Why do we as humans enjoy unhealthy food more than healthy food?
In: 2
Picture a starving caveman – he’s hours away from keeling over dead because he hasn’t eaten in weeks. And then, by magic, in front of him appears a healthy kale salad, and a rich chocolate cake. Which does he go for?
The chocolate cake is the obvious winner, but in this situation it’s actually the *healthiest* possible choice for him, because the calories (mostly from carbs and fat) in that cake will sustain our caveman and keep him alive. The kale salad will fill him with vitamins and fiber, but that doesn’t mean much if it doesn’t contain enough calories to keep him on his feet much longer. It doesn’t matter how useful those vitamins are to keep his skin healthy, his hair full, his eyes working their best, and so on. He’ll be dead anyways.
Our bodies and brains are conditioned by millions of years of evolution to think of ourselves as that caveman – starvation is a constant worry. So we store excess calories as fat, in case we can’t find food tomorrow. And we crave carbs, fats, and proteins, because those are dense, important sources of energy. Vitamins are a secondary concern, because staying alive is priority number one, staying healthy in every other way is only priority number two.
Because most of us are lucky enough not to be in the situation that caveman is in, we don’t have a problem getting enough calories – we have a problem with *excess* calories in our diets. So instead, we’ve learned to find ways to prefer a balanced diet including healthy, vitamin-rich food so that while we’re meeting our caloric needs, we’re also getting enough vitamins, minerals, fiber, etc. to keep everything else running smoothly. The only thing that makes calorie-dense food unhealthy is that it contains more calories than we need, while not providing a lot of vitamins to go along with those extra calories.
Latest Answers