every single one of our ancestors was able to, on average, obtain more food-calories than they needed I think what's lost in the discussion when looking at foo

every single one of our ancestors was able to, on average, obtain more food-calories than they needed I think what's lost in the discussion when looking at food consumption from a calorie-centric view is that non-processed foods require energy to process them. This is due to sugars/carbohydrates being trapped in matrices of cellulose, which require a lot of chewing and digesting to extract the maximum amount of energy. Processed foods on the other hand are just that, processed. A machine has pre-chewed and pre-digested your food into a neat package. Now the energy required to extract the maximum amount of value has been lowered significantly, so you wind up with more energy than you need. But it gets worse... Glycaemic Index. When sugars/carbohydrates are slowly extracted from a thick matrix of cellulose, they're delivered slowly but surely to your system. Highly processed foods have done away with most of the cellulose or at the very least broken it down significantly. Eating these processed foods you get what's generally called a sugar rush. Your blood sugar spikes, insulin is released to deal with this incredible spike however the spike only lasts for a short period - now you're having a sugar crash. You lose your temper easily, you can't think straight...you reach for another soda, burger or fries. The cycle repeats. This doesn't even touch on what happens to your digestive system when you remove a significant amount of fiber from your diet by eating highly processed foods. Not only does fiber clean your digestive system and keep things moving smoothly, your gut-flora converts the fiber into short chain fatty acids, which play a role in mitigating intestinal inflammation [0]. Don't eat food-machine excrement. [0] https://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?q=short+chain+fatty+acids+inflammation&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ei=iTJdVd2nFIPn8AWc_oGIBA&ved=0CBoQgQMwAA https://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?q=short+chain+fatty+ac...