“I just cracked out on Cheez Doodles yesterday,” my friend Lizzie the mindful vegan confided to me via IM.

“It’s horrible, but I figure, just go with the hormones,” she continues, explaining her momentary lapse of dietary sanity. Actually, just one word (or acronym) explains it all: PMS.

Only days before this conversation, I was having my very own PMS snack attack. While waiting to board a train to New York, I wolfed down a mini canister of Pringles as if it were the last thing to eat on Earth. As I tipped the canister into my mouth to get every last crumb, I said to my train companion matter-of-factly, “Well, at least now I know who’s coming to dinner next week.”

When I later told her I was conducting this informal survey among women and their PMS cravings, she replied in her characteristically no-nonsense way: I can eat salt and carbs, with a side of salt, and maybe some extra carbs. Some women crave chocolate, but I am not one of those women. Well, unless the chocolate is wrapped around something like a pretzel or a potato chip."

All three of us are self-respecting, highly accomplished and mindful women, yet when PMS comes pounding on our respective doors, we morph into our bizarro-world selves, devouring food that makes no sense at any other time of the month.

As evidenced by my Pringles episode, having a culinary degree offers no protection against the PMS munchies. My friend, Kelli, a trained pastry chef, agrees: "I will go through every cupboard searching for chocolate of any kind. I usually will get a scoop of peanut butter and roll it in chocolate chips to tame the beast."

Although hardly a news flash, the phenomenon of PMS-related food cravings continues to fascinate (and sometimes horrify, depending on the audience, ahem) because it’s a recurring constant for so many of us gals, like paying bills and unequal earning power.

To date, the studies that have been done on why women eat weirdly and wildly during PMS point to an imbalance of blood sugar, or low levels of the hormone cortisol and/or a brain chemical called serotonin.

Although there are no conclusive answers, I’ve got my bet on serotonin as the culprit. What we do know is that serotonin affects both our appetite (or satiety level) and our mood. When serotonin levels are low, we crave carbs and we have a tendency to get cranky (to put it mildly), resulting in the frenzied ravenous scavenger hunt for Pringles and the like. However, carbs have a short-term effect on both our mood and appetite, which would explain why we can plow through a bag a chips repeatedly without feeling satisfied at that certain time of the month.

However, if perhaps we had a serving of chicken, turkey, salmon, tofu, kidney beans, even chocolate, we’d be amping up our levels of tryptophan, an amino acid that acts as precursor to serotonin and helps us relax and even bring about a good night’s sleep! As recently as last month, University of Cambridge (U.K.) researchers released their findings, which included that one sure way of boosting levels of mood-improving (and appetite-reducing) serotonin is through diet.

Admittedly when I eat a piece of fish during PMS, I feel better and revitalized almost instantly, but it’s not often that the wiser part of my brain wakes up from its temporary trance and do the right thing. Could a little protein go a long way in the fight against PMS? Or will it forever be a battle against the weirdest foods on the planet? My friend, Nan, wins the prize for PMS pig-out:

I love that Mexican Layer Dip. I start out with just a couple of scoops on some tortilla chips, then I put it back in the fridge. The next thing I know I'm back to get a couple of more scoops. This goes on for about an hour and then I find myself licking the container, and I never really want it any other time of the month.
Signed, the Mexican Layer Dip Queen

Can anyone top this choice of PMS relief? What do you do to take the monthly edge off -- and do you think we'll ever find a better way to feed the beast?