In my late 20s I had a bad chest infection, of which I’ve only had 3 or 4 in my whole 58 years of life. The infection was persistent, even after high doses of tetracycline antibiotics. I was feeling constantly nauseous and unwell, and was craving something but did not know what. Intuition told me that I’d find it in the Adelaide Central Market. So I went to town on market day and walked up and down the aisles of food stalls with no idea what I was looking for (and feeling a bit silly, too).
Cheese? … Really?
Something made me stop at a kind of stall I’d normally pass by as quickly as possible because they smelled strongly of dried fish, fresh oysters, and other things I can’t handle the odour of. However looking at the goods behind the glass, suddenly there was the thing my body wanted!
I still had no idea what it was. A block of some weird greyish-bluish-greenish translucent rubbery stuff, it looked more like a pencil eraser, shoe sole or ‘sea monster’ gristle than food! It turned out to be some kind of cheese, and though I was a great cheese lover then, it did not look appealing at all.
It didn’t matter, because that’s what my body wanted. I bought a piece and went off to try it. It smelled strong but not offensive, was intensely salty and had a weird flavour and texture. But my body said: “Yes!!” So for about 3 days I had tiny pieces of it, no bigger than a fingernail, and loved it!
The Off Switch
About the fourth day I got my weird cheese out of the fridge and could not bear the smell. Something in me had switched off and I felt that my body no longer required it. I had evidently obtained whatever was needed, some uncommon substance or nutrient or microbe not present in my usual food. Crucially, it had stopped the nausea completely and I began to improve rapidly. After the ‘switch off’ I tried a bit of the cheese and almost vomited. It tasted foul and intolerably salty. End of story with that strange cheese!
Here’s what amazed me ever after: how did my body know that in the Adelaide Central Market there was a food I had never seen or heard of before that contained what my body needed to restore itself after the tetracycline therapy?
Spam (and I don’t mean on the internet)
Decades later in 2011 I had another similar experience during a major illness. Again, I’d had a multitude of powerful antibiotics and my guts were very miserable. I was taking a range of probiotics and nutritional supplements, but there must have been something missing. I walked up and down the supermarket aisles ‘following my feeling’ and it stopped me at the Spam shelf.
Spam?! How is that possible? I’m a vegetarian, Spam is meat, it’s preserved and full of chemicals, which I avoid.
But it had whatever that magic thing my body wanted. So I bought a small tin of it, ate it in 2 days, and hey presto! My body got what it wanted and hit the off switch.
After that the mere thought of Spam was revolting again. I got the feeling this episode of craving Spam had something to do with sulphur, but I didn’t really make time to do the research.
Meat
I don’t digest animal protein very well. Usually meat smells, tastes and feels offensive to me. But occasionally, particularly when I’m sick, I suddenly crave meat (usually chicken) and find myself thinking about it against my mind’s will. Then meat suddenly smells good to me and I find myself drawn to the smells in supermarkets and barbecues. So I buy some organically raised chicken. It tastes great, I still have some trouble digesting it and must eat it very slowly with a lot of fresh vegetables, but it works. I know when the ‘switch off’ has occurred, because once again I can’t stand the smell of meat and I don’t feel the need for any more for quite some time.
So I’ve learned: body knows best!
By Dianne Trussell, BSc Honours; 16 years in Biological & Medical Research & Teaching
Further Reading:
The Body Knows
Serge Benhayon on Food and Diet
626 Comments
This is quite incredible that you followed your intuition to such an extent that you even knew exactly where to go to find what your body needed! We do know exactly how to heal or support ourselves through illness and live in a way where we don’t get ill in the first place. The question is, are we humble enough to listen?
It is interesting to read how the body knows what to eat and when. I have the same thing with liver. I never eat it as a rule and then once in a blue moon and usually when I am unwell or trying to recover from an illness, I get the urge to eat liver. Then after about a day, I can’t stand the stuff again, until the next time that is.
Such a great example of the wisdom of our body and to not let the mind interfere with diet rules etc. Our body knows best and when the relationship we have with our body is one of knowing or trusting then the outcome is always honouring our whole system.
I have noticed that with animals (cows or sheep), who will seek and lick some particular soils occasionally. Animals naturally listen to their bodies, we humans have kind of forgotten how to do that but as you share, if we simply listened we would be richly rewarded.
Re-establish an honouring relationship with our body and we have the greatest diviner of truth that we could ask for, on hand 24/7.
It is amazing how when we allow it to our body can sniff out what is needed in any situation and then when it is no longer needed that switch is switched off and the same substance can make us feel nauseous. The wisdom of the body is far greater than we are often willing to acknowledge.