People, rats, and many other animals have a specific hunger for

carbohydrates-sweets and starches-that cannot be satisfied by

eating any other kind of food. After a big meal, you may blanch

at the thought of another bite of steak, but you ll still be "hungry"

for dessert. Your stomach will be stuffed with three servings of

salad at lunch, but you will feel unsatisfied because you haven t

met your body s need for a carbohydrate-rich food. And between

meals, when you get the urge to eat something, that something

is likely to be a package of cookies, a candy bar, crackers, or

ice cream...

The overweight person is acutely aware of a craving for car-

bohydrates because for years sweets and starches have been

forbidden foods. And this craving is intensified on a high-protein-

low-carbohydrate diet. The carbohydrate craver will almost inevi-

tably fail on such a diet, not because of weakness of will power or

moral fiber but because the body s real hunger for carbohydrates

isn t met by those diets ... Yet the fact is, as we have shown in

the laboratory, there is" no way that the true carbohydrate craver

can succeed on a htlgh-protein-low-carbohydrate diet.