A nice encapsulation of evolutionary challenges that humans are facing.

• example
  • people’s desire for sweet and fatty tasting foods
  • In ancestral times,
    • sugar and fat typically signaled positive nutritional value (Ramirez, 1990).
    • Consequently, people’s sensory systems are designed
    • to detect the presence of sugar or fat in food,
    • and the brain’s gustatory centers produce desirable taste sensations
    • when those foods are consumed.
    • This would have served our ancestors well,
    • facilitating the choice of beneficial and nutritious foods.
  • in modern times
    • Many foods found in post-industrialized societies
    • contain processed sugars, hydrogenated oils, and other additives that enhance the taste of the food
    • without adding any nutritional benefits.
    • Foods laden with corn syrup, for example,
    • typically contain high numbers of calories
    • and their regular consumption can result in obesity, diabetes, and other problems.
  • Thus, the mismatch between
  • the features of ancestral versus modern foodstuffs
  • can lead adaptive sensory mechanisms
  • to produce maladaptive physiological consequences.
  • The desire for sweet and fat foods
  • promotes health problems,
  • even when this desire operates in a perfectly normal manner
  • and would produce health benefits
  • in the environment for which it was designed