Humans started drinking the equivalent of very, very light beer 13,000 years ago. And we may have consumed milk from livestock as many as 20,000 years ago. But this isn’t very long on an evolutionary timescale. Our naïveté´ with beverages is apparent in our physiology today.
“Fluid calories do not hold strong satiety properties, don’t suppress hunger, and don’t elicit compensatory dietary responses,” Richard D. Mattes, a professor of food and nutrition at Purdue University, told the Washington Post.
Why haven’t humans evolved to correct the glaring shortcoming in the body’s ability to handle sugary beverages? Well, there’s no reason to. Humans who gulp down twenty-ounce sodas, Mocha Cookie Crumble Frappucinos from Starbucks, and purportedly healthy (but not really) juice smoothies still live long enough to pass on their genes. Medications and other interventions help us live with the myriad health conditions that sugary drinks cause.
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