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The evolutionary reason why we love the taste of sugar

Have you ever wondered why, it seems, everyone (or the vast majority of people) loves sweets and/or the taste of sugar in general? There are scientists and scholars who seem to have found a reason and it makes a lot of sense. Do you want to meet her? We tell you!

The taste of sugar: Is the reason why we crave so much evolutionary?

We can say that it is thanks to our ancestors that we like the taste of sugar.And why? It turns out that millions and millions of years ago, the apes survived in their environment with a diet based on sugar-rich fruit.These animals preferred the more mature fruit because it had a higher sugar content than the greener fruit and , therefore, it provided them with more energy. From there, this longing for sweetness was born.

It is clear that prehistoric human beings also had very different concerns than we have today.At that time, their ultimate goal was to survive in the toughest situations, so they used the sugar flavor as an indication that that particular food was high in calories and would give them more energy, fat and on many occasions heat.

This is how the prehistoric man developed a taste for the taste of sugar, because helped him significantly in his survival in a historical moment in which food was scarce and the chances of eating it quite reduced gone.

The evolutionary reason why we love the taste of sugar

It is also true that sugar is found in varying degrees in almost all foods.Even meat contains a certain amount of sucrose. The higher the concentration of sugar in a piece of meat, the more juicy it will be. The sweetness thus became an indicator that helped the prehistoric man distinguish between good, juicy meat in calories and bad, unpleasant and unhealthy meat.

In history, our ancestors went through periods of starvation, where they learned that sugar was assimilated by the body and provided more energy, and the body quickly learned to turn it into fat. This adaptation was a survival mechanism that gave the following message: eat fructose and thereby decrease the likelihood of starving.

Today in d ia, some scientists argue that the sweet taste is addictive.In fact, sugar stimulates dopamine, a hormone that helps "feel good." This euphoric response makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, since our hunter and gatherer ancestors predisposed to "get hooked" to sugar probably had a better chance of survival if they consumed it.In other words, everything that made people more likely to eat sugar would also make them more likely to survive and transmit their genes.

All the food challenges faced by our prehistoric ancestors mean that we have biologically trained to crave sweets. The problem today is that human beings have too much of the Sweet matter available to them, and unlike that provided by Mother Nature, they tend to ingest modifications that contribute very little, or nothing, to the lifestyle of the modern man and his health.

There, you know, that love of yours for sweets you inherited from our ancestors.

You may also be interested:

Does sugar make us happier?

Images: FodieFactor ; AllN¡kArt

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