Why We Can Blame Our Ancestors for the Way We Crave Fatty Junk Food

Unable to resist ordering chips or eating just one more biscuit? Blame your ancestors.

Scientists believe that our cravings for fatty, salty and sugary foods have their roots deep in evolution.

They say our modern-day taste for junk food can be traced back two million years, to a time when the brains of early humans rapidly increased in size.

To satisfy the energy demands of their burgeoning brains the first members of the Homo genus – direct ancestors of modern man – developed a taste for high calorie foods.

But they kept in trim because they had to widen the search for their dinner.

Researcher William Leonard said: "While our large-bodied ape relatives, chimps, gorillas and orang-utans, can subsist on leaves and fruit, we needed to consume meat and other energy-rich foods to support our metabolic demands."

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February 16, 2009