eli5: Why is it that unhealthy foods taste so good(chocolate, soda, candy, fried foods etc.) despite it being bad for us while healthier foods (veggies, whole grain etc.) taste much worse in comparison?

Question

Wouldn’t our bodies recognize which foods that are most beneficial and demand to have more of that?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Our taste preferences are leftover from when people were hunter-gatherers. Since most of our energy output was spent finding food, we evolved a taste for things that are sweet and savory. Sweet things are high in sugar, which is important because it provides short term energy, and savory foods are usually high in fat and protein, which are important for long term energy and muscle growth. Salty foods taste good because we need sodium to replace what we lose when we sweat or urinate. Things that we think of as healthy today, like vegetables and low calorie foods, weren’t as appealing because it was the same amount of work for less calories. Modern day food manufacturers take advantage of this by making things sweet, savory, and salty. The difference is now that most people burn fewer calories each day than our hunter-gatherer ancestors, we don’t need all those calories, but our stomachs like to feel full. So low calorie, high fiber foods are now seen as healthy, while 20,000 years ago they were inefficient.