It's somewhat mental for me -- so I'm maybe around a 2 or 3? Here's what I mean:

A few weeks ago, I went to Dunkin Donuts for an iced coffee, black. Normally I'll get one and not even consider a donut, but on this particular day, my mind automatically latched onto the thought of a glazed sour cream donut. This is my all-time favorite donut; if I could have only one donut, it'd be this one. The pinnacle.

I'd been pretty militant about how I was eating, so it wasn't like I had to rationalize it much. I'd also been working out, and knew I would continue doing so -- hence I considered this donut a "flash in the pan." I ordered one with the coffee, and ate it as I drove.

What occurred after the second bite was nothing more than sheer disappointment. It wasn't that the donut was made poorly -- this was the de facto DD glazed sour cream. But my mind had a "picture" (and I include the taste in that quoted word) which my taste buds were now saying, "Nope, we aren't receiving that anymore." My body and mind were not as one on the opinion of this donut. Mind said it should be one way; Body told me it wasn't that good.

And with that, my craving disappeared. I haven't thought about a donut since.

I consider a cheat/reward like that a small price to pay to not want something like that anymore. Donuts go back throughout my childhood as a classic comfort food (my grandmother made fantastic old-fashioneds in her kitchen) and to no longer really want them...well, I'm content in moving on.

I consider the occasional craving an okay thing when it comes to situations like that.

Mostly at 5. Sometimes I want SOMETHING, but I don't know what it is. I think it's the ghost of my extreme carb craving past. Usually, I just eat something with a big glob of butter on it, or a square or two of 80% chocolate, and that usually takes care of wanting that SOMETHING. Most of all, I notice when I am craving food, I am really just hungry, and need to eat until my stomach is full, and then I'm happy, and I forget about food. Until it starts all over again. Ah, having a stomach. Priceless.

I think what happens to me sometimes is I remember in the old days when I was a carb addict and I hadn't eaten any for much of the day and then finally I ate some and got that feeling of pleasure that comes from feeding an addiction. The addiction made me need and crave the carbs to keep my metabolism happy, so when I ate those carbs, the addictive craving was fulfilled. Often, the carbs themselves do not taste particularly good. I guess most of us just convinced ourselves the pleasure came from taste, but of course it never did.

So sometimes now I remember how 'good' a plate of pasta 'tasted' and I miss that pleasure. I think it is just the memory of the pleasure and who does not like pleasure! But now that my metabolism is more balanced, if I eat a bit of pasta, I will no longer get that pleasure because my metabolism no longer requires it. So all I will experience is a blah taste but no rush of fulfillment of the addiction. Only if I eat a bunch of carbs for a day or so will I start to get the addiction cycle going again and only then could I get the pleasure of feeding the addiction. Either that or I could eat some cake and the addiction will start in about 5 seconds! There's something about cake that is totally my weakness! Even pie is not as dangerous as cake. -Eva

Good descriptions, I've gone from 1 to 4 and now vary between 2,3,5 depending on the food

Fructose "glutens" me

Wheat holds no desire at all(but would gluten me), even faux bread holds no desire, which is really odd because bread used to be my staple.The smell turns my stomach now. Odd, used to force salivation.

Sweet Flavors fail to appeal much anymore

I am at 4-5 with most carbs, like bread, pasta and the like. No appeal at all. In fact, when something's not there, I don't crave it much at all (one exception: every now and then I have major PMS-induced chocolate craving, that's so strong I am shocked by it. Only lasts a day though). My main problem is when some of my former favourite things - mainly potatoes - are right in front of me. Mash and fries are killers for me - if someone orders them for the table I can't hold out.Not sure if that's a craving as such, or just a failure of willpower.

I've seen some variation in this over time. While I was first transitioning to paleo, I was commonly at the 2-3 level. It was particularly bad when I was willpower-depleted, because I would begin to crave starch and/or sugar. Sometimes I would cheat and it would be fulfilling, but I paid the price later... and sometimes it just didn't taste very good or interesting, and the cravings died (although I still did not feel fulfilled).

After some major life transitions and switching to a high-fat version of the diet (impossible to tease apart the impact of each), I found that my cravings largely began to disappear. I stay at level 5 now the majority of the time: wheat products and any packaged goods don't resemble food anymore. If I have a craving for sweetness, well, coconut products or 90% chocolate taste sweet to me now. Occasionally I go from a 5 up to a 4, where I remember my blissfully ignorant days of devouring huge bowls of pasta and entire pizzas. Through introspection I seem to recall it tasting really good, but the reality never lives up to my memory...

I also concur with Samantha Moore's answer, I often have a craving for SOMETHING and I just can't figure out what it is. At those times my mind does wander to SAD fare briefly, but fortunately usually rejects it. In my experience, eating meat tends to satiate these indeterminate cravings best.

To note, simply being presented with a food "on the table in front of you" -- a smell/ visual stimulus will induce desire/ reward computations in 'normal' people (when compared to people who exhibit disordered eating patterns in neuroimaging) experiments. Desire/ reward computation (which predicates 'desire', I believe) is based on opportunity and experience. So there may be a better way to phrase this scale. But maybe this is the question you want to ask?