Pretend you don’t know anything about food. All your information, beliefs and preferences suddenly out the window, forgotten. You’ve been frozen for a 100 000 years and now you wake up. You are hungry. You can have anything. It’s all free, just go to the market or garden and pick out what you want. What do you eat? Can we trust our intuition?
Yes and no.
Your body has evolved to survive long enough so you can spread your seed so the species continues. This is how nature operates. Your body needs fuel. Whatever it can get to have enough energy to feed the system so everything is functioning. Your brain produces all kind of chemical reactions that cause you to feel certain things which tell your body what to do. Everything is happening for a reason and that reason is survival of the species. You don’t matter after you’ve managed to maximise your survival output which means finding a mate, having children and ensuring they are safe enough until the child can go repeat what you just did.
This system gravitates by default to certain foods which have co-evolved with the humanimal. You see colours and thus some plants have produced brighter and brighter fruits which an ape like you can grab, eat, shit and spread the seed so the plant can grow somewhere else. You are part of their mating strategy! So remember that next time you think that humans rule the world. Chiquita bananas rule the world. They can wipe us out any day they feel like it. When did you last eat a banana? Do they grow in your backyard. Humans are slaves, we don’t rule shit.
Not to mention the shape of a fruit which has also co-evolved to be just the right shape for the ape palm with its thumb and index finger able to grab from trees and remove peels. You have the ability to do very precise things with those hands.
The fruit also tastes a way that is soothing to our tongues and senses which give a thumbs up to the brain saying “more of this” or “enough is enough”.
They also grow in the kind climates which humans still thrive in which hasn’t seemed to change at all. In fact, this 22 degree tropical climate is something you carry around with you wherever you go. You’ve developed complex tools like winter jackets, bear furs, air conditioning, fire and heating to make sure it’s never too cold or hot. At least if you want to maximise comfort.
And nutritionally you now know that fruit does a pretty darn good job of fulfilling your caloric needs as well as the vitamins and minerals your body needs. It might not be perfect but in a setting where all your fancy tools are removed, it’s by far the best there is. And to complete your fruit meal/diet, you can eat a lot of variety and even go deeper into the plant. You realise that the fruit gets all its stuff from somewhere, why not go straight to the source. The leaves, the stems, the roots, the original seeds, and what a surprise you find all these new things to eat. Just eat the whole plant if you can chew the thing. If something is too hard and unpalatable in its raw form, maybe let it soak in the sun or water for some time. Experiment. You only have millions of years. After you have developed fire, you can cook things, you experiment with heating water to heat somethings so they don’t get burned. You make a pot and throw those hard vegetables in there. They get softer and sweeter. You have just become a magician and your people think you’re a God. You get all the girls and your magician genes are continued on. Sometimes you get poisoned but luckily you have cloned yourself with your cave gals. The secrets of attaining more and more complex forms of food are taught from generation to the next so you don’t always have to start from square one. A few more years go by and it’s square 100. Now you can go on longer and longer trips. Take those hard vegetables with you just in case. They last longer. You find that it gets colder and colder the further you venture off. But you like the feeling of adventure and although you could still go back, you want to know what’s there ahead, in the place where everyone told you that evil lurked and nobody came back after they crossed a certain line. They were right!
Now you are far from home. Just a few companions with you but they are miserable and miss grandma’s garden and all their friends and relatives. You feel some disappointment because you thought they were ready to go on a real adventure, you erroneously mistook them for courageous warriors like you who would never give up. But at the same time your wisdom reminds you that not everyone can be like you and you kind of admire how much they miss home and just want to nurture what they already have. You always want more. More god damn it. More!! Louder. Bigger. Scarier. Crazier. MORE!!!
Now you’re on your own again. You like it though. You can do what you want, when you want. You look at the beautiful scenes around you and find new things everyday. Food is getting low. But you know there is something out there, you can feel it. You see these sparkling white flakes falling from the sky, floating. What beauty. This makes your brain produce emotions of joy and sadness in your body and you cry at the beauty. You want to share it with someone. You also miss home. You decide it’s time to back. You need to eat and there’s not much left. But you are determined to go an even bigger journey but this time you will be better prepared. You will train the greatest apes for this journey. It might take a few years. You will start your own mini tribe and take them with you. Take a little piece of home with you so you never feel alone and cold again.
You are excited like never before.