Is it just me or is the food game kinda rigged? You know, stacked against us like a cruel joke. We all want to eat healthy, but the obstacles placed in our way are both myriad and insurmountable. What gives?
Let's break it down to the bare facts:
• Most healthy food don't taste very good.
• Most unhealthy food tastes amazing.
We've all come to accept this as a basic tenet of existence. It is what it is, just like the sky being blue and the Cubs never clinching a World Series. But clearly, these two very real -- and very depressing -- bullet points fly in the face how the rest of the world works.
Vegetables are at best, palatable. Especially on their own. Remove any form of seasoning or dressing (both designed to dramatically alter their taste) and the end result is something we'd never put in our mouths again. Should conclusive data confirm vegetables are actually terrible for our health, how many of us would continue eating them? Pretty sure you know the answer to this hypothetical.
Meanwhile, we're bombarded with decades of research firmly deriding most enjoyable food due to its health-destroying properties. And yet most of us continue to devour the stuff, be it in moderation or full-on binges. Why? The simple answer is taste. Delicious foods contain sugar, salt, fat or all three, each of which light up our brains' pleasure centres.
Healthy food is riddled with vitamins, minerals and antioxidants -- all essential in keeping our minds and bodies fit, active and agile. And yet on an evolutionary scale, it's kind of a failure. A big ol' non-starter, since the closer it gets to being good for you, the worse it is, taste-wise. Is it any wonder we turn to supplements for help?
At the risk of getting all Chuck Darwin up in this, let's consider the theory of evolution. Species evolve over time, often quite dramatically.
Humans have crushed this concept's ass, going from primitive monkey-like creatures to the Super Bowl-watching plague species we are today. And along the way, evolution had a few tricks up its sleeve to ensure this happened.
One example of many: over time, the human body evolved to make sexual activity highly pleasurable, thereby assuring consistent levels of procreation. Survival-wise, this pretty much saved our bacon. (Bacon, of course, being an example of something as delicious as it is death inducing.)
Alas, here's the rub: food doesn't evolve the same way animals do. Which is all sorts of ridiculous. Because in an ordered, logical universe, good food should taste good and bad food should taste terrible. QED.
Where else in life is the bad option preferable to the good? Medicine trumps placebos. Diamonds destroy cubic zirconia. High-end cars are better than those 1970s Pintos that exploded on impact. The list goes on.
So, here's my appeal to all the healthy food out there. (And yes, I'm looking at you, kale.)
Get your evolutionary crap together and start tasting better. Right this very minute. Because your failure to evolve is starting to piss people off. And trust me, you don't wanna get on the bad side of humans. We can be real SOBs when we're hangry.
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