As someone with a sweet tooth, I find it hard to settle for less sugar. In the past I attributed my penchant for sugar to the body's craving for carbohydrates.
Cravings often come when we feel stressed. When you eat carbs, it releases a "happy" chemical in your brain like serotonin. Many of the foods we tend to crave -- sweets, white breads, and sodas -- are filled with simple carbs that your body processes very fast. This boosts your feel-good hormone levels quickly, but it also causes your sugar levels to spike and drop. - WebMD August 2021
However, I did not understand that my body was not prepared to process the sugar until I read Days of Dysevolution by Jeff Wheelwright. In his article he explains the findings of evolutionary biologist Daniel Lieberman. It turns out that cultural evolution, which created and promotes the foods that contain refined sugar, has advanced well beyond our biological evolution. Simply put our bodies do best when we eat like hunter-gatherers - diets high in fiber and low in sugar.
What does do best mean? It means less disease. Turns out that our paleontological ancestors, those living before the cultivation of grains and drinking of cow's milk, lived to be about 70 years old. They lived that long without modern medicine to treat issues such as heart disease, osteoporosis, and diabetes. Plus, they had hardly any cavities.
Today, I will settle for less sugar as a way to work towards better health.
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