I only realised how bad my hanger (hunger-induced anger) was when my partner, a kind and patient man, sat me down and told me something had to change.
We were in Berlin, and I still cringe to remember that night. We’d planned an early dinner but stopped for mojitos in the lovely summer evening, and by the time we got to the restaurant it was full. My hanger was gathering force – I wanted to eat more than anything in the world, while my partner simply wanted me to simmer down while we looked for an alternative. I knew I was being unreasonable but I didn’t know how to stop. We ended up having one of our worst fights on the streets of Berlin over absolutely nothing – except that I was hangry.
Hanger is a feeling that hijacks your body. It starts with a gnawing feeling in the stomach before the storm clouds start to gather: first come the jitters and lightheartedness, then irritability and difficulty concentrating, before the dizzying peak of panic.
“You can get hangry when your blood sugar drops and your brain reads this as a fuel emergency,” says Alison Bladh, a registered nutritionist. “The stress system switches on and cortisol and adrenaline levels start to rise. It really is chemistry that’s happening in the body, it’s not your character.”
Low blood sugar also triggers the release of a brain chemical called neuropeptide Y, which has been found to make people behave more aggressively towards those around them.
After that episode in Berlin, my partner and I agreed that we would always have solid dinner plans on any outing together. Even without blame, my hanger made us both miserable.
Hunger is really not the same thing as hanger. If you can gleefully say ”Oh I’m starving!” and experience that as a pleasant feeling, I suspect you’re hungry – you’re excited about dinner, not experiencing a storm of fight-or-flight hormones. My partner eventually clocked that when I’d say “I could eat!” it wasn’t a casual suggestion – it marked an hour countdown for the danger zone, and we best start making moves right away.
‘I was flooded with a feeling of desperation, as if I’d never eat again,’ says JessicaHanger can strike for anyone if they leave it too long between meals, but it can also be triggered by our metabolism, hormones, poor sleep or stress. I’ve always had a pretty standard diet, eating regular food three times a day, so when hanger started to become a big problem in my late-20s, I was genuinely worried. I’d had a sandwich for lunch, so why was I suddenly so ragingly hungry by 4pm that I struggled to function?
My hanger attacks didn’t even feel like hunger most of the time – it really is a different beast. It may have started with a gnawing desire for a snack, but as I’d flee the office at inappropriate hours in search of one, I was flooded with a feeling of desperation, as if I’d never eat again and everything was just terrible. I didn’t understand that this was my brain chemistry out of whack, and in my state I was unable to explain. I never lashed out at friends but I’m sure I got snippy as I tried to fight the rising hanger – after all, we had reservations coming up soon, and everyone else seemed fine. So, what was wrong with me?
I went to my GP to ask if maybe I had a condition like diabetes, but she quickly assured me I didn’t, and that was the end of it for her. “Just be careful not to gain weight. That can often happen with people who get suddenly hungry like that,” were her unhelpful parting words as I saw myself out.
I felt a tinge of judgment, and a feeling I’d wasted her time. Left to my own devices, I started experimenting. I knew that nipping into the corner shop for a chocolate bar was a bad idea, not for any weight concerns but because it would only give me an hour’s reprieve, before hanger returned with a vengeance. A packet or crisps and a banana worked a little better, but I eventually realised the best way to stop an episode dead in its tracks was eating more protein, via a packet of sandwich meat – not the most classy snack to tear into outside of Tesco Metro, but it worked.
My feral solution is in line with the recommendations from Jessie Inchauspé, a French biochemist who once brought a block of cheese to a fashion show. I started following her Instagram account, Glucose Goddess, on the recommendation of a friend, who suggested my hanger might actually be glucose crashes.
In her engaging videos, Inchauspé explains how to pair foods to avoid blood sugar rollercoasters, which are often the culprit if you’re feeling hungry again soon after a meal. Inchauspé’s methods seem scientifically sound (Bladh concurs) and I like that it’s not a diet – you don’t cut anything out. It’s mostly about putting “clothes” on your carbs in the form of protein, fat or fibre, and saving sweets for the end of meals to minimise the glucose spike and subsequent crash. Bladh agrees with Inchauspé’s recommendations for keeping meals balanced with protein, fibre and healthy fats: “This helps slow down digestion. When your body doesn’t absorb everything as quickly, it has a much more steady effect on your blood sugar.”
Intrigued, I decided to give the Glucose Goddess method a go. I changed my breakfast from carb-heavy oatmeal to protein-rich eggs, and suddenly I was full until lunch. At midday, I diligently cut up cucumbers and peppers to snack on while making my sandwich, because the order matters. Eating veg first means the fibre can create what Inchauspé calls a “protective mesh” in your stomach to lessen the impact of the glucose in the rest of the meal, whether it’s from bread or chocolate. Weird as it may sound, the result is that for the first time in my adult life I can now go six hours between meals. And even when I start getting a bit peckish, it’s just normal hunger and not a hangry emergency.
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It shouldn’t come as a shock that food was the solution to my hanger. But I wish my GP had pointed me in that direction instead of shrugging and leaving me adrift for a decade, until an Instagram account with a silly name taught me about the perils of sugar on an empty stomach.
My hanger is completely gone now, because I’ve learned how to put together balanced meals that work for my body. It took some experimentation, but I’ve learned that while wheat makes for a rough afternoon, white rice is not a problem at all for me – it’s surprisingly individual. “Identical food can have completely different glucose responses for people. It’s down to things like gut bacteria, genetics and muscle mass,” says Bladh. “See what makes you feel good and what doesn’t, and follow that.”
I keep greens in my bag to eat before meeting friends at restaurants now, which feels a little odd but it keeps the Hangry Hulk at bay. I’ve not had a hanger attack in over a year, and I’m increasingly confident that I know how to make sure I don’t. And my partner and I can even go on holiday without planning our dinners again.
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