CULTURALLY LEARNED ADDICTIONS

DARK, rich and lusciously sweet, chocolate is the most irresistible of
confections, so addictive that it has been suspected of intoxicating
with marijuana-like opiates and chemicals that can mimic the brain
chemistry of a person in love. Chocolate seems to have a special power
over women, who consistently rate it as their No. 1 food craving and
whose desire for it often intensifies around the time of
menstruation.

As a result, scientists have hypothesized that a woman's need to order
a triple chocolate cake or to make a midnight run for fudge brownie
ice cream may not be mere indulgence, but instead her body's attempt
to satisfy a natural need for the powerful chemistry of chocolate.

But now, that comforting hypothesis may have to give way to plain old
guilt once again. In a study of college students in the United States
and Spain, an international team of researchers found that the
peculiarly female lust for chocolate appears not to be physiological
but cultural.

In a study to be published later this year in the journal Appetite,
researchers found that among people who craved sweets, American women
craved chocolate much more often than American men, as expected. But
Spanish women who craved sweets did not show the same intense devotion
to chocolate. In fact, among those craving sweets, Spanish women were
no more enthusiastic about chocolate than Spanish men.

The finding has shaken the foundations of the theory that the female
body naturally seeks and desires chocolate and may force chocoholic
women to look elsewhere for reassurance about their habits.

``The chocolate craving isn't physiological,'' said Dr. Debra Zellner,
psychologist at Shippensburg University in Shippensburg, Pa. ``There
has to be something other than a physiological need, and it's probably
cultural. We taught ourselves this addiction.''

Dr. Marcia Pelchat, a sensory psychologist at the Monell Chemical
Senses Center in Philadelphia, called the work an important first step
in cross-cultural studies of cravings. ``I believe there is a strong
cultural basis for craving for chocolate,'' she said.

The new paper is one of a growing number on chocolate in the
relatively new field of appetite studies in which researchers use
tools like scratch-and-sniff tests and questionnaires.

Zellner did the research with Scott Parker at American University and
Ana Garriga-Trillo at Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia in
Spain, both psychologists, and two student assistants, Elizabeth Rohm
and Soraya Centeno at Shippensburg. They asked 240 Spanish and 178
American college students to fill out a questionnaire rating different
foods and naming the foods they craved the most.

Among Americans, 60 percent of men craved salty or meat-containing
foods and 60 percent of women craved sweet. The same pattern was found
in Spanish men and women, suggesting that this still unexplained
phenomenon might be based on some essential physiological difference
between men and women.

When researchers looked into chocolate cravings in particular, they
found that among sweet cravers, nearly 50 percent of the American
women craved chocolate while fewer than 20 percent of American men
did. But among Spanish sweet cravers, around 25 percent of both sexes
craved chocolate.

Zellner said physiological differences between Spanish and American
women were unlikely to explain differences in chocolate cravings.
Cultural differences are a much more likely explanation, she said.

``After filling out the questionnaire, a number of Spanish students
asked, `What's so important about chocolate?' '' she noted.
``Chocolate is not a big deal over there.''

The new study flies in the face of what has become a cottage industry
of research aimed at discovering what chemical chocolate harbors that
makes it irresistible, not only to women, but to everyone. Chemically
complex, chocolate contains not only caffeine but also mood-altering
chemicals known as cannabinoids (the same family of potent molecules
found in marijuana) and other molecules that cause cannabinoids to
accumulate in the brain.

``The problem is you'd have to eat a humongous amount -- we're talking
27 pounds of chocolate at a sitting -- to have any pharmacologic
effect,'' said Pelchat, suggesting that a drug-induced high is not
what makes people crave chocolate.

In a way, none of this comes as a surprise to the average chocolate
addict. She could have told you she does not crave chocolate for its
mind-altering chemicals. For the dyed-in-the-cocoa chocoholic, the
not-very-secret secret is simply that chocolate tastes very, very good.