It’s close to the holidays, so it’s reminding me of this gross generalization I’ve formed that women seem to enjoy sweets more than men – or at least crave it more often. It first hit me, after watching, say my 10th season or so of Survivor, I noticed that about 20 days in, the food deprived women would start fantasizing about chocolate and dessert, while the men would fantasize about meat, burgers and pizza.
Ever since then, I’ve kept one eye peeled on the eating habits of women over men during get-togethers and whatnot, and maybe I’m way off, or I just want to see a little evidence for my lame hypothesis, so I’m fooling myself, but is there anything to that scientifically?
Someone smarter than myself is sure to come in and hypothesize about brain chemistry, tastebuds, hormones and the like, but my own theory may account for at least part of what you’ve noticed – many (too many) women are on perma-diets. Or at least watching their weight to the point where they deny themselves candy and cake. So they are left eating fruit or crap (pork rinds and Splenda, anyone?) and fantasizing about the real thing, whether it be cheesecake or chocolate mousse. They usually succumb and eat a whole Sara Lee, or stay ‘good’ and give themselves a little bit of real sugary goodness as a reward. I imagine all these things put dessert at the front of their minds when they’re very hungry and dreaming about what they’d like to be eating – they’ve likely been in the position before. (Off topic, but I’m always shocked that the winner(s) of Survivor don’t start charities for school lunches, malnutrition, etc. after winning.)
Oh, yeah. It’s a total shock that Americans who would humiliate themselves on network television for a million dollars aren’t thoughtful and charitable.
That’s definitely something I hadn’t considered. Interesting. All I know, being a dood, is when I’m starving, I crave protein, salt, fat and carbs (not necessarily in that order). In fact, I rarely ever indulge in dessert type foods. However, my wife, sisters, and some female friends I know, always seem to have sugary, chocolaty, frosting laden goodness on their minds. But it certainly makes sense that we desire what we feel we shouldn’t have.
Moving this from GQ to IMHO. In IMHO you can still get factual information, but the bulk of the responses are likely gonna be opinions. That’s my reasoning.
It is very rare (which is to say I can’t recall it ever happening) for me to have a group of all guys order dessert, whereas a group of all women will almost always order a dessert or two. Make of that what you will, but that’s been my experience waiting tables.
I do recall reading that women on average like sweets more than men, and men like more meat than women, again on average. I expect it goes back to men having evolved as hunters ( and eating most of the kill on the spot ), and women gatherers; pretty exclusively so in pre-modern humans.
FWIW I realized as I read the OP that while I like desserts if you told me I could never have a dessert the rest of my life it really wouldn’t affect me that much. I would just shrug my shoulders and deal with it.
My wife once told me how another woman got a laugh from a group of women at a diner with “You can tell God’s not a woman because semen doesn’t taste like chocolate syrup,” but if I were to say to a group of guys “too bad pussy juice doesn’t taste like beer” they’d rightly react with “Huh? There’s nothing wrong with pussy juice. Seriously, you need AA, dude.”
I don’t know, maybe there’s something to that. Sometimes our hormones go crazy and we need chocolate right away.
You guys have hormones too though… I’m sure you’re negativally effected by hormonal imbalances too, I would hope. Why should we have all the pain and discomfort.
The thing I found the most interesting, is that when I’m starving, and NEED food, I go right for a hearty meal or some grilled chicken. At that time, the mere thought of eating sweets would make me recoil in disgust. However, I think my wife might go directly for the chocolate cake in the same situation.
Oh, we may not bleed from our crotches (god forbid), but lemme tell you, I go through “periods” of downright bitchyness for days at a time. I think I might be able to mark 'em on a calendar and start to predict them like the phases of the moon.
I’m a guy in that respect*. I will have bouts of MUST HAVE SWEET SUGARY GOODNESS NOW, but I’m much more likely to crave something savory. When the women around me I work with crave cake, cookies, chocolate, I’m craving channa masala, garlic bread, enchiladas.
That extends to breakfast as well. I HATE that all quick breakfast foods are sweet. Ugh. I’ve started experimenting with savory oatmeal but have only had mediocre results.
Desserts don’t do much for me. I like them fine but I would never seek them about on purpose (I am male in case it isn’t obvious). My young daughters OTOH could find a piece of candy hidden in a hay stack in the middle of a 100 acre wood. I have to hide it from them way up high in really obscure places around the house and I still catch them trying to build ladders to get to it.
I think engineering would attract more females if the theoretical problem set always ended in scoring some cake or pie. Chocolate is the worst although not all women highly crave it. Those that do can be quite obvious about the attraction of chocolate.
I’d rather have something savory, my husband, something sweet. He’s the one with his cupboard of cookies, and he’s the one who brings home pastries and ice cream.
I’ll be the one to whip up a burger and some potato chips. Mm… salt, fat, meat.
