Why we crave sweets, and why carbohydrates make humans FAT

CrossFit Mean Streets in Downtown News

The Reclassification of Sugar as a Drug

We must start thinking of food as a drug. It isn’t the calories that matter, what matters is the effect our diet has on how our bodies operate.

Yummy

Ok,… so I believe that we should listen to our cravings,…. because the body knows best right? So why do sugary products taste so good to us? And if they taste good shouldn’t we be eating them?

To answer this lets explore the original source of sugar: FRUIT

Let me explain how we evolved with fruit. Back hundreds of thousands,… if not millions of years ago.

Fruit blooms and ripens for only a few weeks out of the year. This happens right before the coldness and scarcity of winter. We evolved* to crave the sweetness of fruit, therefore eating as much as possible during these vital weeks. Because we ate tons of fruit it would put us in a pre-diabetic state, and fattening us up.

This extra fat on our bodies would work for at least two purposes for us,… it helped keep us warm through winter,… and in times where food was unavailable it served as a source of energy for our bodies. This served us well. We would emerge in the spring ready to hunt the animals who would be waking up from hibernation. Allowing us to live on another season eating our preferred food: animals.

The problem is, is that eating all that animal meat, fat, brain, marrow, and organs made us in to an intelligent life form. Our intelligence got so enhanced that we started making things “easier” for ourselves. We started farming, agriculture, superstores, fast food, vending machines etc…. Through the evolution of our wits we have created a virtual reality where there is no winter. We have access to the same food all year round,… which means we have access to fruits all year round. On top of that we have new foods that are processed. Which is just like fruit, except already digested and containing no nutrients.

So, if you eat sugars, even fruit, every single day of the year,… your body is hard wired to store those calories as fat,… among other things like insulin spikes which are also very unhealthy. Sugar is responsible for making us fat,… end of story.

*The way evolution works is simple. Lets use the example of fruit and human kind above. If there was a group of animals that came across a fruit tree before winter, there would be a spectrum of the tastes of the group. Some would crave the sugar, some wouldn’t like it. If the animals lived in a cold climate, those that really craved the sugar and ate it would be at an advantage going into the winter. Those who didn’t have a taste for sugar wouldn’t eat the fruit, and would be at a disadvantage going into the winter. So through thousands of years the animals who craved sugars would be the ones who lived, and the others would die.

WOD 3-28-11

“Abbate”

Run 1 mile
155 pound Clean and jerk, 21 reps
Run 800 meters
155 pound Clean and jerk, 21 reps
Run 1 Mile

U.S. Marine Corps Sergeant Matthew T. Abbate, 26, of Honolulu, Hawaii, assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, based out of Camp Pendleton, California, was killed on December 2, 2010, while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He is survived by his wife Stacie Rigall, son Carson, mother Karen Binion, father Salvatore Abbate, and siblings Dominica Abbate, Elliot Abbate, Valerie Binion, and Kelly Binion.

CrossFit Mean Streets
Downtown Los Angeles