Why do we like sweets?
Marc Tittgemeyer leads a research group at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research and is a professor at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Cologne. He and his team are currently researching why certain desserts are particularly popular from a neurobiological perspective:
"We are mammals. The first food we consumed was breast milk, which consists of sugar and fat. This is our first exposure to the taste of sweetness. Another reinforcement of sweet milk was contact with our mother. This initial contact is just one of the reasons for the preference for sweet things. Another reason is that, especially in combination with fat and sugar, the effect is on our drive control. Furthermore, we discovered in a study that the brain releases endorphins when we consume sugar, specifically when we are already full. This effect is particularly strong when combined with fat. To understand why, we have to go back to the Stone Age.
Sugar is essential for our survival. By that, I don't mean industrial sugar, but rather carbohydrates that are converted into glucose. Our cells need glucose, for example, for propulsion. In food, carbohydrates are a simple source of energy, unlike fats or proteins, which also have to be converted into glucose first, which takes the body a longer time.
Through evolution, we learned that there isn't enough food every day and developed mechanisms to supply our cells with energy and build up sufficient reserves for the future. Many millennia ago, when humans were hunter-gatherers, obtaining food was laborious and time-consuming. Once something was hunted or found, it was best to live off it for as long as possible. However, back then, it wasn't easy to store food for long without it spoiling. As a result, people consumed more food than they actually needed, which the body then converted into fat reserves, i.e., into its own reserves.
When you've stuffed yourself, it doesn't feel so good; you feel sluggish. Normally, you wouldn't move when you're that full. However, staying in one place back then would have been very dangerous; a predator might come along. So, at the end, you'd eat something with sugar, as it gives you an energy boost to move away. Today, we're not being eaten by lions, we just need to get home from a restaurant. So, evolutionary history explains why we crave a sweet dessert after a hearty meal.
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