Know your food cravings

Have you ever felt you absolutely should have a piece of chocolate, a potato chip (oh, let's get real -- an entire bag of potato chips), or a sweet treat after your food?

Those food cravings are not a sign of weakness on your part. If you crave certain foods there might be an underlying deficiency that causes the craving. Though food cravings might also be because of psychological causes like stress eating, it is always better to know the nutritional causes for cravings.

Here are my views as a nutritionist on the most common food cravings, the deficiencies which cause them, foods to consume to overcome those deficiencies and healthy alternatives for food cravings.

Craving	Cause/Lack of	Food Fix	Healthy Alternative
Cheese	Calcium, healthy fats	Milk, walnuts	Natural cheese
Chocolate	Magnesium	Nuts, whole grains	Dark chocolate with less sugar
Sugary foods	Calcium, B vitamins	Yoghurt	Dates
Fizzy drinks	Calcium	Smoothies of fruits and yoghurt	Homemade sherbet
Tea/Coffee	Iron, salt	Garlic, tomato and beet root	Herbal teas
Fried foods	Unsaturated fats	Egg, flax seeds	Baked, air fried foods
Alcohol	Vitamin B2	Yoghurt	Consume lots of salad with a limited amount and frequency of alcohol