm every day. You could set your watch by her snacking habits.

We don’t know why the brain needs to make more serotonin late in the afternoon but this time seems to be somewhat universal.  The English have their tea and sweet and savory snacks, the French and Swiss coffee and pastry and the Argentinians, a small espresso and tiny croissant late in the afternoon. Americans head to the vending machine or cookie shop at this time.

Although serotonin is made when an amino acid, tryptophan, enters the brain, it cannot be made after protein is eaten.  Even though tryptophan is found in protein, our bodies have set up a system that allows tryptophan to get into the brain only after carbohydrates are eaten. Eating protein actually prevents serotonin from being made. Perhaps that explains the craving for sweets, since one is rarely tempted to eat gumdrops or a Snickers bar along with a piece of turkey.

The so-called addiction to sweets or starchy foods has been blamed for causing obesity and avoiding these foods seen as the solution to losing weight. However, it is rarely the carbohydrate in the foods eaten to satisfy the sweet or starchy craving which piles on the pounds. The fat found in chocolate, French fries, ice cream, pie crust, cookies, chips, etc., have more than twice the calories as the carbohydrate in those foods. The biological need for carbohydrates does not have to be satisfied with highly caloric foods any more than thirst has to be satisfied with high-calorie sodas or juice.

 So if someone criticizes you for eating pretzels or a cup of oat grain cereal at 4 pm, just say, “My brain is has a craving—and it knows what it needs.”

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