Stuff You Should Know - How Food Cravings Work

Episode Date: December 1, 2009

Why do we crave certain foods? Does everyone experience food cravings? In this episode of Stuff You Should Know, Josh and Chuck explore the delicious topic of food cravings. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Under 17 at a middle without parent. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know. From HowStuffWorks.com. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.

With me as always is Charles W. Bryant. Sounded like a nursery rhyme. I did, it was, it's a new one. How's it going Chuck? Oh you know dude, it's Friday. We're all ready to trip the light fantastic this weekend. You know that means dance right? Yeah, I don't dance.

I don't need it. Paint the town brown. Red. Well I'm a Ween fan so you paint the town brown. What is the name of the god that Ween worship that tells him to get wasted? The Bugnish. Is that what it is?

Well that's their little symbol, the little guy with the spiky hair. Right, but there's like a god that they listen to. That commands them to just get wasted. I don't know what that. Yeah, how about this? Listeners, what is the name of the god that Ween answered to?

Yeah, God Ween Satan was the name of their first album. Yeah, no. So, no. So Chuck, I could go for a sloppy joe right now. Man, I haven't had a sloppy joe since I was a kid. You haven't? You poor bastard. Like the man-witch kind?

Any kind. A sloppy joe. It's like barbecue sauce and ketchup with some ground beef on a bun. Yeah. Does it get better than that? Not since my mom was like cooking for me as a kid. Have I had a sloppy joe?

I've never made one myself. Let me give you a little secret here. Sloppy joe. Mm-hmm. Fish taco. A sloppy Josh. Is it not yet? We're not out of work yet.

Insert fish taco into sloppy joe and thank me in the morning. Wait, put a fish taco in the sandwich itself? Yes. With the beef and everything. Oh, yeah. That's the weirdest thing I've ever heard. Well, just try it and let me know what you think.

Sure. I love fish taco. I get a tea that after you have a fish taco sloppy joe, you will end up with a food craving for it at some point. Wow. Yeah. That's a great setup. Thanks, buddy.

Food cravings. Food cravings. That's what we're talking about, right? Do you think? That's what I prepared for. Yeah, same here. So Chuck, you've had a food craving, right? If so, you're part of the 70% of males in North America

who've had one in the last year. I found that to be staggering. I thought everyone has had a food craving once a week. Yeah, the stat on women was much more, I guess, in my wheelhouse, right? Yeah, 100%. 100%. But what 30% of men don't have a craving in a year?

Just like, who are these dudes? Jerks who are like, I'm not answering that question. I'm going jogging. That's 100%. You and I both know that. Everybody knows that. Everybody's had a food craving in the last year. Well, that's what I couldn't determine

if it was an actual classifiable food craving, or just like, oh, I'm hungry for a burger. Or maybe they thought that Slim Jims don't count. That's that a counter that 30%. That's a good point. Slim Jims aren't food, they're Slim Jims. That's a good one. Yeah, Josh, 70% say yes, and women all say yes,

and women in North America and Europe, particularly, like the sweet stuff. Yeah, I think chocolate's the most highly reported food craving of women in North America. We need to specify. Because it appears that food cravings are also culturally specific. So women in North America like the chocolate,

but say women in Egypt. Like, let's say, a meat stuffed eggplant. That's pretty specific. Kristen Conger wrote this, and it's a great article, but I love that she actually said that. They will crave a meat stuffed eggplant. Which actually sounds kind of good. And I'm not even hip on eggplant, but I would eat that.

Stuff anything with meat. Exactly. You're down with it. Wrap it in bacon, stuff it with meat, or put a fish taco on it, and I'll eat it. Even a milk steak? Sure. Although I just recently found out what that is.

Was I right? I believe so, yeah. We haven't gotten any corrections, so I assume so. That's because no one from the 19th century is still around who can correct us. So Chuck, actually, food cravings, we talk about how they're different in North America and in Egypt, for example.

Sure. They appear to be universal, however. While the food craving may differ, or the food that is craved may differ, the food craving is pretty much a universal human trait. Because we all have a brain. Well, let's talk about there's two different kinds. There's a stomach craving, which accounts for hunger.

And then there's a food craving, which we'll get to in a minute, that's all mental. You have to have a brain, right? Yes, yes. Actually, you have to have a brain for both. But let's talk about regular old hunger. Like, what is that, dude? That is the stomach, telling the brain by way of the,

is it vagus or vagus? I think vagus. Vagus nerve. Basically saying, I'm hungry. I need food to live, so feed me. Right, it's pretty much as simple as that. It is. And this hormone ghrelin, which has made an appearance

incorrectly in a previous podcast, if you remember. I said ghrelin tells your stomach or tells your brain that you're not hungry any longer. Actually, it does the opposite. I know, I'm an idiot. It's a hormone that is actually emitted by fat tissue. And it travels up the vagus nerve to the hypothalamus and says, dude, I'm hungry.

And it's triggered when your blood sugar and insulin levels start to decline, which is just awesome. I love the human body. I think it's about as fascinating as it gets. Yeah, I like the brain in particular. And I think articles like this, everyone knows how much we love the brain and studying the brain. Yeah, look for an audiobook on the brain from Chuck and I

in 2010. Little spoiler teaser. But it always amazes me that the brain is so complex. And then the rest of the body is almost like just a big, dumb functioning group of organs compared to the brain. Compared to the, well, yeah. But I mean, that's like comparing like an 88 Dodge Colt to like, you know.

A Bugatti. A Bugatti. Thank you. I don't know where that came from. So OK, so the ghrelin travels up the vagus nerve, hits the hypothalamus, which the hypothalamus also provides some other function management like sex drive, thirst, sleep. Yeah.

Things we like the hypothalamus. It's pretty smart. Yeah, exactly. It's like it's the party part of the brain. Right. So the hypothalamus says, all right, we're hungry. And we're going to release neuropeptide Y. Right.

And this makes us hungry. We're right. It stimulates our appetite, right? So what have we eat? Yes. We're eating the sloppy joefish taco combo. And as we eat, something else starts to happen because it just can't keep on like this.

Or you would just keep eating and eating and eating. So your body has to do the reverse almost and say, you can stop eating now. Right. And it does this in a couple of ways. The first thing that happens is fat tissues expel leptin. And son of a gun, I am never going to get ghrelin. Ghrelin is released from in the stomach.

Leptin is released in the fat tissues. Oh, did you say ghrelin? I did. I'm just a big, dumb animal. Well, so hold your emails, folks. We will get this all right by the end of this thing. Maybe. OK.

I hate ghrelin. So leptin gets going and tells our brain basically that, hey, you're satisfied. You're not hungry anymore. You're satiated. You do not need to keep eating. Right. But this doesn't take place like immediately.

No. And actually, my half Okinawan girlfriend taught me that the Japanese have a little rule of thumb called harahachibo. Oh, nice. Thanks, buddy. What does that mean? It means basically stop when you feel about 80% full.

And it works like a charm, actually. Well, you don't see a lot of obese Asian people. Not too many. And they live forever, too. We should follow that model. So leptin actually does this by turning down the production of the neuropeptide Y and cranking up the production of pro-opio melanocortin.

I was hoping you'd take that one. That was an excellent pronunciation, buddy. I had to literally sound it out and spell it out very like a child would. Yeah. But it worked. Yeah. And that is an appetite suppressant in the bloodstream.

So that basically says the hypothalamus monitors, the insulin and blood sugar, and then everyone's happy. We're eating. We're satisfied. We're full. Right. So there you go. We're alive, right?

Yes. So that accounts for normal hunger, right? That actually does begin in the stomach, crazy enough. Right. That's how you have hunger. And that's how your brain tells you that you're not hungry. But that doesn't account for food cravings. Food cravings are pretty much all mental, or at the very least,

they're all brain-centric, right? Yeah. And it's not, hey, I need to eat and stay alive. It's, hey, I really, really want that sloppy Joe. Right. With the fish taco. Well, I don't know about that. That's mind-hunger that you're talking about.

Yeah. Which accounts for the craving. Right. And one of the reasons that it's, I guess, worth writing an article about, researching and podcasting, is that it's kind of curious. It's a little bit of a mystery because they're not really essential for survival.

I actually thought this for a very long time, and probably will continue to do so because I don't give up my views very easily. But I tended to think that food cravings, where the body's way is saying, you need more iron. So you really, really want to steak right now. Debunked. Whatever.

Debunked. I don't care. It's a good way to live life. And I'm going to live it like that. Yeah, but scientists have largely debunked that, basically, saying it's really not your, it's not you saying that, oh, I need a particular nutrient to keep me healthy. And one of the reasons why it was debunked

was because most food cravings are for really rich, fatty foods, high in calories. And do you know why we crave those, Josh? Why? Because they are loaded with chemicals called opioids. That is true. And this is a depressing moment for me, by the way. Like, I've lived like this for years.

Yeah, me too. Opioids, what they do, they bind to your receptors in the brain and they bring you the feel-good feelings. They do. Actually, the same process is followed for drugs. Yeah. And you do drugs, it actually follows the same, I guess, mental process or brain.

Moral pathway. Excellent, Chuck. Thank you. I was flailing there. That drugs do, right? Yeah, I thought that was interesting. So you've got, let's just use chocolate. It's just so easy.

Yeah, it's a good go-to. So you eat a little chocolate. Let's say it's the first time. And the opioids that are released actually form part of your memory of eating chocolate. Right. You have a sensory memory that is very, very pleasant, associated with eating chocolate.

Sure. It gets filed away by what part, Chuck? Is that the hippocampus? Is that what this is, the filing? Yes, it is. It sorts sensory data and puts it into long-term or short-term memory. Right.

And when we see chocolate again, we say, oh yeah, chocolate, that makes me feel pretty good. Yes. Right? So there's one aspect of the craving. It's psychological, based on long-term memory. Right. And it also stimulates the caudate nucleus.

Sure. And basically, that helps control the dopamine reward system. And dopamine is another feel-good chemical in your body. Right. What's your favorite? Like, drop dead favorite, what would be your last meal? You're on death row, let's say.

Not a stretch. What would be if you're really thinking about this? I like that. I really like the porterhouse steak at Kevin Rathbunz. Oh, very specific. Have you had it? No. Dude.

Awesome. Yeah. Or there is this fried chicken at Watershed. Have you had that? I have never had their famous fried chicken. You should go. Tuesday nights? Tuesday nights.

And after six, if you make reservations, they can't guarantee the chicken. I know. I've been, oh, they can't guarantee it's good or? No, they can't guarantee it'll be there. We can give you some chicken, but it might be rotten. It's going to be pretty crappy. Yeah, I've heard about that for years.

It's definitely worth it. One of those two probably would be my last meal. I think my, I can't get super specific, but I think my favorite last meal would be like a big fried seafood platter. Oh, yeah? And with like fried shrimp, fish, and clams, and scallops, and hush puppies, and french fries, and coleslaw.

Oh, man, I'm dying. Dude, you're making me hungry. Tartar sauce. We should go to Long John Silver's after this. Long John Silver's, where the fish and the chicken are equally good. And taste much the same. Yeah.

I love Long John's, actually. So Chuck, we've talked about the reward system, right? Yes. And actually, there was a study in 2004 where people were jammed into the Wonder Machine and asked to think about food. This is actually the fMRI, which is the Wonder Wonder Machine. No, that's the Wonder Machine.

Oh, I thought it was an MRI. It's an MRI. It's worthless unless it's got that little f attached to it. Gotcha. So they jammed some people in the Wonder Machine and say, think about food. And then the people started thinking about food. And like you said, the caudate nucleus, the insula,

and the hippocampus all lit up. So it's very clear that our reward system is triggered when we think about food. So that explains part of food cravings. And we also said that it's linked to the same neural pathways as drugs and drug addiction, which also accounts for food addiction. Yeah, it's just a milder version.

We also said that memories, like the sense memory, remember the chocolate? Ooh, chocolate makes me feel good when I eat it, so I want chocolate, right? Yeah, reinforces all that. That's part of it, too. But where did the food cravings come from, I guess, is my point if I'm to make one.

Josh, you know what? You know where this starts, dude? I just know. You do. You're just being coy. It starts in the womb. You pronounce the B? No, I just did that as a joke.

Oh, OK. It actually does happen in the womb, and they found in studies that in utero, a fetus can distinguish between different flavors that are passed to them through the amniotic fluid. Isn't that remarkable? It is remarkable, Chuck. And although I'm not entirely certain how they figured that

out, there have been studies on post-birth children and their taste for food, and a lot of it, apparently, it comes from their time in the womb and whatever their mother's eating while they're nursing. Sure. Right? Yeah, yeah. They found that mothers who ate lots of garlic

or who ate a steady diet of garlic, their babies nursed longer. I know, isn't that crazy? Possibly to try to figure out what the heck this taste is. Yeah, I love that. Because garlic's tough to miss. Right. It comes out everywhere.

And I imagine garlicky breast milk would throw the baby for a loop to the point where they're like, what is this? Oh, I can tell you, it throws you for a loop. It does. Yes. Garlic's just the best in anything, though. It is.

And really good for you, too. Have you ever had a whole roasted garlic? Oh, yeah. Roasted, just squeezed out onto a piece of bread, the whole thing, like the whole bulb? Yeah, dude, I do it all the time. I cut off half of it and drizzle it with some olive oil and bake it.

In some foil? No, I just throw it on an oven, like a cookie sheet. Wrap it in foil and twist the top. OK. And you don't even need the cookie sheet. You just throw it in there on the rack. And it just goes, it's awesome. And great for you.

Have you ever taken garlic pills? I don't like them. I'd rather eat the garlic bulb. Well, I would, too. But garlic pills are weird because you'll take a garlic pill in the morning because it's good for you. And at 9.30 in the morning, you feel like you're burping up like Italian food.

And by afternoon, it's coming out of your breasts if you're nursing. Yeah, or your skin pores. Yes. Sweat. Yeah. I'm going, you know me with my sweat. I do.

You don't want to be around me on a hot day after I've had some lasagna, brother. Right, yeah. It's not good. Oh, I know it's not. I was getting hungry, and now I'm revolted all of a sudden. This just took a real nose dive, didn't it? Yeah.

So Chuck, you're saying we're first exposed to taste in the womb. And also, apparently, we carry these on. Right, those memories stick around, those sensory memories. And that's the beginnings of establishing our food relationship, basically. And it can also be established by the mother. Apparently, studies have shown that I should say at least one

study has shown that women who have more adventurous diets have children who have more adventurous diets. I think you could say, well, maybe that has to do with the way they're raised. Yeah, probably. But it could go either way. Yeah, you know, another thing I thought was cool, how you said it was kind of like the same thing as a drug addict

seeking drugs. Just like that, you need more and more to satisfy you. So just like a crackhead might need more crack to get high as they progress in their drug career or hobby, if you eat chocolate, just that little bit of chocolate isn't going to do it if you keep eating. You're going to need more and more to satisfy you. Yeah, pretty cool.

It is, unless you have a chocolate addiction or a crack addiction. So Chuck, what do you do when you do have a chocolate addiction? You eat chocolate. You do. Oh, me personally? No, no. Oh, OK, I thought you meant me. No, I'm saying, you know, you like anybody.

Sure. You're not a chocolate addict. I know you're hard on yourself, but you're not. No, I like chocolate, but it gives me the heartburn, too. So it's kind of a fine line to have to walk. Jerry thought that was funny for some reason. She did, actually, she was laughed. So this is something that people have been paying attention

to, luckily, although they still haven't quite cracked the code. It turns out the body is a little wonky when it comes to food cravings. When you have a lot of fat tissue. Yeah, this is weird to me. You emit a lot of leptin, which is the thing that lowers appetite, right, suppresses appetite. But it's in fatty tissue, so the more fat you have,

the more leptin you have. So that should mean, strangely, that the fatter you are, the less you should eat. Not true. No. It's the opposite. Yeah, for some reason, as the body mass index increases, meaning you get heavier and more fat on you,

you actually eat more. Right. Which doesn't seem odd, really, if you think about that. But you're putting out more leptin. Yeah, and nothing we found said why this happens. Is it just one of those things in the human body that we can't account for? Do you know another cool thing, Josh?

What? That if you try to diet or quit eating a certain thing, like let's say you're a lady and you have a big chocolate thing, the more you, if you say, I want to cut down on eating chocolate, you're going to crave it more. They did a study in 2007 and found 50% more. 50% more. Yeah, if you're trying not to, you're

going to crave it 50% more. Right, it's the imp of the perverse. Remember, we've talked about that. The more you try to push a thought from your head, the more you're going to think about it. Because not only are you thinking about keeping it out of your head, it inevitably floods in and you push it out. So really what you're doing is engaging on the cycle

of constantly obsessing about this one thing. Let me try something here. OK. Josh, whatever you do for the next 10 seconds, do not think about a sloppy joe with a fish taco on it. All right, what's the first thing that just popped into your head? You want to know?

Oh, no. What is it? Donald Duck. Really? Yeah. Is that your go-to? No. That's an odd go-to.

No, it's not my go-to. I read an article on it and somebody said, whatever you do for the next sentence, don't think about Donald Duck. OK. That was kind of my introduction to the imp of the perverse. Right. So that's why I thought of Donald Duck.

I'll tell you what I didn't think of, and I think 10 seconds has passed. I didn't think of a sloppy joe with a fish taco. No, I don't believe you. I think you thought of Donald Duck eating a sloppy joe with a fish taco. Without pants. Right.

I never wear his pants. Yeah, didn't he wear a diaper or something? Or was that? Did you know? No. He just, that was just his duck bottom. Oh, OK. He was band and fiddling, I think,

because he didn't wear pants. Those fins are crazy. Or they had to put pants on him, one of the two. That's good stuff, Josh. I think people are learning a lot here. I think we have gotten really far off topic. I think so. So should we reel it in here?

Yeah. If you have a food addiction and you have food cravings, people who didn't deny themselves every food craving managed to lose the most weight. Yeah, they said the trick is to give into it occasionally to reward yourself, but to just keep that all in check, right? Yes. Isn't that how it works?

Yeah. And you're big on the calorie restriction. So what do you think about that? I've found that just not eating, I don't eat breakfast or lunch. I just eat dinner. Sure. And I've found that after probably a week or two of really just doing it hardcore, you just don't even

think about it any longer. If I stop and think about it, like right now, I'm hungry. Because I stopped and thought about it, but I don't think about it. I think you know what I'm hungry for, Chuck. Yeah, sloppy Joe with the fish taco. That's right. Should we talk about weird food cravings? Yeah.

Like ladies when they're pregnant? Yes, which I was interested to read about this, actually. Because I've always wondered, what gets somebody who, say, never liked cheese before to suddenly like cheese once she becomes pregnant or something? Right. Well, it has a lot to do with the hormones that are going berserco when you get pregnant, right?

Especially estrogen. Yeah. And it also has to do with their sense of taste and smell really become honed when they're pregnant. So something like maybe really pungent, like coffee and cigarettes is even more of a turnoff than usual, which is probably a good thing if you're pregnant. Don't you think?

Yeah, I think coffee and cigarettes is probably bad for a pregnant person, pregnant woman. And the cravings focus on really sweet and really salty, really spicy. It's kind of the extreme, it seems like. Right. So Chuck, yes, pregnant women have strange food cravings, pickles and ice cream, whatever.

That's the old joke, yeah. It is. And science hasn't really figured out exactly why. Right. But yes, it probably does have to do with the hormonal surge. There is, I used to work in a gas station up in Athens. And people, yes. I did too.

Which one? Well, I worked at the Golden Pantry. So I didn't like pump gas, but I worked in the little food mart. I didn't pump gas. Same here. OK. I worked at the Magnolia station on Atlanta Highways. That's pretty funny.

Yeah. We're both gas guys. Yeah, who knew? And we used to sell white dirt, and people came in and bought it by the bag full. I don't know what that means. It's white clay. Oh, OK.

And they would eat it. Really? Yes. Is that what you sold it for, to consume? Yes. I don't even know what you're talking about. It's really weird. People chew it and eat it and ingest it.

And actually, it was a real big hit among pregnant women, too. Well, I do know what you're talking about. Why? It's called pika. Yes. And specifically, in this case, eating dirt of any kind is called geophagia.

Right. And there's also one called pagophagia, which is eating ice. Yeah, which I've heard of before. Apparently, people who have iron deficiencies inemia eat ice a lot, but you're not getting any iron for the ice or from the ice. But they think that, possibly, there's apparently discomfort in the tongue when you have an iron deficiency,

and the ice alleviates that, which is why they crave it. That makes sense. Isn't that weird? Yeah. Well, pika, just specifically, I guess we should say, is craving or ingesting a non-food item. Or it gets just the craving. And then if you act on it, then you're

carrying out the craving. Right, and actually, if you have a weird food craving, you should actually probably see a physician, because it could mean an iron deficiency or some other problem with your body. Right, unless you're pregnant. Don't be alarmed if you're pregnant, and you want to eat some dirt, because that's actually

kind of common. About 20% of women actually feel this way. And 50% eat ice. And the other thing that I thought was weird was this geophagia you were talking about is more common here in the South. Yeah, but you don't find too many people who eat white clay up north.

Why not? I don't think there is white clay available up north. That's weird. Well, that's food cravings. In a nutshell. In a huge nutshell. On a man-witch bun. Yeah, thanks to Chris and Konger for writing

a really good article for us to podcast on. So I just want to finish up by getting this really clear. You take a sloppy joe, and you take, like, just the corn tortilla fish taco that's open-faced. And you just put that on top. Not open-faced. It's a taco, man. Well, it's not a taco until you hold it and roll it up.

Right, you've put it in, folded, rolled up, half over, doubled over, and then put the bun of the sloppy joe on top and go to town. With the meat and everything. Yes. Just, that's the weirdest thing I've ever heard. That's pika-esque. Well, if you want to know more about pika food cravings

or anything your brain can come up with, you just type some words into the handy search bar at houseoffwork.com. And you'll be taken care of straight away. And since I said handysearchbar at houseoffworks.com, that means it's time now for Listener Mail. Josh, I'm just going to call this Henry Hill Exposed. Remember we did our podcast recently on the witness

protection program? Yes. We talked about famous gangster Henry Hill. Yes. Basis of the film Goodfellas. And My Blue Heaven. And My Blue Heaven. And we had a guy right in that has met Henry Hill.

And here's what he has to say. And I think he's from England because of all the weird things he says. Did he say cheers at the bottom? Yeah, of course. I've met Henry Hill, an ex-entrepreneur, and that's in quotes. I don't know what that's supposed to mean.

And myself brought him over to England to do an after-dinner gentlemen's evening type speech. I don't know what that is either. He was also on the local TV promoting a book, I think. He was an absolute nightmare. He decided that the witness protection program was not for him, probably because he'd been kicked out of it a half a dozen times.

And he was going to travel far and wide to help kids from a life of crime. Not bad. Noble. The problem was when you have a world famous gangster doing an after-dinner speech, the paying guests don't want to hear him telling them to stay out of trouble and behave.

They want to hear him talk about Jimmy the Jent and the Lufthansa heist. Sure. Naturally. His minder was his UK agent. And it was the first time they'd ever met in person. We had a VIP dinner, a drink afterward, with a special drink in a posh club in Liverpool.

And Henry decided he kept to keep wandering off, trying to chat up the girls. Sadly, he'd also been a little too keen on this imported product and could hardly string two words together. So it sounds like he got bombed and was hit on chicks. Oh, yeah? That's the American translation. Keen, keen.

Who says that? Still, for someone who's killed as many people as he has, he was a nice bloke. And despite the sounding wrong, an example of the maxim that you should never meet your heroes. Not that he was my hero, but I couldn't think of another way to put it. Lastly, he had to take him to dinner in a cab.

And we did a quick tour of the Yellow Submarine, the Cabern Club, and other famous Beatles landmarks. And he said that he would like to sing on stage at the Cabern Club. And when I chuckled thinking he was joking, guess what? He did the, you think I'm funny, gag. Oh, yeah? He did that to him.

Nice. And he said it was the scariest thing he'd ever seen. Cheers, chaps. Jez, just in case we weren't sure he was from England. Cheers, chaps. Chaps, yeah. From Jez. Cheers to you, Jez.

Thank you for that story. That's pretty awesome, actually. It kind of went back and forth. I would have not liked to have hung out with Henry Hill. I would have loved to have hung out with Henry Hill. That happened like five times. Sure. I feel like I'm about to vomit.

Well, if you have a cool story about Henry Hill or any other former gangster, celebrity, unicorn, you name it, send it in an email to StuffPodcast at HowStuffWorks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. Want more HowStuffWorks? Check out our blogs on the HowStuffWorks.com home page. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry.

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I could see beyond the black hills and the way they called for exploration. I could feel the air, the way it paints against skin and fills hungry lungs. I could hear the way the water ran for miles and the way the bison grazed. The way our boots meet the earth as we step past expected. I could imagine my time in South Dakota

and I wish to go back because there's so much South Dakota, so little time.