Why We Diet
A History Of Diets - Why We Diet?
For over 3 million years mankind has lived by carrying out two basic
activities of hunting (or fishing) and gathering edible items of any
kind (from fruit to insects). But as history shows consistent food
supplies have never been guaranteed. With the supply of such meals
being subject to the vagaries of nature and luck, our ancestors lived
with the real possibility of starvation. The human body is designed to
easily adapt to changes in our lives, and the reason for this is simply
down to survival. The fact is our body must adapt in order to stand any
chance of surviving sudden changes to the environment. So it is not
surprising that our bodies learned to stockpile food when it was
abundant, in anticipation of harder times. Unfortunately this
evolutionary legacy remains with us today and when we eat more food
than we need, the body stores any extra calories, just in case.
The types of food we now eat have also changed enormously. Prior to the
18th Century foods were not refined in any way. Since most naturally
occurring foods have at least a little protein and fat, even when food
was scarce people managed to scrape by. Today's diet is highly refined
and processed; as such our consumption of sugar, salt and fats is much
higher than in previous generations. For most people living in the
western world food is in ample supply, the problem now is having too
much, which the body is still programmed to store as fat.