How to Overcome Salt and Sugar Cravings

How to Overcome Salt and Sugar Cravings Dr. Travis Stork: It’s time for everyday health from A to Z segment. Today’s letter C for cravings, now two of the most common things we crave, we all know it, sugar and salt, but too much of it is harmful. So we’ve got some healthy substitutes. What kind of sugars to be craved. Come on we got candy, cookies, cake. What happens when we eat sugar? Insulin is those white dots you’re seeing on this animation. Literally signal yourselves, get this sugar out of the system. But believe it or not, sugar doesn’t do some insulin surge. All these things actually act centrally on your brain to release serotonin which makes you feel good, it calms you down really but it also makes you crave more sugars and more sweets that cycle hormones out of balance. Healthy alternative; dark chocolate, strawberries dipped in dark chocolate. Dr. Jim Sears: Nice. Dr. Travis Stork: Heart healthy antioxidants and you won’t get that same surge and of course moderation is key. Dr. Drew Ordon: And another healthy way to get that sugar fix, apples and almond butter. The apples right here great in fiber, you deep them in your almond butter which actually has good fat in it. It’s going to help reduce the bad cholesterol, taste sweet, and it will fill you up. Female: Moving on, we’ve got bananas rolled in honey and crushed almonds. So going back to the benefit of almonds, heart health of course, banana is high in potassium which helps to lower blood pressure and honey is actually antimicrobial. Dr. Travis Stork: And if you don’t have a sweet tooth, maybe you crave salty foods, things like potato chips and pretzels. But listen up, the reason we crave so much salt is because we become addicted to it at such an early age. Salt this. Salt that. We’d become so addicted. There are certain medical conditions where maybe after a big marathon activity outside, where you’re sweating out, where your sodium levels can actually get so low that you’ll crave salt because you need it. But most of us get way too much salt in our diet. We do have some alternative to decrease the amount of sodium. Too much salt, too high blood pressure, early death. We don’t want that. Dr. Jim Sears: You know just at least taste the food before you salt it because most of the time it’s already salted. But here’s a great low salt snack, baked tortilla chips with Guacamole. Guacamole is really rich in Omega-3 oils which are so good. It prevents disease and really your whole body benefits from Omega-3s and this is really good for you. Dr. Lisa Masterson: This is great and for all you women who suffer from PMS, these things are great. These Ants on a log basically it’s celery with a little raisins and peanut butter, and it’s fantastic. It’s excellent vitamin C and fiber, and also helps strengthen the immune system. Dr. Travis Stork: Now I want everyone to push all of these middle foods in. Drew, you leave those pretzels out. Put these all together. So these looks like scrumptious foods to you all. Rare occasions, rare occasions, the pretzels, the chips, these sweets on rare occasions, for more information you can just go to our website TheDoctorsTV.com, or visit EverydayHealth.com for more health tips from A to Z.