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> > I was just wondering what makes a craving, if anyone knows.
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> I don't know, but I can tell you a theory of a friend of mine. She tends to crave certain vegetables, and thinks that it's related to what vitamins her body is lacking at that particular time. Dunno. And it doesn't seem to correspond to shortbread very well. . . unless you haven't been consuming enough butter and sugar lately. :)
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> Luisa

It's possible. Shortbread has a fairly large amount of starch, sugar, fat, and salt (Hey, I think you've managed to get all four of the "really essential" food groups in a single food item :-). Maybe your body thinks you've been starving it lately, and it craved a really quick energy picker-upper?

It's known that people who have low levels of serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine), an important neurotransmitter, tend to develop an increase in carbohydrate craving and intake -- that is, for sugar and starch. 5-HT and its receptors are involved in learning, in sleep onset, control of mood and appetite, in prevention of depression, blood vasoconstriction, etc. For what it's worth, people with higher serotonin 5-HT levels in the brain don't seem to get hunger cravings as often. But this brain/hunger relationship is an extremely complex one, at any rate.

Wolfspirit