4 ms·

Why did we evolve to enjoy the taste of sugar?

keymone 9y ago
i don't think it is a right question. it's like asking why did we evolve to get high on morphine? sure, there definitely are evolutionary benefits to being able to taste sugar and like it, as that will help you to spot nutrients, but this has little to do with the way we industrialized sugar production and consumption in last 200 years. rice, wheat and potatoes are not even sweet but in some countries those are primary sources of glucose.
gerardnll 9y ago
Because you take sweet ultraprocessed food since your a baby. Then, children don't like veggies.
- esailija 9y ago
  Plain vegetables are not palatable because they have very little nutritional value, like saw dust. If you were as rewarded for eating vegetables as you are for foods with actual nutritional value you would quickly be malnourished. If you ate a vegetable only meal you wouldn't even absorb the fat soluble vitamins from them because they don't have any fat. In the wild where the immediate pressure is on getting enough calories and macronutrients while lack of micronutrients only cause problems in the long term, any human wasting energy collecting and digesting food that doesn't have calories and macronutrients (vegetables) would be quickly weeded out. Look at the nutritional information of any vegetable for yourself. Fruits, nuts, legumes, grains, potatoes etc all come with the fiber, vitamins and minerals that misinformed people think can only come from vegetables while also being loaded with calories, protein and essential fatty acids all which are pretty much completely lacking in vegetables.
  - eeZah7Ux 9y ago
    No. Our sense of taste is far from good at measuring nutritional value. It's simply good enough for humanity to survive without having to evolve a more accurate taste organ.
  - gerardnll 9y ago
    I haven't seen any study suggesting eating vegetables is cancerous but have seen a few from meat and processed meat (studies from the WHO). I'm not vegan, but meat is 30% of my diet. If vegetables are that bad in nutritional value, why can you survive being vegan and just taking vitamin B12 complements? I think using palatability as a way of measuring nutritional quality is not going to help you in the context of a society raised on ultraprocessed foods, because sugar, salt and other chemicals give taste to food without giving it nutritional value. If vegetables don't give you as many calories as meat and as you say: "...any human wasting energy collecting and digesting food that doesn't have calories and macronutrients (vegetables) would be quickly weeded out", why there are so many animals still alive after millions of years eating plants (some of them eating many kilograms every day)?
    - esailija 9y ago
      I think I didn't mention meat anywhere. I am actually vegan. There are a lot of plant foods that are relatively high in calories, vitamins, minerals, fat and protein which I mentioned: fruits, nuts, legumes, grains, potatoes, berries and so on. Vegetables (e.g. cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber etc) only have vitamins and minerals when you consider that as human you don't have the digestive system and time to digest tens of kilograms of food in a day. Sugar contains a lot of energy so it's not fooling you when it's tasting great. Can you say which specific animal is alive eating food without much caloric content (and which specific vegetable are they eating)?
perl4ever 9y ago
Same reason we evolved to have brain receptors for nicotine? See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinic_acetylcholine_receptor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinic_acetylcholine_recept... I noticed my ears have a notch that appears to be specifically designed to fit the cord of my earbuds.
- mathgeek 9y ago
  I noticed earbuds and their cords are both designed to fit the human ear.
Arn_Thor 9y ago
We enjoy the taste of sweetness because it tends in nature to indicate that the thing we're eating contains a lot of energy, such as fruits and sweet vegetables. And we underestimate how finely attuned this sense is. Chew on wheat for a little bit and it will begin to taste sweet as the starch breaks down in your mouth and turns into sugar. Sugar is ridiculously sweet. Anyone who's laid off sweets for a few weeks or months and goes back to eating a muffin or having a soda tends to find it offputtingly sweet. We've taken this evolutionary benefit and exploited it for pleasure, which is quite alright in moderation. But the natural pleasure we feel from the sweetness of fruit is set in overdrive with concentrated sweetness such as powder sugar.
- keymone 9y ago
  > it will begin to taste sweet as the starch breaks down in your mouth and turns into sugar are you sure about this? wheat doesn't have any fructose, and it's the fructose in sugar that gives it sweetness. glucose is taste-neutral.
  - JohnCohorn 9y ago
    Glucose is _not_ taste-neutral. Just less sweet than table sugar. Grab a bag of dextrose from AMZN and try it.
    - keymone 9y ago
      you're right, thanks
- H1Supreme 9y ago
  Yep. After eating Jif peanut butter for my life, I switched to "natural" about 10 or so years ago. Eating a spoonful of Jif after that, and the absurd amount of sugar is immediately apparent.

i don't think it is a right question. it's like asking why did we evolve to get high on morphine? sure, there definitely are evolutionary benefits to being able to taste sugar and like it, as that will help you to spot nutrients, but this has little to do with the way we industrialized sugar production and consumption in last 200 years. rice, wheat and potatoes are not even sweet but in some countries those are primary sources of glucose.

gerardnll 9y ago

Because you take sweet ultraprocessed food since your a baby. Then, children don't like veggies.

esailija 9y ago
Plain vegetables are not palatable because they have very little nutritional value, like saw dust. If you were as rewarded for eating vegetables as you are for foods with actual nutritional value you would quickly be malnourished. If you ate a vegetable only meal you wouldn't even absorb the fat soluble vitamins from them because they don't have any fat. In the wild where the immediate pressure is on getting enough calories and macronutrients while lack of micronutrients only cause problems in the long term, any human wasting energy collecting and digesting food that doesn't have calories and macronutrients (vegetables) would be quickly weeded out. Look at the nutritional information of any vegetable for yourself. Fruits, nuts, legumes, grains, potatoes etc all come with the fiber, vitamins and minerals that misinformed people think can only come from vegetables while also being loaded with calories, protein and essential fatty acids all which are pretty much completely lacking in vegetables.
- eeZah7Ux 9y ago
  No. Our sense of taste is far from good at measuring nutritional value. It's simply good enough for humanity to survive without having to evolve a more accurate taste organ.
- gerardnll 9y ago
  I haven't seen any study suggesting eating vegetables is cancerous but have seen a few from meat and processed meat (studies from the WHO). I'm not vegan, but meat is 30% of my diet. If vegetables are that bad in nutritional value, why can you survive being vegan and just taking vitamin B12 complements? I think using palatability as a way of measuring nutritional quality is not going to help you in the context of a society raised on ultraprocessed foods, because sugar, salt and other chemicals give taste to food without giving it nutritional value. If vegetables don't give you as many calories as meat and as you say: "...any human wasting energy collecting and digesting food that doesn't have calories and macronutrients (vegetables) would be quickly weeded out", why there are so many animals still alive after millions of years eating plants (some of them eating many kilograms every day)?
  - esailija 9y ago
    I think I didn't mention meat anywhere. I am actually vegan. There are a lot of plant foods that are relatively high in calories, vitamins, minerals, fat and protein which I mentioned: fruits, nuts, legumes, grains, potatoes, berries and so on. Vegetables (e.g. cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber etc) only have vitamins and minerals when you consider that as human you don't have the digestive system and time to digest tens of kilograms of food in a day. Sugar contains a lot of energy so it's not fooling you when it's tasting great. Can you say which specific animal is alive eating food without much caloric content (and which specific vegetable are they eating)?

perl4ever 9y ago

Same reason we evolved to have brain receptors for nicotine? See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinic_acetylcholine_receptor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinic_acetylcholine_recept... I noticed my ears have a notch that appears to be specifically designed to fit the cord of my earbuds.

mathgeek 9y ago
I noticed earbuds and their cords are both designed to fit the human ear.

Arn_Thor 9y ago

We enjoy the taste of sweetness because it tends in nature to indicate that the thing we're eating contains a lot of energy, such as fruits and sweet vegetables. And we underestimate how finely attuned this sense is. Chew on wheat for a little bit and it will begin to taste sweet as the starch breaks down in your mouth and turns into sugar. Sugar is ridiculously sweet. Anyone who's laid off sweets for a few weeks or months and goes back to eating a muffin or having a soda tends to find it offputtingly sweet. We've taken this evolutionary benefit and exploited it for pleasure, which is quite alright in moderation. But the natural pleasure we feel from the sweetness of fruit is set in overdrive with concentrated sweetness such as powder sugar.

keymone 9y ago
> it will begin to taste sweet as the starch breaks down in your mouth and turns into sugar are you sure about this? wheat doesn't have any fructose, and it's the fructose in sugar that gives it sweetness. glucose is taste-neutral.
- JohnCohorn 9y ago
  Glucose is _not_ taste-neutral. Just less sweet than table sugar. Grab a bag of dextrose from AMZN and try it.
  - keymone 9y ago
    you're right, thanks
H1Supreme 9y ago
Yep. After eating Jif peanut butter for my life, I switched to "natural" about 10 or so years ago. Eating a spoonful of Jif after that, and the absurd amount of sugar is immediately apparent.