this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
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Science

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[โ€“] winterayars@sh.itjust.works 8 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I've had the theory that people in the US are a lot more malnourished than we realize. All that low quality food means they're probably missing something essential, or only getting it alongside a ton of sugar (aka HFCS).

[โ€“] Thorry84@feddit.nl 5 points 10 months ago

HFCS is evil and outlawed in a lot of the civilized world. It's a known cause of cancer and tricks the brain into eating more.

It has such a high caloric density, a survival instinct inside the human brain kicks in. It says: wow this is really good, we don't get many opportunities to eat something this good, eat as much of it as you can. This makes sense in a cave man survival scenario, where you happen on some honey or sugary fermented fruits. Then you have a bigger chance of surviving if you eat as much of it as you possibly can. But in modern life where we have an infinite supply of these things it's a killer.