Transcript of Episode 103: Food Cravings and How to Control Them
With Dr. Daniel Pompa, Meredith Dykstra, and special guest Dr. Sunny Ferrero.
Meredith:
Hello everyone and welcome to Cellular Healing TV. I hope you’re having a great day. This is episode 103. We have Dr. Pompa here, of course, and we have a special, Dr. Sunny Ferrero. It’s a really exciting topic today. We’re going to be talking about food cravings, and what’s behind them, and can they be trusted. Before we jump in, I’m going to tell you a little bit more about Dr. Sunny and then we’ll begin with this exciting topic.
For three years, thus far, Dr. Sunny Ferrero has been an enthusiastic professor of biology at Valencia College, at Rasmusen College, and Florida State College at Jacksonville. She’s taught a variety of courses ranging from human physiology to microbiology and has a particular interest in how all of biology fits together, and how one can apply even basic concepts to figure out what really causes mystery diseases for which causes are not really known. Dr. Ferrero received her PhD in Medical Sciences at the University of Florida after getting two bachelor degrees at [Rensselaer] in biology and phycology, but it was only after teaching for two years and refusing to accept a minor medical problem as normal and uncontrollable that she began to do real learning.
One of her favorite hobbies is tasting new foods, researching the chemical and medicinal compositions of food, and experimenting with the perfect diet. Thus far, her proposed model for such a diet is: number one , organic food only; number two, whole plants and whole animals as much as possible; number three, eat what you crave if the first two rules are being followed; number four, to taste new foods whenever possible. Thank you so much, Dr. Sunny, for joining us. How are you doing today?
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
I’m awesome, thank you. How are you?
Meredith:
I’m very well, thank you. Dr. Pompa, how are you?
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Great! I love this topic. I mean, here we have a biology degree and a psychology degree—I mean, come on; this could be the perfect combination, right? It was last week’s show we talked about how our thoughts affect our biology, right?
Meredith:
Yeah.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Our thoughts drive our chemistry, our physiology. So, here we are with the perfect person to answer a lot of these questions that I think most people have, Meredith. Are cravings good? Right? I mean, come on—women when they’re pregnant start craving different things, is that good? Are cravings in general good? Sunny, that’s the first question I guess we ask, is all of our cravings good?
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Not all of our cravings are good. It really depends on what kind of learning process has been done. With the type of food products that we have most available now, we’re more likely to be learning that the particular, say, dopamine releasers, for example, actually make you feel good, but the problem is that very often those foods don’t have the raw materials for making all the enzymes in the body. That’s why you need more whole foods, as in whole plants and whole animals, whenever possible, as opposed to, say, food product with just salt and fat in it, or almost just salt and fat because those two things are triggers that there might be some nutrients in there. Again, historically, that’s only true for whole foods. A whole animal has some fat on it with fat soluble vitamins, so your body might really be after not just the fat for the calories but the vitamins that go with it.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Okay. Basically what you’re saying is that there’s a place in our brain that says, okay, we want these two things that we know keep us alive, right? There’s this area that gets this dopamine rush. Things like sugar, and fat, and salt—I’m presuming—and sodium, and these types of things that will get this dopamine thing going in the brain and our brain says, ah, we like. However, those things—food manufacturers are trying to put those things in foods, right? They don’t necessarily have the other things that maintain life but it gives the dopamine high. Is that basically what you’re saying? Okay.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Yeah. Exactly. On the manufacturing side, it gives the dopamine high and behaviorally and economically, for the companies, it encourages people to buy it. Those triggers are cheaper compared to including all the nutrients. Of course, that’s not true of all foods, all products, etcetera.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Let me ask you this—Meredith, you have great questions—I want to make sure we get to all this. I get so excited about these topics. Therefore, then, we can create these foods that we know excite the brain and be void of the things we need for good cellular health. These companies go, okay, we’ll just put those things in there and we get the rush. Now we literally become psychologically addicted to crave those foods. Meanwhile, we can be starving to death differently?
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Yeah. That’s happening. It even can, potentially, get worse because not only are we addicted to the triggers but because our body hasn’t taken in the complete package, all the vitamins and minerals, etcetera, the lack of those vitamins and minerals for most of them often makes the body feel run-down and tired. Since a lot of those vitamins and minerals we don’t have, per se, receptors for, our bodies haven’t really learned where to go get them, per se. That only comes from a lot of experience with having a good diet, unfortunately. I don’t like to just try new foods I like to experiment with whole long-term diets. I can tell you stories about mainly eating greens for at least a couple months, etcetera. That can tell you a lot about how you can use good cravings.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
That was interesting because I read that you said that you went on just greens for a certain period of time and you started—correct me if I’m wrong—you started craving yogurt.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Yeah.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Yeah. Your body knew that you needed something else and you got these yogurt cravings. Maybe it wanted acidity. I don’t know. Did you deduce what it was craving?
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
My guess was that because greens, as a whole, often have a lot of alkaloids, a lot of basic chemicals in them. It could have been acid to balance it out, it could have been molecules that are more acidic to balance it out, proteins, sugars—or certain proteins, certain sugars, something like that—probably either sugar or acidity because I was also craving blackberries and yogurt.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
It’s amazing. I preach and teach something called diet variation. Not go out and eat pizza, necessarily, but varying our diet. Really, our ancestors were forced to do that, Professor, right? Today we can just get caught up in the same eight foods all the time. Interesting. Meredith, you had some really amazing questions, I thought. I do want you to talk about—before we got on air, you told about a rat study where they really, I think, makes your point in this area. That we have the ability to seek out certain things—nutrients, but it’s harder with other things and we don’t have the receptors. We’ll get to that because I think it proves some other points, but, Meredith, I know you have some great questions for Professor Sunny.
Meredith:
Oh, thanks. Oh yeah, first of all, too, just to back up a little bit I did think of an interesting example as well when you were talking about whole foods and despite different foods being pulled out to eat that they would create and balance it. I also think, too, this in regards to eating whole animals—so few people eat whole animals anymore and not just the muscle meat but actually the organs and the skin. I’ve gotten really into eating organ meats recently. I just think that so many people are missing out on so many incredible nutrient-dense foods when they’re not eating the entire animal. Is it true that people are really throwing their bodies out of balance when they are only eating the muscle meat of animals?
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Great question.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Yes, absolutely. There’re a couple of things to talk about. There are the vitamins and nutrients to talk about in certain organ meats that you normally—when you look them up are mainly found in plants or most often talked about as being found in plants. In terms of the connective tissue that isn’t muscle meat like the skin, tendons, and sources of the collagen protein, muscle meat is mainly actin and myosin. Collagen is found elsewhere but it is still a protein. I have just been teaching anatomy recently and ran across the statistic again that about 25% of our protein in our body is collagen. Yeah, we can get those amino acids from other sources in our diet but the proportions are a little off. If we build collagen out of the amino acids that are in actin and myosin, muscle protein, our bodies are going to end up throwing some of those amino acids away. That eventually goes out through the kidneys, which works them a little bit harder but we generally waste it, it’s not as efficient. That might play a role in overall body efficiency—especially the vitamin issue. A lot of vitamins are found in organ meats.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
It’s interesting that you say that because you think of the Hunza people, they would spend their summers eating mostly vegetables; the winters they would eat mostly meats, dairy, whatever that they—obviously it would last through the winter. They would eat the whole animal because like you said, in the whole animal—they were forced to eat the fat and the organs. They couldn’t waste anything to survive the winter. Therefore, there were a lot of the same nutrients that are in the vegetables, so if they didn’t eat whole animal they could become deficient.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Yes.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Yeah. That is really an interesting concept of—once again, Meredith, I talk about this diet variation and how interesting that is. I couldn’t agree more, Dr. Sunny, that eating the whole animal, the whole plant, how important that is today. I’m a big believer in ratios, fatty acid ratios; people just taking fish oil. I’m a critic of that. I think that it works. It can work in an acute stage, almost like a drug, if you will. We can throw a lot of omega-3 down, regulate inflammation, but yet people staying on fish oil for lengths of time without eating fish. According to you, and you agree with me, that throws us out of balance.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Yeah. Because fish, while it’s a rich source of omega-3’s, there are the unscientific term of “a zillion other things” in it, also, things—guess what? Things that we probably haven’t discovered yet. We’re always discovering things.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Yeah. It’s true. We look at a study where they throw a bunch of DHA at the people, and omega-3, and fish oil, and yeah, it regulates inflammation, but does the study go on to say what happens when people keep taking it? Of course, we know that it does cause omega-3 dominance, which has—bad things in omega-3 dominance. Anyway, I love that. I love that philosophy. I come from the same place. You had another great question on there that I want to hear the answer to.
Meredith:
Well, I have plenty of them. I was just thinking, too, Dr. Sunny, when you were saying at the beginning that you were eating a lot of greens for a while and your body was craving yogurt, so when you’re on a whole foods diet perhaps you can trust your cravings, but what about most of American’s out there who are eating a junk food diet, that are eating lots of pasta, and pizza, and chocolate, and salt, and having a lot of those common cravings because they’re eating a diet that’s crammed with grains and sugar? How are those cravings different? Clearly, those can’t be trusted as much, I would think, than if you were eating a whole foods diet. Can you speak to that?
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Yeah. On a mainly food product diet like you just described, for one thing their brain is probably mainly associating any craving with a past pleasurable incident such as, just simply, the release of dopamine. The problem is it’s not doing anything else for them. They’re still going to feel physically bad, even if they don’t realize they are. They’re going to have health problems, eventually, if they’re really not getting the nutrients, and their cravings are not as reliable.
For example, MSG is a very tasty substance, it contains the amino acid glutamate and we have a taste receptor for that. I know I used to love Dorito’s. I actually would still love the taste of Dorito’s, but the problem is you’re not getting any other nutrient. In higher than ideal amounts any nutrient can be even toxic, which MSG has a toxicity level. The cravings from someone eating a mainly food product diet—they’re not really going to tell someone where nutrients are as much as if they’re on a whole foods diet, even then it’s difficult enough. I can tell you a story, if you want, about where I couldn’t figure out exactly what I needed but my best guess was actually omega-6’s.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Yeah, tell it. Tell the story.
Meredith:
Yes, tell the story.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
This is when I was on—I already told you the story of I was mainly on greens for a few months and then I craved yogurt and blackberries. Actually, I did that at a shorter time compared to that but a separate time, a year later, I was on greens for long time. I threw in the yogurt and the blackberries, too, this time but then I had a craving once. The first thought that popped into my head was that it was a “junk food” craving. I was like, okay, that can’t be right. I need a specific plant or animal I’m craving, what is it? It’s got to be something. The first plant that popped into my mind—or plant-associated food was, oh, I could go for corn chips. I was like, okay, so maybe I need something in corn.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Amazing.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
It gets better. I was like, maybe it’s corn, but then I said—I always explore alternatives—I said, what else might fix the craving? Is it really something specifically in corn or could it be something else? I thought about it and then I thought, or a whole bird. I could go for a whole bird. I’m like, what do they have in common? I know omega-3’s and 6’s carry up the food chain, and birds—even on especially organic birds—eat mainly things like corn. Okay, maybe it’s omega-6’s; I don’t think it’s protein because protein content is different. Yeah, my best guess was omega-6’s there.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Yeah. That’s interesting.
Meredith:
Did it work? When you ate the omega-6’s, did that satisfy you?
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Yeah. The most available thing, because it was almost Thanksgiving I figured I’d wait for the family bird meal, but right away I had some corn chips. They were organic corn chips. It wasn’t the most intact corn possible but there was corn in there, and yes, that fixed the craving. I was like, I guess I over omega-3’d myself. Even the salad dressing—or even the salad oil I was using happened to be hemp oil, which is higher in omega-3’s compared to olive oil.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
That omega-3/omega-6 ratio is really important. Our brain works, our cells work on that ratios. When that ratio gets out of balance our cellular fluidity is affected, how our brains are affected. There’ve been studies showing that it’s only this specific balance of omega-3 to omega-6 that actually can change the brain. Just giving fish oils alone isn’t the key to changing the brain. It is that ratio that really matters. It’s a ratio that’s just automatically found in balance when you’re eating these whole animals and plants, by the way. It’s uniquely enough.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Oh, yeah.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Yeah. What about these pregnant moms that crave chocolate. I mean, come on, what’s going on there?
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
When you said chocolate, specifically, I can pick on that one. One thing I remember is—well, chocolate’s very high in a lot of things, iron and copper, for example. Those are really important for making red blood cells. When you’re pregnant you have to make a lot of—a bunch of stuff, including that, so that’s probably what it’s doing. I’ve had chocolate cravings before, but at the time—the last time I had a chocolate craving I actually had the best form of chocolate. I had whole cacao beans. The whole ones are hard to find. The nibs are more common. I would normally eat one every other day just to remind myself they were still there, but one day I ate 20 in a row. I was like, why am I doing this? Then I looked at the calendar. Pregnant women have a wide variety of reasons, potentially, for craving certain things. I know that sometimes they’ll crave chalk. There’re calcium salts in there. You need to build skeleton. Even if they’ve never tasted chalk before, who knows what kind of association might be working? It’s white. We look at calcium-filled things that are white all the time, so maybe it was the color that attracted them to it.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
What about people who—they eat dirt? I mean, they crave dirt, and they crave odd things. There’s a show that talks about these odd cravings. I tell you, it goes far beyond dirt, even in that they’ll eat borax. I mean, have you seen that show? What’s going on?
Meredith:
Yeah, freaky eaters -inaudible-.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Oh, yeah.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Dr. Sunny, help us. What’s going on there in the brain? You’ve got the psychology and biology degree.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Well, there’re a few different things. I mean psychology and biology are so heavily tied. On a lot of the cases of freaky eaters or picky eaters, it might be some psychological memory association that formed from an incident in their past. That would be the more experienced psychological part of it. I’ve also seen an episode that included someone who was very vigilant of their food. They were very picky. They got genetically tested. It didn’t go into detail in the show but compared to what they were expecting to find, this individual had an even more rare genome. They’ve actually never seen it before. Certain cases can be genetically programed.
On the eating strange things like dirt, etcetera, certain substances like dirt do have essential minerals in them. Who knows, to some degree it might be beneficial if there’s no bad pathogens in there, or harmful substances like lead, or something. I know that eating of lead paint is an occurrence, and it’s dangerous. One thing that they’ve seen from animal studies with cravings is that if an organism gets deficient in a nutrient and it’s not obvious where that nutrient is, usually if there no receptor for that nutrient, but they generally feel bad. One behavior that happens is that they start exploring different foods, trying things out. The learning process could take a short time or a long time depending on how deficient they are and how long it takes that nutrient to get used. Eventually, they could hit a food that fixes the deficiency and the craving. I have another story that actually relates to a surprising craving and possible deficiency I had, if you want to hear it.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Oh, yes, please. That also talks about the rat. That study that you and I are both familiar with, is they gave the rats thiamine deficient diet. They basically had to—I guess they eventually gave them something with thiamine, a feed with thiamine. Tell the rest of the story because I think it proves your point you just said. Then you can tell your personal story.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
They gave them a choice of the thiamine deficient food that they had been eating, which made them eat less and generally feel bad. Then they gave them a choice between that deficient food and an actual thiamine-rich food. They eventually figured out where the thiamine was. Since there’s no clear receptor for it, that might have taken a little bit of time. I actually don’t remember the details. There was that study, or another part of the study, or a different study that linked the thiamine-rich food with the flavor of a spice. I think it was anise. That helped them learn where the thiamine was. That tells you when we don’t have receptors for something, our brain links other characteristics of that food to what makes them feel good, from the nutrient. That’s another reason to retrain yourself with organic and whole foods because that’s the way food normally is, or should be anyway. Once you do that, then cravings become reliable. Your brain could use features such as the flavor of a corn chip or a roast bird to say that’s probably where the omega-6 was. I doubt I can taste omega-6’s.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Right. That’s your point though, is that certain nutrients, like thiamine or magnesium, there’s no receptors for it. Now, we have receptors for salt, we have receptors for glucose, we have receptors for all of these things. It’s the association—that even explains why people can eat dirt—because their brain’s associating the dirt with the deficiency because they don’t have a receptor for, say, copper.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Yeah. That might be a more exploratory thing if they’ve never tasted dirt before. That’s my guess.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Yeah. Yeah, but I’m saying maybe they somehow ate some dirt, or on something, and then their brain—I don’t know—
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Made that.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Made that connection. Tell us your story. What was your story with that connection?
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
My story relates to—well, actually, my story involves an essential nutrient that we do have receptors for, but for some reason my brain hadn’t recently, conscientiously, linked it as the problem. Somewhat recently I was eating good food so I assumed I wasn’t deficient in anything but I was feeling unusually fatigued and irritable. I thought, okay, maybe I need to eat something—but here’s the problem, I don’t know what it is. Then one day I accidently, or spontaneously, made a little exception to my organic rule and stole a couple of friends—well, borrowed a couple of friends French fries when we were going out to eat. I like them, and I thought to myself, okay, I know I don’t need starch or fat because I had been eating that. Is it the fact that it’s hot food? Do I psychologically associate hot food with wanting a good experience that hot food gave me before? I wasn’t sure. I also used a lot of ketchup, by the way.
Then, another day I had some organic salami—yeah, they do make organic salami—and I really liked that organic salami, but I don’t think I was craving protein or fat. I said to myself, I think I was actually salt deficient. I started looking at all the food I had been eating, sodium read 00000. That’s really rare in this society, so I wasn’t vigilant for salt deficiency. I just assumed I was going to get enough because I had salt at home, but the problem was I never used it for a long time. That was an interesting possible deficiency and a rare one. It’s easier to figure those things out when you’re on a diet you really are aware of.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Yeah. Do we have receptors for potassium?
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
What about receptors for potassium?
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Do we have them?
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
I’m trying to think exactly where.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Anyways, my question is this: Could it have been a potassium deficiency where your body will use sodium to maintain a full amount of potassium?
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
To be honest, I really actually think it was sodium chloride or one of those ions because I don’t know how much potassium there was on those French fries. That was a “go” signal for me when I had those French fries.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
What’s the psychology? I mean, we’re talking about some physiological needs, right? You alluded to there are certain things in life that can create psychological desires, if you will. I know the psychology is tied to the physiology and we talked about that, right? What is some of the psychological addictions that people can have, starting with cravings?
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
With regard to food cravings, it’s any kind of association, I would think, between—for example, if someone’s trying to get away from a bad feeling, a psychological, situational feeling, or a bad situation, and they eat something that quickly triggers dopamine release or some kind of neurotransmitter, they could associate that with a rescuing feeling or a good feeling. Then whenever a negative situation comes up again they could use that. That could definitely happen.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Sunny, I know that people, when they come off of drugs—or let’s use an easier scenario—smoking; they quit smoking, they crave something else that triggers the dopamine, right? The nicotine was firing dopamine, made their brain feel really good, that’s the addiction. Now, they stop and so now they start reaching for more sugar—something else that really stimulates that dopamine receptor. I mean is that part of the psychological craving addiction that can happen? That brain wants that stimulation and there’s nothing better than the sugars, and the salts, and the things that fire it.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Yeah. Their brain’s definitely looking for a replacement for that good stimulus. The same is true with other addictions, other than cigarettes. Whenever something good goes away, the most efficient thing to do is replace it with something.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Right. People are addicted. When I ask about, why do you like the diet Coke? I’m on an airplane and people order the diet Coke—the answer is never because I’m addicted; the answer is never because I like it more, the answer is—no, the answer—I’m sorry, the answer is never to lose weight. The answer is, oh, I like this now more. When they started it they didn’t say, boy, I like the taste of this over the regular. No. It’s always like, gosh, the aftertaste. These chemicals are excitotoxins, meaning that they excite those receptors that we are talking about, create the dopamine rush, and therefore we want that diet Coke, or whatever it is. These new chemical exitatories stimulate what you said, that what has MSG stimulate, it’s a glutamate receptor which is the most stimulating receptors in the brain. These chemicals in food now are targeting that in our children. Therefore, now they’re addicted to those chemicals in foods and their brains finds those darn drinks in foods that all have these chemicals in it. It’s gone beyond just sugars and salts. It’s a new day and age with these chemicals that stimulate these receptors more than the sugar does.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero: and Meredith:
Yeah, we can—
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Sorry.
Meredith:
Sorry, go ahead.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
No, no.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
I was going to say, with a problem like that I believe it’s possible to actually replace those conditioned cravings with good ones. I’ve gone through a lot of diet experimentation. I find a new favorite food or a new favorite drink and I stick with it for a while and then I find another novel food or drink, or a bunch of them, and I get conditioned to having such and such for breakfast, etcetera. Those things can be replaced in the form of organic whole foods, I think.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
I have a client and friend who’s addicted to diet Coke—or, I’m sorry, Dr. Pepper.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Mm-hm.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Dr. Pepper is the only thing that works, okay? For that person and for the people out there that have their addiction, whatever it is, how do we break it? What’s the answer?
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
I would say in combination with exploring alternatives, if cold turkey doesn’t work, I would say slowly reducing that addicting substance. That might work better in terms of not increasing intake of it via a relapse. That’s my main take for that.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Okay, but then what? I mean, so, great—let’s say we can somehow go cold turkey, is there anything in addition to? What if they get sucked into another craving, therefore, addiction?
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Oh, like a different unhealthy one?
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
I’m just saying maybe, okay, great—she gives up Dr. Pepper, could she end up wanting something else very quickly, cold turkey here, but could she end up with sugar?
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Yeah. That’s why I think that can be avoided if you make some guidelines for yourself or stick with, say, the guidelines I put up for myself. For example, the first thing I did when I discovered all the harmful chemicals in non-organic food, unnecessary antibiotics, glyphosate the herbicide, etcetera, the first rule I said for myself was no foods that have extra antibiotics in them. Then when I discovered other things I said, okay, all the legal organic criteria make it so that I think I want to go pure organic. I was picky about it until at least I found all the basic food groups found offered in organic form in the store. The only things I put in my mouth were certified organic things. The French fry example I gave is a rare exception. That only happens about once a year in terms of like one mouthful. Usually it’s only if I feel I need to put something in my stomach. I’m not paranoid of non-organic food, but if I have a choice, no, I’ll stick with it, with organic food. No, I think that’s a good guideline to use. Also, step number two—as long as it’s a whole plant or whole animal—for example, if you think you’re going to take up a sugar addiction, if you have a sugar craving, go for a whole food that’s rich in sugar and the severe addiction to it may not happen.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Oh, yeah. What you’re saying is that if you start to gravitate to the better foods, the whole foods, you can then—your brain will start to pick up that these things are here and -inaudible- crave those things eventually. If you give up something this is the time to move to the better diet; obviously, the whole food diet, if you will.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Oh, yeah.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
By doing that you’re making better associations here as you’re moving away from the association here with the negative food. If you just try to get rid of the negative food and not switch to whole food, you can be in trouble.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Oh, yeah—because then you have nothing to eat.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
You have no associations. Your brain is not saying, okay, get it over here now, right? You’re going to end up gravitating to another bad food.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Yeah. Exactly.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
You almost have to do these things simultaneously. By the way, yeah, we are haters of glyphosate because of what it does to our gut, what it does to our brains, and our good gut bacteria. Meredith, you had some other great questions that need to be answered.
Meredith:
-inaudible- as well would be the glyphosate. I’m just wondering how the state of our microbiome impacts our food cravings. Can you speak to that?
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Our little gut bacteria need to eat, too, and different species survive best off of different foods. For example, we are used to having, or we should be having a certain amount of fiber in our diet. Our good gut bacteria can eat some of that fiber, and that’s what feeds them. If we’re eating more sugar than fiber, or cellulose, then the bacteria that survive best off of sugar will predominate. Our bacteria have been shown to synthesize amino—certain neurotransmitter precursors from scratch and they’ve actually been seen going up the vagus nerve directly from the gut. Somehow they might be directly influencing our cravings based on what they want.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
I mean, just in review, our gut bacteria, our microbiome can influence cravings, so if you have a bad microbiome that could start craving bad foods. I know this from cravings, people that at the cellular level are sugar-burners only with the hormonal inability to use fat for energy—because your cells can only use sugar or fat, right? They crave sugar because otherwise they have to break their muscle down into sugar. Your body doesn’t want to do that. It would rather give you a craving for the thing that needs to make energy because it really is not efficient at using fat. Therefore, it drives a craving that way. Our microbiome can drive a craving, deficiencies can drive cravings, psychological things can drive cravings—so, there’re four things.
Meredith:
That’s what you said about the craving, or the deficiencies, as well. I’m wondering—you had spoken to this a little bit earlier how chocolate might be connected to some deficiencies, or the craving for chocolate, but do you have any other specific cravings that you associate with specific deficiencies, specific foods?
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
From personal experience?
Meredith:
Or just your research.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Oh, okay. Let me see. I made a little list here but I hit some of those stories.
Meredith:
-inaudible- chocolate. I know you had said—I forget what you had said, it’s associated with a deficiency. I was thinking maybe a magnesium deficiency as well.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Oh, yeah.
Meredith:
-inaudible-, right?
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Yeah. Magnesium—yeah, that happens, too. The only other thing I noticed, I actually couldn’t figure out exactly why. It might have been a zinc deficiency or something. One time I was craving, specifically— well, on that note it probably wasn’t just a zinc deficiency—I still can’t figure it out. I was craving bivalve mollusks. Clams, oysters, a squid—I didn’t want a squid, I didn’t want a steak, I didn’t want a fin-fish, I wanted clams or oysters, etcetera. That’s still a mystery.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Bivalve mollusks. Only a biologist would describe it like that.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Yeah. No, I can’t think of any others off the top of my head that I’ve had.
Meredith:
You don’t know of any other specific food cravings that are associated with specific deficiencies? I’m just curious about that.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
I’m just drawing a blank here. Cravings, deficiencies—well, on the mollusk example I know that if someone craves meat and fish, etcetera, it could be zinc because oysters, etcetera, are high in that, that’s an example. Actually, on second thought that I might have been craving zinc because even though I didn’t want steak, etcetera, oysters are higher in zinc, so my body could have been going for that. My guess is there may be some indirect way to detect a folate deficiency. Someone could crave greens. I’ve actually done that before; not severely because I always have greens. The subject of folates is interesting. Not a lot of researchers know that—or put in their papers that folic acid is, just apparently, one out of many different chemicals that are classified as folates. I don’t know if you have any questions about that.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
What do you mean by that? I’m not sure where you’re going with that.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
I read that there’re several different chemicals that are classified as folates, but they’re all different. They all appear to work together to appropriately synthesize DNA. I say that because there have been papers done on folic acid overdoses, or higher than normal levels actually causing cancer. At a certain level they can prevent it. There has yet to be documentation of folates from whole foods causing a problem. I just thought I’d mention that.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
That brings up the topic of the methyltetrahydrofolate, right? The MTHFR gene. I see people dreading the gene. My gosh, I get the emails all the time, well, I have the MTHFR gene, as if they’re doomed. My thing is, is look, 15-20% of the population have this snip on the gene and yet the—and they’re fine—the body figures ways around it. Meredith, I want to do a whole show on this, eventually. What you’re saying, interestingly enough, too, is, possibly, what does the body do with the folate is the interesting question.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
They don’t fully know.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Right. That’s why I said this is a very complicated topic. I am a homozygous MTHFR and I never really had the typical methylation issues, even though I had toxic issues. It’s a topic that I really think we need a lot more research on. I believe that the body will figure out ways around these genetic snips. Folate, like you explained, is a very complicated topic just from a nutrient level. Interesting. Go ahead, Meredith, I can tell you have a question.
Meredith:
Oh. I was just thinking as far as this is—back to the food cravings go, the impact of exercise, and the type that we do, and the intensity, would that have any effect on our food cravings?
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Probably because there’s all different types of exercise and energy expenditure; admittedly, I’m not a huge expert on that. I do a lot of walking, that’s my main type of exercise. That’s one area, unfortunately, I don’t tend to think about that often.
Meredith:
Yeah. Interesting. Great.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
I think when we look at this topic, we know psychological cravings, there’re obviously physiological cravings, we’ve discussed them all but all in all, Dr. Sunny, what is the best way to make our cravings good? I think most American’s are stuck with bad cravings from a psychological and a physiological point. If you had to give our viewing audience one general thing to bring yourself to good cravings—I, like you, I have these things I know what I’m craving. My cravings are real. I’m down in with my innate intelligence; I vary my diet, I get what my body needs based on the cravings. It’s because I’ve been eating a diet for so long that’s good, but what’s your advice?
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
My advice first is to actually get on a diet that’s good. It takes some commitment but it’s easy if you think about it. I’m not sure what keeps people from doing this. Sometimes people will go for certain fad diets or say, oh, I should avoid fat, which isn’t really a good idea, in a general sense. I think, if you follow the two rules of certified organic for all the foods, follow the legal organic criteria, and that’s pretty much the only kind of stuff you’ll put in your mouth. These criteria are for, example, no synthetic herbicides, no antibiotics. There’s a symbol to look out for. People don’t know about—there is a symbol on these foods or food products that mean organic. They should first look up what that means. I only eat organic foods. That’s rule number one for me. Then, rule number two is, with rare exceptions, like if you want a little oil and vinegar on your salad, just exceptions like that, whole plants and whole animals—except obviously plant parts that are poisonous, which can happen. Whole plants and whole animals, that way you’re getting the right proportions of nutrients. Two rules: Organic and whole foods. Then rule number three, follow your cravings if you’re doing those first two things. The cravings should be reliable.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
I love that. Three rules, right? You’re right, those ratios and proportions are very important because when they’re off you start to go in different directions at the cellular level. Yeah, those three things—I love it. The third one, you only follow your cravings when you follow the first two.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Yeah.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
That is great advice.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
It is so easy for people to forget those first two rules.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Yeah.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
I said those three rules to one of my students once, just in order—it only took me three seconds to tell her the three rules. Right after rule number three, follow your cravings, she looked at me and said, oh, that means I should eat donuts and pizza? I said, what did I just say? What were the first rules? A donut, even if it was organic, it’s not a whole food. I have yet to make an organic donut.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Habits are when your brain starts to—your psychology, your thoughts in your brain start to equal your body. When these two are equal, that’s a new habit. You might want to give it 21 days to 30 days so these two equal out, and then trust your cravings because -inaudible- first, right? You’re going to start doing these thing—okay, I’m following the first two, but I’m still craving my jelly donuts, or whatever the heck you’re craving. Give it 21 days to 30 days to create this equaling this, which is a new habit, and then I think you’re safe on following rule number three. That’s great. Meredith, do you have any follow-up questions?
Meredith:
No. I mean, I’d just have to say I agree. I know in my past when I eat a standard American diet I had cravings like crazy all the time. Since changing my diet and really exclusively focusing on whole foods, lots of plants and whole animals, really I had very few cravings. I’m wondering, too, I guess I’m thinking to myself, I have so few cravings is there something wrong there? Should I be having some cravings? I noticed a dramatic decrease in cravings since massively increasing the fat in my diet. What do you have to say about that?
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
If you’re getting the fats from whole plants and whole animals like an avocado, or organic chicken skin that you just baked, it’s probably because—especially if you have healthy mitochondria and can use those fats for energy—you’re probably getting also a lot of the fat soluble vitamins. That’s what your body’s really after, so you crave fat less if you get fat without those fat soluble vitamins with it. Refined fat, for example, in fast food, your body thinks it needs more because it feels bad because the vitamins aren’t there.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Yeah. I think that’s the original point you made. Meredith, I would say that you’re pretty balanced, right? You’re saying, hey, should I be craving some of the things? No. I think that you’re pretty balanced, that’s why you’re not craving certain things. I think the important part of it is that, yeah, we can crave certain things that—salts, sugars, fats—and if there’s no nutrients involved we’re creating deficiencies. We’re satisfying our brain; this is not equaling this, right? We’re satisfying the dopamine, getting the rush, doing our addictions, and we’re developing sickness at the cellular level. Eating whole foods, the way we’re talking about, protects us. These ratios, the fat ratios, the nutrient ratios, are all in balance. Therefore, you’re not going to get cravings, Meredith. Right, Sunny?
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Yeah. Exactly.
Meredith:
It’s exciting, too, because it’s empowering that people no longer have to be victims or slaves to their cravings. If you’ve checked over your diet, if the right amount of whole foods, whole plants, whole animals, the right amount of fat, you don’t have to have these crazy cravings that can make your life miserable. A lot of people are dealing with that. There is a choice.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
Thank you so much, Dr. Sunny. We’ve had a lot of suggestions to do a show on cravings because a lot of people have them. It’s why they fail on diets, or vice versa. Give it 30 days, folks. Follow her two rules—three rules. Give it 30 days doing her two rules and then apply the third.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
Which is a lot more fun.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
It’s a lot more fun. Yeah, so, that’s great. I think it was some great advice there. Thank you, Professor, for joining us. Hey, we’re so glad to have you on our team. As far as when we need some things researched, Meredith, that’s who you fire it off of, our biochemist/psychologist.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
It’s a good combination.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
It is a great combination for our show because we know that this controls this, and this feeds back into this. Thank you. You’re welcome again on this show. Thank you, Dr. Sunny. Thank you, Meredith.
Meredith:
Oh, thank you, Dr. Pompa. Thank you Dr. Sunny. Remember everyone—this is a recap—organic food only, whole foods and whole animals as much as possible, then you follow your cravings. Thanks so much, Dr. Sunny; Dr. Pompa, wonderful as always. Everyone have a great week and we will catch you next week for episode 104. We’re going to be interviewing Dr. Jeff Volek. We’re going to be talking about low-carbohydrate fueling for athletes. It’s going to be an awesome show, so all you athletes out there, stay tuned for next week. Have a great weekend. Thanks for watching.
Dr. Daniel Pompa:
It’s possible, I do it! Wait till you hear the science. Talk to you next week. Bye.
Dr. Sunny Ferrero:
See ya.
