How to beat chocolate cravings

[Ben]

Some may find the following article of interest. Particularly the nexus of the research findings and vipassana bhavana practice


How to beat chocolate cravings


February 11, 2011 - 11:25AM


Crush cravings ... resist temptation by accepting it.

So you want to beat that constant craving for chocolate? The first step is to learn to acknowledge and accept the yearning, according to new research.
"If you stop fighting and ... accept something it loses its influence and power over your life," says psychologist and CSIRO researcher Dr Robyn Vast.
The sweet treat has long been associated with love and gluttony, and Australians munch their way through about $2 billion worth of it a year, says the Royal Institution of Australia (RiAus).
Chocolate stimulates the release of the hormone serotonin - the body's natural happiness drug.
To test what drives our addiction to chocolate, Dr Vast recruited 110 volunteers in Adelaide and divided them into three groups.
Each group was given a bag of chocolate to carry around for a week, with the aim of resisting the goodies in the bag.
The first group was given no intervention, and 43 per cent totally resisted chocolate.
The second group was taught how to control cravings, with 56 per cent able to abstain from eating chocolate over the seven-day period.
The third group was encouraged to acknowledge and accept temptation when it arose.
"The third group was taught an acceptance-based approach with 81 per cent eating no chocolate at all," Dr Vast told AAP.
Dr Vast sas cravings are a little bit like an itch, they seemingly come from nowhere and demand our full attention when they occur.
Just like an itch demands to be scratched, so too can cravings be hard to deny.
"What I found was that if people accept craving for chocolate as human behaviour, just something that happens to them, then you take the fight out of it," she says.
"It takes the pressure off."
Dr Vast, who shared her findings at an RiAus seminar this week called Gluttony: The Lure of Chocolate, will publish her study later this year.
Also speaking at the seminar, Haigh chief chocolate taster Brendan Somerville explored another reason why we find chocolate so hard to resist: it simply tastes good.
"Flavour depends on where the cocoa has been grown, and whether it's been imported as a bean or in pre-made blocks," he said.
Somerville, who describes himself as a "quality assurance technician" rather than a chocolate taster, says he never gets sick of testing chocolate, although his palate has become more discerning.
"I prefer dark chocolate, around 70 per cent. You get a better subtlety of flavours. But no - I'm not addicted."
Researchers at the Spanish Council for Scientific Research in Madrid, Spain found that ordinary cocoa and chocolate bars contain a group of alkaloids known as tetrahydro-beta-carbolines.
The same chemicals have been linked to alcoholism, which may also explain cravings.

http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/well ... 1ap9d.html

[tiltbillings]

(slave free)
MmmMMmmm, chocolate.

http://www.julietbennett.com/2009/09/11/chocolate1/

[Ben]

Yep, 85%. That's my treat!
But after returning home from my recent retreat, it (the chocolate) no longer has the same pull.

[ground]

Being aware that chocolate production today still entails child labour and slavery may suffice for some to abandon chocolate completely.

Or:
Giving in to one sense pleasure opens the door for complete failure.

Or:
How does chocolate look once digested?

Or:
The Buddha taught to eat just to maintain this body and not for pleasure or other distractions.


Kind regards

[Euclid]

If you need some additional encouragement, I'd recommend watching this great BBC doco about the cocoa bean trade and the child labour behind it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjwkRkdP5i4

[Ben]

Being aware that chocolate production today still entails child labour and slavery may suffice for some to abandon chocolate completely.

Or:
Giving in to one sense pleasure opens the door for complete failure.

Or:
How does chocolate look once digested?

Or:
The Buddha taught to eat just to maintain this body and not for pleasure or other distractions.


Kind regards

Indeed!
I was actually just thinking of the use of child slave labour in cocoa plantations in west africa. If you haven't seen it, an excellent documentary exposing the child slave labour in 'fairtrade' chocolate. Search for 'the bitter truth of chocolate' to find it.

Ben

[appicchato]

How does chocolate look once digested?

Once digested it's gone, what's to look at?...prior to being digested (digesting), how does anything look?...

[Euclid]

Indeed!
I was actually just thinking of the use of child slave labour in cocoa plantations in west africa. If you haven't seen it, an excellent documentary exposing the child slave labour in 'fairtrade' chocolate. Search for 'the bitter truth of chocolate' to find it.

Ben

You and me are on the same wavelength apparently Ben. The link to that very doco is in my post just above yours if anybody is curious

[Ben]

Indeed!
I was actually just thinking of the use of child slave labour in cocoa plantations in west africa. If you haven't seen it, an excellent documentary exposing the child slave labour in 'fairtrade' chocolate. Search for 'the bitter truth of chocolate' to find it.

Ben

You and me are on the same wavelength apparently Ben.

Apparently so, Euclid!

The link to that very doco is in my post just above yours if anybody is curious

When I saw your post, I thought it must have been.
Its a very good doco.

[daverupa]

A similar method eradicates cigarette cravings, in case people think nicotine cravings are 'too strong' for such a practice to work.

[Annapurna]

Chocolate is good for me. Healthy. Feel good hormons. Antioxidants.....

MORE!

I eat cacao based food moderately but nearly daily. Why not? I also eat bread daily.

[PeterB]

Why not indeed...without wanting to get too graphic, I find a little chocolate aids a certain vital function in the removal of solid waste. My gut likes it, and in fact the literature says that it "promotes a smooth peristaltic action " all that AND it tastes good.

[ground]

How does chocolate look once digested?

Once digested it's gone, what's to look at?....

Disgusting slime. It would be foul smelling beyond that.

Kind regards

[PeterB]

Thats all the forum needs...a mahayanist puritan....

[ground]

The title is "How to beat chocolate cravings"

I try to stay on topic while others actually try to foster chocolate cravings.

Actually the "disgusting slime and foul smelling" approach is very effective against all kinds of lust. It just takes a bit concentration and some capacity for visualization.

Kind regards

[PeterB]

I'll just have a bit of chocolate and not make a big song and dance about it or imagine myself to be some kind of Himalyan aescetic...

[Annapurna]

I try to stay on topic while others actually try to foster chocolate cravings.

Huh?

Who?

[ground]

I'll just have a bit of chocolate and not make a big song and dance about it or imagine myself to be some kind of Himalyan aescetic...

You see. That is the remainder of the Himalyan influence in your mind: attachment. That's fostered to some degree there

Kind regards

[ground]

Just like an itch demands to be scratched, so too can cravings be hard to deny.
"What I found was that if people accept craving for chocolate as human behaviour, just something that happens to them, then you take the fight out of it," she says.
"It takes the pressure off."

That scratching may entail serious infections.

kind regards

[PeterB]

I'll just have a bit of chocolate and not make a big song and dance about it or imagine myself to be some kind of Himalyan aescetic...

You see. That is the remainder of the Himalyan influence in your mind: attachment. That's fostered to some degree there

Kind regards

You take care of your mind and I will do my best to understand mine....