Why does eating food that’s bad for us bring us such great joy?
In: 5
Back in caveman times, salt and fat and sugar were rare and hard to get ahold of. We evolved to find them very tasty, so that we would have an incentive to go out and hunt for those rare treats. Salt helps regulate our body’s fluids. Fat and sugar give us energy. In limited amounts, those are fine.
The problem is that today, it’s not hard to find salt and fat and sugar anymore. We can get WAY too much. Too much salt messes with our fluid levels, and can cause high blood pressure. Too much fat and sugar makes us gain weight, and messes with our blood sugar levels as well. But our bodies still think we’re in an ice age, needing to get as much food as possible to survive the winter and hunt a mammoth.
So now, even though finding fat and sugar and salt tasty is causing problems for us, it’s been far too soon for evolution to react.
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