Wyn Drabble: Yummy, another food study

Oh Goody! The white coats and clipboards have been out again. Another food study has been published and I'm here to chew it over, savour the flavours and spit out the tough bits.
This study is, however, a little different. It's more cravings-based than the usual ones. (Red wine is bad for you. No, wait a minute, good for you.) It lists eight foods you may crave and then suggests things you may be suffering from, based on that particular craving. It all ends up being rather like your horoscope.
Well, I thought I should stick my knife and fork in too, so let's look at the first food item under the microscope and offer my findings. According to this study, if you crave Vegemite, you may be suffering from heart arrhythmia or atrial fibrillation.
Now, I don't even know what those ailments are because they have too many syllables but I can suggest, without the need for government funds or state-funded clipboards, another possible reason for your Vegemite craving - you just like it. I do. There's nothing finer on the breakfast toast.
If you crave salty foods and chips, this survey recommends heading to your doctor because you may have thyroid or adrenal gland problems. My study suggests a far simpler possibility - that you are drinking beer. We all know that nothing else goes so well with that particular beverage. And, anyway, what is a thyroid?
Have you been craving ice cubes? This study suggests that if you have you may be anaemic or suffering from an iron deficiency. My much simpler suggestion is that you are about to have a gin. Did they tie their findings in with your fresh lime and your tonic water consumption? I think not.
Fizzy drink cravings apparently suggest that you may be calcium deficient and should be pouring yourself a glass of milk instead. This is ridiculous! Can you imagine milk instead of tonic in your gin?
Cravings for strong flavours such as curry may mean you are deficient in zinc and, consequently, may lack fully functioning taste buds. What the study overlooks is that there might be a classy little curry house just down the road and that your taste buds are working just fine, thank you very much.
If you have a carbohydrate obsession and can't get enough pasta or bread, the white coats suggest you could be suffering from undiagnosed depression. This finding really depressed me because freshly baked bread cheers me up and if the loaf is good enough I can make a complete meal out of it with lashings of butter.
If you crave soil - more likely if you are pregnant, it seems - you should be checked out for coeliac disease. Well, I think you should be checked out for issues that are far easier to spell.
And, anyway, in my test group not one person liked the taste of soil. This, despite the fact that I served it with a side dish of curried fizzy drink with ice cubes, salt and a smear of Vegemite "foam".
Finally on the list, our old favourite, chocolate. Lots of us crave chocolate and a succession of conflicting good-for-you, bad-for-you studies has done nothing to deter us from our passion. Well, according to this new study, we could all be suffering from depression, stress, premenstrual tension or magnesium deficiency. Of course, my trials suggested a quite different reason and I'm surprised the researchers did not even think of this. My trials suggested that the reason people crave chocolate is that it is astonishingly yummy.
Aren't food studies delicious? Here's one I prepared earlier:
Ingredients
1 food-based hypothesis
1 white coat
1 clipboard
1 sharp pencil
Method
Preheat the oven to moderate. Combine the ingredients and ask random people some questions. Drink a lot of whatever takes your fancy. By the time you are feeling decidedly pleasant, you will realise that you have forgotten to record any data. Never mind.
But don't forget to turn the oven off.
Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, a writer, public speaker and musician.