Pregnancy is sometimes announced by cravings. Cravings for pickles and ice cream, or other strange combinations of food. There are numerous theories about cravings during pregnancy, but it was difficult highlighting a clear reason, biological or physiological. Doctors usually agree that cravings during pregnancy are normal and beyond the fact that indulging unhealthy cravings is not the best idea.
Pregnancy cravings: salty, sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, mmm… great!
There were studies involving pregnant women to determine what foods and when crave. Among their most common cravings are the salty, sour, bitter, sweet and spicy in different stages of pregnancy, or in various combinations.
Survey data seem to suggest that, for example, women do not like bitter foods in the first trimester maybe because bitterness can signal the presence of a toxin that can affect the fetus.Women tend to have higher craving for salty and bitter foods like pickles, in late stages of pregnancy; and sweet foods are often desired in early pregnancy.
Craving dirt and glass
An explanation of craving pickles and ice cream is that a woman’s body needs specific nutrients. Many experts say that the pregnancy cravings indicate different types of deficits, vitamins and minerals, the body tries to compensate for this by making the foods containing those nutrients seem particularly appealing. It is certainly true in the case of pica syndrome, characterized by the fact that people eat or crave things that cannot be eaten like dirt or glass.
Hormones on the base of cravings
Other studies have challenged this explanation, claiming that the pregnancy cravings are related to hormonal changes in the body. This theory is supported by the fact that many women crave unusual foods in times of their menstrual cycle characterized by extremely high levels of hormones. However, this does not explain why cravings change from one pregnancy to another. A woman may want pickles and ice cream throughout the first pregnancy and she can hate them on the next. Cravings during pregnancy were associated with physiological reasons.
Women who felt the intensity of cravings during pregnancy may laugh at this theory, but human relationship with food is highly influenced by psychology. Backstage functioning of the human brain may be why some pregnant women drool at the thought of eating some spicy crackers, while others crave chips.
Sandwich with jam and pickles… a delicacy!
Although pickles and ice cream cravings are already stereotypes of pregnancy cravings, they actually seem to be quite rare. Although some pregnant women crave pickles, generally, they do not want to eat them with ice cream, but this doesn’t mean that they are not craving for strange food combinations.
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