Why Does Sugar Taste Good If It's Killing You?

There is a wild bird in Mozambique that comes when a human calls it, and leads that human to honey. Nobody tamed it. Nobody feeds it. It answers a specific sound, two times out of three, and the partnership may be older than our species. That bird is the clearest evidence we have of how much sugar was once worth. It is also the start of an explanation for why you cannot stop eating it — and why that is not actually your fault. TIMESTAMPS 0:00 The bird that answers you 1:06 How the honeyguide works 2:37 What sugar was worth 4:04 Why sweet feels good 5:44 The ceiling the world provided 7:18 What changed 8:47 Someone noticed 10:16 1967 12:03 The honest caveats 12:56 You are not losing a fight SOURCES Spottiswoode, Begg & Begg — reciprocal signalling between honeyguides and human honey-hunters https://www.science.org/content/artic... Audubon — the greater honeyguide and the Yao honey hunters https://www.audubon.org/news/meet-gre... Marlowe et al. — honey in the Hadza diet https://www.scientificamerican.com/bl... Kearns, Schmidt & Glantz — Sugar Industry and Coronary Heart Disease Research, JAMA Internal Medicine (2016) https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/s... If you like finding out that the obvious story was the wrong one — subscribe. There is a lot more of this. #sugar #humanevolution #nutrition