You may be reading that title thinking 'excuse me, my mouth is literally watering thinking about having my next chocolately treat. How dare you invalidate my chocolate cravings'. I hear you and I am you. I had a whole container of chocolate mousse made for 10 people over two days. Chocolate is my kryptonite. But like most things in my life I don't like to blindly accept why this ancient food makes me weak at the knees. I wanted to investigate why you always see chocolate linked to PMS or period snacks like in most of our seed cycling recipes. And the answers are very surprising.
I'm not going to give you the history of chocolate. But I am going to give you an insight into this connection with chocolate and the menstrual cycle.
Just quickly, what is a craving?
A craving is an intense, often urgent desire for a specific food or substance, typically driven by emotional, physiological, or habitual triggers. Right, so why do we crave chocolate around our period?
It's a mix of biological, psychological and cultural factors. Not JUST our hormones.
But let's talk hormones first. The drop in Estrogen and Progesterone just before our period does affect our serotonin, which is a 'feel good' transmitter. Chocolate contains trace amounts of compounds like Tryptophan, Phenylethylamine (sometimes called the love drug), Theobromine and Caffeine. These compounds can stimulate a range of calming and 'feel good' affects but only on a very small scale.
There is also a chance that a chocolate craving close to or around our period is our body's way of getting more iron and magnesium - if we are deficient. Dark chocolate especially contains magnesium and small amounts of iron.
But, this is the biggest bombshell of this investigation:
Psychological and cultural factors often outweigh biological factors when craving chocolate
What does this mean? Basically chocolate cravings aren't ruled by our hormonal shifts or low levels of magnesium and iron, they are ruled by what we were told about chocolate growing up, where we live in the world, our emotional associations with it and the cultural reinforcement from advertising that 'women need chocolate to ease PMS'.
Let's break down the advertising journey chocolate went through to arrive at being associated with the menstrual cycle.
Women and chocolate
In the late 19th century chocolate houses started advertising chocolate with women in 'suggestive' poses. These ads were considered overtly 'sexual'. They were probably just exposing their knees. Shock horror. But nonetheless this kind of advertising set a precedent for associating chocolate with female desire and indulgence.
Romanticism
We then step into the 1930's-1950's and chocolate is advertised as something women were emotionally dependent on. A gift of chocolates could 'win her affection'. These kind of ads reinforced the idea that chocolate was a source of comfort or pleasure for women.
Chocolate and PMS
More recent advertising of chocolate especially in the US, have explicitly linked chocolate consumption to women's cycles. Some ads suggesting women 'need' chocolate to soothe PMS. This messaging has been so pervasive that it has shaped societal perceptions. Even I believed that chocolate cravings during menstruation were purely biologically driven. The next paragraph proves why I was wrong.
Where we live determines our cravings
Dr. Julia Hormes, a psychologist specializing in eating behaviors, found that chocolate cravings are less common in non-Western cultures, suggesting that where you live heavily impacts these desires. Meaning if chocolate isn't a central part of your culture or hardly advertised to you - a craving is less or non-existent.
I noticed this when I went to Portugal recently. Chocolate isn't heavily advertised - the 'sweets' that you're exposed to are regional - like Pastel de Natas (custard tarts). I ate chocolate maybe 3 times over 6 weeks. Compared to coming back to New Zealand and I've already burnt through 3 blocks of chocolate and a bucket of mousse over 3 weeks. Why?!
Based on the above research of cultural and psychological associations. I'd say I'm more exposed to chocolate advertising in New Zealand than in Europe. And I have more familiar emotional associations with chocolate in New Zealand than in Portugal. There is a Whitakers chocolate bar at the Auckland airport for starters and I just see so much more chocolate at my grandparents, my parents place for dessert and in products online.
I'm not exactly mad about how much I love chocolate...
...and I'm happy with my emotional associations with it. But I think it's good to be aware of the real drive behind our cravings that are beyond the biological influences. So we don't blindly buy into a stereotype of women craving chocolate because of PMS - a story manufactured by advertising companies to sell more of their product to women. I do like chocolate, but I don't like being manipulated to believe that I need it.
And if you aren't happy about your relationship with chocolate maybe dig into your cultural narratives around chocolate and your psychological relationship with it first. It's obviously good to check if your body is deficient in nutrients like iron and magnesium and take a proactive approach to correcting those. Seed Cycle Blend has a lovely amount of magnesium to sustain you daily btw. But, after investigating these other factors, I'm convinced that we should do whatever the F we want when it comes to chocolate, but also not be swayed by advertising to create unhealthy associations with sugar filled confectionery.
P.S I have made our Seed Cycling Chocolate Banana Loaf 3 times in the last two weeks, have you tried it yet? Omg. Please do and let me know what you think. And any other thoughts you have on this topic.
Have a great week,
Rochelle x
