Why Did We Evolve a Taste for Sweetness?

Options
2»

Replies

  • tennisdude2004
    tennisdude2004 Posts: 5,609 Member
    Options
    I've been following Perfect Health Diet for almost a year now and believe it to be exactly what the title says. It is a little similar to primal/paleo, but no gimmicky marketing like Grok or any of that stuff. Everytime I have heard the author in an interview, Dr. Paul Jamine, it confirms he's the smartest guy around in the diet space.

    Just out of interest what is the difference between your diet and primal? Also what's the end goal behind it?????
  • Slacker16
    Slacker16 Posts: 1,184 Member
    Options
    Because sugar releases dopamine, or "pleasure signals". That why humans crave it over other foods.
    There was a study to suggest this, but it's not just sugar. Complex carbs have been found to have the same effect, as do - I believe - dairy products and other sources of protein.

    Basically, feeding stimulates dopamine production.
    But vegetables and things don't? Interesting.
    Actually, I will go on record stating that I have more than once binged on fresh figs, cherries (especially sour cherries), corn on the cob and salted almonds. Chocolate, not so much...

    I think that everything that you find delicious but not especially filling can be the object of a binge.
  • bpotts44
    bpotts44 Posts: 1,066 Member
    Options
    I've been following Perfect Health Diet for almost a year now and believe it to be exactly what the title says. It is a little similar to primal/paleo, but no gimmicky marketing like Grok or any of that stuff. Everytime I have heard the author in an interview, Dr. Paul Jamine, it confirms he's the smartest guy around in the diet space.

    Just out of interest what is the difference between your diet and primal? Also what's the end goal behind it?????

    The Perfect Health Diet is designed to give you all the nutrients you need and optimize your immune systems. There is a lot of life style things to include even a chapter on working with your circadian rhythms. It includes recommendations for stock, organ meats, seafood, omega 3 vs omega 6, etc. It is very detailed. The vast majority of the recommendations are on their website www.perfecthealthdiet.com. I would say it is more specifically detailed out compared to primal, although Mark Sisson did write the preface. The goal is to optimize human health.
  • phred_52
    phred_52 Posts: 189 Member
    Options
    Dang, I knew I should've read more so I could be smart :ohwell: . As best as I can figure, I evolved a taste for sweetness from my birthday cakes. Maybe 4 or 5?
  • ndj1979
    ndj1979 Posts: 29,136 Member
    Options
    did we evolve a taste for them, or were they always there? Fruit, in some kind of form, would of been available to the earliest humans and I am sure that as they came across it and ate it, that they liked the taste of it. So I am thinking it is not an "evolved" taste, it is just something that has always been around and tasted good…

    I guess it a chicken and egg type scenario….
  • ndj1979
    ndj1979 Posts: 29,136 Member
    Options
    Grok stomach growl
    Grok find deer
    Deer run away
    Grok chase deer
    Grok get tired
    Grok find berry bush
    Berry bush no run away
    Grok eat
    Grok get taste for sweet
    Grok see bee nest dripping with sweet
    Grok never seen again..................

    Grok now addicted to sugar….
  • cwsreddy
    cwsreddy Posts: 998 Member
    Options
    because fruit.
  • SunofaBeach14
    SunofaBeach14 Posts: 4,899 Member
    Options
    Because throughout human history, today in developing countries, and among the true poor even in developed nations, there is this thing called scarcity. Sweet, like fat, means calories, which mean survival.
  • parys1
    parys1 Posts: 2,070 Member
    Options
    I'm too lazy to do the research, but isn't there a generalization that sweet = edible and bitter = poisonous? Of course, there are exceptions.
  • RECowgill
    RECowgill Posts: 881 Member
    Options
    The question seems to imply that since these things are supposedly bad for you why would your body want them at all. Of course sweet things aren't completely bad for you, in moderation they are good. Sugar is part of breast milk and part of an important stage of human development. Sodium is the same thing, it's good to have some of it and too much is bad for you. So it seems to me the question itself is flawed, it comes from the perspective of a 21st century human who may be concerned about dietary health from an "after the fact" POV.
  • HappyStack
    HappyStack Posts: 802 Member
    Options
    The question seems to imply that since these things are supposedly bad for you why would your body want them at all. Of course sweet things aren't completely bad for you, in moderation they are good. Sugar is part of breast milk and part of an important stage of human development. Sodium is the same thing, it's good to have some of it and too much is bad for you. So it seems to me the question itself is flawed, it comes from the perspective of a 21st century human who may be concerned about dietary health from an "after the fact" POV.

    I'm one of those human beings who finds sour and savoury foods more palatable than sweet things, if I'm honest.

    I like sweet things, don't get me wrong, but I prefer bitter chocolates, black coffee, and so on... I always find people with a "hyper-sensitivity" to sweet things interestingly peculiar... I'm by no means a sugar decrier in an IIFYM sense, but I've seen both my elder sister and one of my best friends consume sugary foods until it has literally rotted their teeth away. I find it fascinating because I got incredibly fat on next to no sweets whatsoever.

    It's more a question of how our minds perceive taste, and ultimately how it can benefit us to control that perception... and I think it's transitional across all of the gustatory perceptions.

    One of the most interesting parts of nutritional psychology - to me - is how certain foods trigger pleasure receptors in certain people and how reliant we can become on foods as a sort-of antidepressant. (I don't believe it's an addiction by any stretch of the imagination, but I do believe that the gratification we derive from eating is linked to problems we have with improper behavioural eating.)
  • scrumdidlly
    scrumdidlly Posts: 17 Member
    Options
    I was taught that it had to do with the time before cultivation and domestication of animals for meat. Back in that day we had to forge to get our carbs and the craving would encourage us to eat as much sweet fruit such as fruits as we could because we wouldn't know when we'd come across them again. They sometimes refer to it as feast or famine.

Categories