Why Does Your Body Crave Different Foods in Different Seasons?

When the weather turns cold, something interesting happens to the way we eat. Suddenly, a warm bowl of khichdi or a hot bowl of soup feels more comforting. Then summer arrives, and our preferences seem to change. We reach for watermelon, buttermilk, and other refreshing foods without giving it much thought.

I often find that people interpret these changes as a problem with their willpower.

They wonder why they crave more comfort food in winter or why their eating habits feel different from one season to another.

But I don't think we should start by blaming ourselves.

Instead, let's ask a different question, Why is your body asking for these foods in the first place?

Your appetite and food preferences can respond to changes in temperature, routine, and your body's needs. Not every craving is a sign that you are losing control. Sometimes, understanding the reason behind it is more useful than fighting it.

Cravings Are Not Random

For a long time, nutrition advice treated seasonal cravings the way it treats most cravings, something to override with discipline. I don’t think that is the full picture anymore.

Some of what looks like a seasonal craving is simply food culture, what our family always ate in a particular month. But there is a biological layer underneath that too, and the research on it has moved quickly over the last couple of years.

The Clock Inside Every Cell

Every cell in your body runs on a roughly 24-hour rhythm, the circadian clock most people have heard of. What is less known is that mammals also carry a seasonal rhythm, and it responds to more than daylight alone.

A study published in Science in 2025 by researchers at North-western University found that the type of fat in an animal’s diet can directly influence a core clock gene called PER2, which helps set seasonal behaviour. Saturated fat, the kind found in ghee, butter and many festive foods, sent a signal that read as “summer, food is abundant, keep eating and store some of it.” Unsaturated fat sent the opposite signal, telling the body that leaner months were approaching and it was time to start relying on stored fat.

This was studied in mice, and I want to be upfront about that limitation. But the researchers were clear that the finding could help explain human seasonal eating, and even why one festive laddoo has a habit of turning into three. Once the body reads “summer, plenty,” resisting the next bite genuinely gets harder. It is not only a discipline problem.

Winter, Scarcity and an Old Survival Switch

There is another angle here, from evolutionary psychology, sometimes called the insurance hypothesis. For most of human history, winter meant food was scarcer. Bodies that responded to winter cues by seeking energy-dense food and storing a little extra fat had a genuine survival advantage.

A 2023 study found that simply exposing people to winter-associated cues, cold, grey light, bare trees, made them think more about energy-dense food and less about low-calorie options, even when actual food availability had nothing to do with it. Your body still runs some of that old software, even though most of us now live somewhere with a supermarket open twelve months a year. That is worth remembering the next time you feel a strong pull toward something rich and warm in December. It is not a personal failure. It is an old survival instinct meeting a modern grocery store.

Light, Mood and the Pull Toward Sugar

Sunlight is not only about vitamin D, though that matters enormously in India and I will come back to it. Light exposure also affects serotonin, and serotonin affects appetite, particularly the pull toward carbohydrate-rich food. This is well documented in people with seasonal affective disorder, who report a sharp rise in carbohydrate cravings specifically during the low-light months. Your Body Crave Different Foods in Different Seasons

Now add the Indian context. Multiple hospital based studies across the country have found that somewhere between 70 and 90 percent of Indians tested are vitamin D deficient or insufficient, and the deficiency measurably worsens in winter. We live in one of the sunniest parts of the world and still manage to be deficient, largely because of how much time we spend indoors, how much skin we cover and how much pollution sits between our skin and the sun.

So when someone tells me their winter cravings feel stronger and harder to control than their summer ones, I don’t dismiss it as imagination. Lower light, lower vitamin D and lower serotonin can genuinely tip the scale toward wanting more sugar and refined carbohydrate.

Your Gut Bacteria Have a Season Too

Here is a finding that surprised me the first time I read it. A study on the Hutterite community in the United States, a group that eats an almost identical diet across individuals because they live communally, found that gut microbiome composition shifted measurably between summer and winter. The main driver was the amount of fresh produce available. Summer and autumn brought more fresh fruit and vegetables and measurably higher gut bacterial diversity. Winter brought less of both.

This matters because gut diversity is linked to better metabolic health, stronger immune function and even mood regulation. So when fresh produce becomes harder to get in certain months and we lean on stored grains, frozen food and packaged snacks instead, it is not only your taste buds that notice the change. Your gut ecosystem notices too.

Ayurveda Got There First

I find it interesting that Ayurveda mapped this territory long before any of these studies existed. Ritucharya, the seasonal regimen described in texts like the Charaka Samhita, divides the year into six ritus and recommends different foods for each, warm and grounding through the cold months, light and slightly bitter through spring, cooling and hydrating at the peak of summer, and easily digestible through the monsoon, when digestive strength (agni) is considered at its weakest.

I won’t claim every line of that system has been validated in a lab, because that would not be honest. But the underlying logic, that digestion and food choices should shift with the climate rather than stay identical through a Bengaluru summer and a Kashmir winter, lines up surprisingly well with what circadian and gut microbiome research are now separately finding.

What I Actually Want You to Do With This?

Understanding why a craving shows up is only useful if it changes what you do next. Here is where I would focus:

• Stop treating every seasonal craving as a discipline failure. Some of it is old biology responding to cold, low light or a genuine scarcity signal. Naming that removes the guilt that gets in the way of a clear decision.

• Get your vitamin D checked before winter sets in, not after you are already deep into it. A simple blood test and, if needed, a supplement under medical guidance can blunt the low-light carbohydrate pull.

• Keep protein and fibre steady across every season. Cravings intensify fastest when meals run low on both, whether it is May or December.

• Eat what is actually in season. Monsoon vegetables, winter greens and summer fruit are usually cheaper, fresher and more nutrient dense than the stored alternative, and they support the same gut diversity the Hutterite study measured.

• Watch the gap between a genuine seasonal craving and a manufactured one. Hot khichdi on a rainy evening is very different from a craving engineered by a packet of instant noodles at eye level in your kitchen. Only one of those is your body actually talking to you. 

The Bottom Line

Your body has been adjusting to seasons for a very long time, long before anyone wrote a diet plan for it. The goal is not to override every seasonal signal with sheer willpower. It is to tell the difference between a signal worth listening to and a craving that has been manufactured for you, and to build each season’s diet around what your body is actually asking for: protein, fibre, enough light exposure and produce that is genuinely fresh.

If you want a nutrition plan that actually adjusts with the calendar instead of asking you to eat the same thing in July and January, my team of dietitians at Qua Nutrition Signature Clinic can build one around your body, your city and the season you are living in right now. Click here to get connected with my team.