Food cravings: How do you compare?

Cultural cravings also provide an interesting footnote to the survey. Egyptian women crave grape leaves and eggplant stuffed with meat and rice, while their male counterparts prefer molokhia soup and grilled fish. Spanish women and men share the North American cravings of chocolate and french fries.

If 98 per cent of us have cravings, how well are we managing them? According to the survey, women are nearly three times more likely to cave in to their cravings than men are, with single Canadians topping their married counterparts.

We have varying degrees of control over our cravings, with 56 per cent of survey respondents giving in to cravings sometimes, 9 per cent almost always succumbing and 5 per cent saying they always cave to cravings. A righteous 8 per cent claim they never lose control.

Orzech says we have only three choices when cravings hit. We can ignore the craving, we can give in to it or we can find a substitute.

All three options are viable, given the right set of circumstances. It's unrealistic to expect that we can always deny our cravings, but we can find ourselves in big trouble if we always give in to them.

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