For most of the time that humans have been on this planet there were no Mc Donalds, Wendys, Carl Jrs., Burger Kings or Dairy Queens. Modern farming techniques, including plants and animals, is fairly new. Yes, corn has been culled from a grass with meager seeds to the tasty vegetable we eat today. However, that has happened in a relatively short time.
For most of human existence we hunted animals and ate a lot of plants, fruits, and vegetables. We did not hunt these animals with high powered rifles. No at best we used a bow and arrow or spear or we ran them down. Yes, we literally ran after them for many miles. We are not fast runners. We could not out run a cheetah; it would not even be close! However, a cheetah can only run fast for a very short distance. It overheats. Think about it. What make up were those animals that we caught and ate? There are signs of early humans eating shellfish and fish. Usually lean protein. Those animals on the African Veldt are always on the move. They are lean, low fat animals. Too much fat and you slow down and get eaten. (I know if I lost 45 lbs I could run faster, I would be using less energy to run if nothing else!)
So our bodies evolved over 10,000's of years to hunt food, and crave sources of high energy foods. (eg honey and fats) In good times we would gorge ourselves and store the extra. Remember there was no refrigeration. We would store the extra as fat (famine anticipation tissue). When food was scarce our bodies would convert that fat to fuel.
Food scientists know what we like to eat. They talk about mouth feel. For example, foods that are slightly hard on the outside and creamy on the inside. We crave the taste of fat and of sugar. Honey is a great food to eat if you need a lot of calories. It is converted into energy and fat easily. So we have evolved to love that taste. Fat from animals or plants has a smooth creamy taste. Our bodies love this taste. Fat is the highest density calorie source. It does not digest as quickly, but it is an energy packed food.
The problem is in modern society we have what i call the "Orange Soda Effect". If you drink orange soda, I do not, you may notice that it is more orange than 100 oranges. It is orange flavor hyperbole. You will not find that orange taste in nature. You are training your taste buds to prefer this orange flavor on steroids to a regular orange.
Remember our ancestors had times of feast and times of famine. So we are very good at storing food in our bodies. The problem is that in modern society the food is readily available. In addition, a lot of it is selected or engineered to taste fantastic. That would be great if you ate like that 1 meal a week. But we eat 3 or meals a day like that. So we have a huge obesity problem in the USA and it is spreading world wide.
I know since the beginning of the last century (1900's) farmers have gotten more and more efficient. it takes fewer farmers to grow or raise food for a given number of people. Two, food companies make a lot more money selling processed food than raw food. (eg Twinkies vs carrots) They have a bigger incentive to sell a processed food. They have an incentive to make the processed food enticing. (good mouth feel, good flavor, maybe too much flavor) Again salt was not plentiful for our ancestors so our taste buds like the taste of salt. We were geared to seek out those salty high calorie things because they were rare. Now it is almost impossible to avoid them! We are killing ourselves in our orgy of great tasting food.
This makes it especially difficult to eat a healthy diet. Try to keep that in mind when you go shopping. Get Michael Pollen's book Food Rules.
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