Food craving and food memories

Food craving can also come about through food memories. In The Mind over Fatter programme, I tell the story of a client, who told me that his absolute weakness was bread. He said he felt as if his head was filled with thoughts of bread all day.

When I asked him what his childhood food memories around bread were - he told me this fascinating story.

*Robin (not his real name) came from a single-mother home where he'd grown up very poor. As a result his mother, a warm and very loving women, had worked two jobs to put enough food on the table for her two sons.

So, even though Robin's mother had seldom been at home when he was growing up, no matter how late she worked, after she'd lovingly put them to bed, no matter how exhausted she was, she'd always bake fresh bread for her boys.

It was as if the smell of bread became a food memory encoded into his system. No wonder it was central to his food cravings.

In psychology this is known as conditioned behaviour - a bit like Pavlov's dog that learn that when a bell was rung he was going to be fed. Soon - even in the absence of food, is the bell was run the dog would still salivate.

His food memories created his food craving

Severely traumatized, neither Robin nor his brother could sleep at night. Nothing seemed to reassure them until one of the caretakers hit upon the idea of giving each child a piece of bread to hold onto at bedtime. It became symbolic of the fact that: “Today I ate and tomorrow I’ll eat again.” Sheila and Mathhew Linn write about this in their book ‘Sleeping with bread: Holding what gives you life’.

Even though he was now a hugely successful businessman with an international engineering empire, 'poor man's food' (as Robin called bread) was still the food of kings in his mind.

He couldn't wake up in the mornings without his food cravings for bread demanding his 'morning fix.' He couldn't get going in the morning until his food memories of bread had been satiated.

If ever he was upset or angry, he'd head for the breadbin.

He had to have bread and once he'd started eating, he literally felt as if he couldn't stop. He'd wolf down 12 slices at one sitting.

At restuarants, he'd often order so much bread that by the time his ordered food had arrived, he'd already eaten all he wanted but then felt he had to order the food he'd ordered.

As we discussed this pre-occupation with bread, what became apparent to Robin was that all his food cravings and often his dreams were all about bread. It was small wonder given that bread had been so central to the warmth and nurturing he felt from his mother and again in the refugee camp.

As an adult, it wasn't bread he was looking for bread. What Robin wanted from all those childhood food memories was the feeling of connection and safety with, and being cared for by, his mother.

Once Robin started carrying bread with him whever he went - he slowly got used to the fact that 'bread was always with him,' he found that just as in the days of the refugee camp, it was enough to take away his frantic bread craving.

Sadly Robin died in 2002 - at his funeral his wife told me she'd found a mouldy bread sandwich in his briefcase.

Carrying food can reduce a food craving

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That really is why we call it MIND over Fatter. When your mind has come to rest, your food craving (or your food phobia) often does too.

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