Tamsin O'Connell wrote:

> [...] I don't think we can blame the food industry, because all they are
> doing
> is capitalising on a natural urge. We are programmed to prefer energy
> dense foods, and this programming came about long before the food industry
> happened. Look at the goddess figurines from Neolithic Catal Huyuk in
> Turkey (6000BC) - they are hugely fat. Fat has been recognised and
> worshipped as desirable for a long time in human culture and society,
> until very recently when all of a sudden there was no shortage of foods
> to balance out our desire to eat.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but no matter the availability, I don't think you
can get fat on a Paleolithic diet (excluding cereals and milk products). The
possibility to get fat (amongst other) is a Neolithic novelty.

> This desire for energy-dense foods is also why people will never be able
> to eat as much as they like and be as thin as they like, despite what Bob
> Avery says. Because what he overlooked in his comment that we would be
> fine if we all ate only raw veggies, is that when people want to eat as
> much as they like, they want to eat as much as they like OF FOODS THAT
> THEY LIKE. I would venture that most people would think that eating only
> raw veggies isn't that much more palatable than cutting back. [...]

> On the flip-side, we are not the only animals that will be obese if given
> the chance. Robert Sapolsky's famous study of a olive baboon troop in the
> Masai Mara, whom he wrote about as 'junk food monkeys', completely
> abandoned their usual diet when they discovered that they could feast to
> their hearts' content on garbage from the national park buildings. Despite
> that they matured earlier and had a wonderful time with endlessly
> available food, they also became obese, cholesterol (LDL) rose, and they
> all finally got a nasty dose of bovine TB. I know that one can hold up
> hands in horror and say humans were responsible for the waste, but the
> baboons CHOSE to eat this food, because it was an easy life. We humans do
> much the same.

If I understand this common behavior well, humans and baboons are behaving
like addicts as soon as they eat foodstuff that was never part of their
natural (original) environment.

Jacques Laurin