For 99.9% of human history, we didn’t know where our next meal came from. Because of this, it was well-advised for humans to eat as much as they could when food was available, particularly high-sugar food like fruit. As Dr. David Perlmutter points out in his book Drop Acid, an evolutionary trigger called uric acid makes us want to eat more. A rise in uric acid is triggered by fructose, a sugar found in fruit but now inserted in processed form throughout much of our food (particularly for kids).
This book helped me fully understand how our evolutionary development is weaponized for our food today. Here’s an excerpt from an interview Dr. Perlmutter conducted with my sister Casey:
“Food is informing us as to the environment. Fructose tells our body, winter is coming, and the signaling mechanism is uric acid. Uric acid is screaming in the body; get ready. If you want to survive, we’re going to help you make fat, store fat, raise blood sugar, raise blood pressure. Suddenly, that signal is on 24/7 for the winter that never comes. That’s the nature of our world today is we are constantly telling our bodies prepare for food scarcity. And now, a third of American adults isn’t just overweight but obese. And in the distant future, in the year 2030, that’s way in the future, right, eight years from now, that number’s going to be 50% of Americans, adults will be considered obese, basically, because they’re preparing for food scarcity and they’re not likely going to happen. So we call this then an evolutionary environmental mismatch.”
If this article resonates with you, sign up for the email below. I’ll send one weekly email on the incentives/systemic problems with healthcare and one with practical tips that impacted me.
Calley Means 