There is a bit of conflation here in regard to the idea of craving what your body needs and misconceptions about what foods are actually unhealthy. The sodium in salt, as an example, is an essential nutrient animals can't live without, while sugar (sucrose) is a tasty substance in no way necessary for human survival. Sugar cane originated from the vicinity of New Guinea, and the ability to tolerate large quantities of it is simply not a natural part of the human genome. I observe some people with superior genes do appear to have the ability to consume considerable amounts with little to no ill effects, while many others (I am in this group) cannot.
Genes play a critical role in health, probably longevity, too, and it's easy to take them for granted if you have good ones. In The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living (Volek and Phinney, 2011), the authors remark that any one person's DNA is approximately 99 - 99.5% identical to that of any other person's, with the differences mostly related to copy number variants and single nucleotide polymorphisms. In the former case, for example, a person from a culture with a history of eating a high starch diet, as in much of Europe and Japan, may have more copies of the gene salivary amylase (amylases break down starches) than a Yakut in northern Siberia with a traditional diet heavy in meat, dairy, and fish.
Similarly, people from cultures with a history of eating dairy products may have a greater incidence of single nucleotide polymorphisms allowing them to continue producing the lactase enzyme into adulthood. The ability to do so is not a natural part of the human genome - it had to evolve in response to environmental stimuli.
No human culture has had long term exposure to the amounts of sucrose currently being consumed in the United States - sugar was simply too expensive to be available to the masses in other than tiny quantities before the establishment of sugar plantations using slave labor in the Caribbean and South America in the 1600's. The application of fossil-fuel energy and mechanization since then has made it much, much cheaper and available in mass quantities today.
As I indicated, genes play a critical role in all of this. I worked with a guy my age in the early 2000's who did not survive to age 40. I observed he had a terrible diet, and he also seemed likely to have very, very bad genes, as he was the unhealthiest person I've ever known. Furthermore, the medical advice he was being given at the time did not seem based on sound science and an understanding of human biochemistry, and thus apt to genuinely be helpful, given the knowledge I have today.
I close with one more example - I worked with the person in the obituary below, who died suddenly earlier this year. He also appeared to lack the superior genes some people have, and his may have been unusually bad. While highly intelligent, most people perceived him as a snack food junkie, unable to resist large quantities of doughnuts, in particular. If he had been blessed with better genes, I think he might still be alive, but in the event, as a British writer might be inclined to put it, he isn't. It was a shock to his family, and I know it must have caused them an extraordinary amount of pain.
There is a bit of conflation here in regard to the idea of craving what your body needs and misconceptions about what foods are actually unhealthy. The sodium in salt, as an example, is an essential nutrient animals can't live without, while sugar (sucrose) is a tasty substance in no way necessary for human survival. Sugar cane originated from the vicinity of New Guinea, and the ability to tolerate large quantities of it is simply not a natural part of the human genome. I observe some people with superior genes do appear to have the ability to consume considerable amounts with little to no ill effects, while many others (I am in this group) cannot.
Genes play a critical role in health, probably longevity, too, and it's easy to take them for granted if you have good ones. In The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living (Volek and Phinney, 2011), the authors remark that any one person's DNA is approximately 99 - 99.5% identical to that of any other person's, with the differences mostly related to copy number variants and single nucleotide polymorphisms. In the former case, for example, a person from a culture with a history of eating a high starch diet, as in much of Europe and Japan, may have more copies of the gene salivary amylase (amylases break down starches) than a Yakut in northern Siberia with a traditional diet heavy in meat, dairy, and fish.
Similarly, people from cultures with a history of eating dairy products may have a greater incidence of single nucleotide polymorphisms allowing them to continue producing the lactase enzyme into adulthood. The ability to do so is not a natural part of the human genome - it had to evolve in response to environmental stimuli.
No human culture has had long term exposure to the amounts of sucrose currently being consumed in the United States - sugar was simply too expensive to be available to the masses in other than tiny quantities before the establishment of sugar plantations using slave labor in the Caribbean and South America in the 1600's. The application of fossil-fuel energy and mechanization since then has made it much, much cheaper and available in mass quantities today.
As I indicated, genes play a critical role in all of this. I worked with a guy my age in the early 2000's who did not survive to age 40. I observed he had a terrible diet, and he also seemed likely to have very, very bad genes, as he was the unhealthiest person I've ever known. Furthermore, the medical advice he was being given at the time did not seem based on sound science and an understanding of human biochemistry, and thus apt to genuinely be helpful, given the knowledge I have today.
I close with one more example - I worked with the person in the obituary below, who died suddenly earlier this year. He also appeared to lack the superior genes some people have, and his may have been unusually bad. While highly intelligent, most people perceived him as a snack food junkie, unable to resist large quantities of doughnuts, in particular. If he had been blessed with better genes, I think he might still be alive, but in the event, as a British writer might be inclined to put it, he isn't. It was a shock to his family, and I know it must have caused them an extraordinary amount of pain.
https://www.schrader.com/obituary/douglas-niermeyer