Humans as omnivores have adapted to be opportunists in our diet. This can be an immense advantage when you are surviving in the wilderness as a hunter-gatherer and is probably why humans are some of the most successful organisms on the planet. But the question of what you should eat is one that can bring up much anxiety. If you compare this to a cow for instance, cows only eat grass, so it knows exactly what to eat and what it eats is nourishing for it. But this wide variety of food options in omnivores can make things complicated for us humans, especially when an environment like a supermarket offers so many possibilities, some of them nourishing, and others harmful.
There is a dilemma that comes about where humans will eat unhealthy food because their diet allows it, There is also no instinct to drive humans to eat healthy. This is made worse by the fact that the human body is genetically designed to reward the consumption of food- especially sucrose rich foods- from the time when finding a bush full of berries was a very infrequent occurrence and you had to take full advantage of the opportunity.
But now with massive supermarkets where the selection of goods is almost endless people are lost in the shear selection of food and will often be tempted by the sweet and carb rich “unhealthy” foods. So how should we combat this omnivore’s dilemma? Perhaps the most important to we have as humans for dealing with this dilemma, is culture. The traditions and customs will guide us in how and what we eat. In today’s world we have lost the culture to guide us in what we eat, we now listen to scientists, government guides and food packaging labels in order to try and figure out what we should eat. We need to step back and look back to the past and figure out a better, healthier way of eating
