Reading the pattern
Why two people short of the same mineral reach for different things
A craving is not a random appetite. It is often the body reaching for the fastest way to feel normal — and which crutch a person picks says as much as the deficiency itself.
Dr. Paul Eck described two people carrying the same manganese shortfall. Both were tired. One developed a craving for chocolate, because its copper made them feel better. The other took up cigarettes, because the cadmium compensated for low zinc.
Same deficiency. Two completely different habits. Neither person chose their crutch deliberately, and neither could have explained it.
That is the useful idea behind reading cravings alongside a hair test: the craving is a clue to what the body is trying to solve, not simply a failure of willpower.
Chocolate carries sugar for a quick lift, magnesium for energy production, and copper. The archive describes it as "almost a perfect food for the person in burnout" — which is exactly why the craving is so specific and so hard to argue with.
A chocolate craving is also a recognised sign of magnesium shortfall. Women reporting premenstrual difficulty are noted as having lower magnesium levels than women who do not.
The catch. Chocolate is a poor way to answer the signal it comes from. It brings caffeine and more copper with it, and copper is frequently already part of the picture in the people who crave it hardest.
Sugar is the simplest fuel the body has and can be burned nearly as-is. The archive puts it bluntly: a sugar craving "may be a necessary defense measure needed to avoid an impending catastrophe."
Salt and sugar cravings appear together in descriptions of reduced adrenal output, alongside low blood sugar, fatigue and low mood. When adrenal activity slows, both mineralocorticoid and glucocorticoid output fall — and the symptoms that follow include craving for salt and for sweets.
So a person craving crisps at four in the afternoon and a person craving chocolate before their period may be describing two quite different mineral pictures, even though both would say "I have no willpower."
One ratio carries most of the blood-sugar reading, and the reason is chemical rather than interpretive:
Those three facts are why the Ca/Mg ratio is treated as the blood sugar ratio. The two minerals pull in opposite directions on the same process, so their proportion says more than either level does alone — which is the general principle of the whole report, showing up in one specific place.
The threshold recorded for the pattern is a Ca/Mg ratio above 9.5. A very high ratio carries a diabetes trend and a hypoglycemia trend — trends in the laboratory sense, a direction the mineral pattern points, not conditions anybody has and not something a screening test can establish.
For a craving article this is the useful part: it gives a number to look at rather than a feeling to interpret. Whether that number explains any particular craving is a separate question, and not one a hair test answers on its own.
A hair tissue mineral analysis reports mineral levels in milligrams percent, and each reading averages roughly two to three months of growth. That makes it a pattern instrument rather than a snapshot — which suits a craving, because a craving is a pattern too.
What the test can show is whether the minerals a craving implicates are actually sitting where you would expect. What it cannot do is name the cause of any symptom, and it is not a diagnostic test.
The relationships matter more than the individual figures. As the lab literature puts it: the determination of deficiencies and excesses is important, but the relationship between the nutrients is more important. That is why a reading is interpreted through ratios rather than one number at a time.
The question I ask first is not "what do you crave" but "when". Mid-afternoon, before a period, the moment you walk in the door, three in the morning — the timing narrows it faster than the food does.
I also ask what happens twenty minutes after. Something that lifts you and then drops you further is telling you it is fuel, not repair. That distinction has saved a lot of people from assuming a mineral problem was a character problem.
No. A craving is a clue worth following, not evidence. It points at where to look on a test rather than standing in for one.
Because they are reaching for different compensations. In the example above, one person got relief from the copper in chocolate and the other from the cadmium in cigarettes, both while short of manganese.
It can show you the mineral pattern you are carrying. It cannot name a cause, and it is a screening tool rather than a diagnostic one. Anything medical belongs with your own licensed provider.
A hair tissue mineral analysis reports your mineral levels and the ratios between them, so a craving can be read against something measured rather than guessed at.
Published 2026-08-30 · Updated 2026-08-30
By Eileen Durfee — Practitioner, NBS (Nutritional Balancing Science), NASM-CPT; wellness educator, inventor and author.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Hair tissue mineral analysis is a screening test and is not diagnostic; anything medical belongs with your own licensed provider. Wellness Shopping Online is operated by Nuco Enterprise Solutions LLC.
