An Ancient Greek Solution To Our Troubles With Eating And Weight
Epicurus, hyperpalatable foods, and the crisis of abundance
“Man’s sins may be the relics of his rise rather than the stigmata of his fall.”
— The Lessons of History, Ariel and Will Durant
The historians Ariel and Will Durant invested their whole lives in studying humanity from its dawning moments to the present. And they came to a logical conclusion. The prized traits which brought us prosperity in one age were destined to become sins in the next.
Our species’ history with food and our present problems with obesity- related illnesses might be the greatest examples of this.
Two words brought it into stunning clarity for me: hyperpalatable foods. This is a term scientists are now labeling foods that are engineered to be nearly irresistible. According to researchers at the National Institute of Health and the University of Kansas:
“Hyper-palatable foods have specific combinations of fat, sugar, sodium and carbohydrates — think of potato chips — that make them artificially rewarding to eat and harder to stop consuming.”
They’re usually dense in energy (calories) as well, adding to our waistlines. Moreover, we’re also consuming these addictive foods in a world where we don’t have to naturally burn as much energy in a day. It’s all outsourced.
The fat, sugar, and salt combo have a strange power over our pleasure centers that’s hard to combat. But we’re not fated to give in. History gives us a unique guide for navigating the addictions of pleasure and “unnecessary desires” named Epicurus.
This ancient Greek thinker developed an entire philosophy focused on pleasure — not in an R. Kelly kind of way — more in a balanced pursuit of happiness type.
But before we go here, we need to better understand our problem. It begins with studying humanity’s natural attraction to fatty foods.
Our Brains, Fats, And The Crisis Of Abundance
In a recent conversation on the Jocko Willink Podcast, Doctor and author Peter Attia explains one thing puts us ahead of every other animal on the planet: our brain. But its power comes at a price. Namely, energy.
While our brain makes up only two percent of our body mass, it consumes twenty-five percent of the energy we take in. This type of dynamic requires a complex system to maintain. Fat is a critical part. Our nearest ancestor primates don’t function in the same way.
For example Dr. Attia explains when you overfeed primates, they get more muscular. For humans, we get fatter. But this isn’t a punishment from the heavens, there’s a good reason for this. Fat is an excellent source of energy, while muscle is not. According to Dr. Attia:
“We were like the only electric car to show up with a huge battery. Everybody else basically had…a mini battery, and that meant they couldn’t drive very far. We were the only ones that could drive all over the place.”
Our ancestors lived in a world with scarce food, but could store fat in times of plenty for the scarcity eventually to come. It was a wonderful system. Plus, we were always active — not in a marathon running sense — but continuously moving and doing.
So fats were important, and our relatives developed senses to find scarce foods loaded with them, which could save our species.
In the interview, Dr. Attia says, “It’s not an accident that we like sweet things,” and points out that some tribal people got about a quarter of their calories from berries and honey. In fact, the apes that became us developed “a mutation to preferentially store fat, out of fructose.”
Overall, the system created an energy balance. However, as we solved the food scarcity issue our only concerns were supply, preservation, cost, transportation, and flavor. Abundance overrode quality and health.
Dr. Attia calls it the “crisis of abundance,” because our evolutionary design is bound around scarcity and our brain is made to hunt for fat filled foods for survival. Inevitably, it leads to us killing ourselves by diet. In fact, this very thing devastated the Mongol Empire.
An Empire Derailed By Abundance
The Mongols started much like our ancient ancestors. John Masson Smith, Jr in Dietary Decadence and Dynastic Decline in the Mongol Empire, explains the early Mongols lived a hard nomadic life, in a cold climate, where food was scarce. They responded with a high fat diet.
Mutton and horse meat were twice the calories per pound as beef.
Sheep milk was about twenty-five percent more calories than cow’s milk.
They also liked alcohol made from fermented horse milk.
Although, due to their harsh conditions and limited herds, they could only produce so much alcohol or fatty meats. However, affluence changed this. A year’s worth of their favorite alcohol qumis, required a herd of sixty horses, and suddenly Mongol lords had this many.
Furthermore, instead of eating traditional meals of yogurt when meat was rare, it was always plentiful. Smith says in time Mongol lords were afflicted with gout, which often affects those who are overweight, eat lots of red meat, and tend to drink. This new royalty was also much less active.
Smith shows how Mongol rulers began to die earlier and produce less offspring as the empire got more successful.
One could see how this might derail an effort at world conquest. In fact, Ögödei Khan is believed to have died during an all-night drinking binge at age fifty-six. This caused the Mongol army to withdraw from a successful invasion of Europe.
To explain, they called the army home so its leaders could help chose, Ögödei Khan’s successor. Some historians think the Mongols could have conquered all of Europe had Ögödei Khan lived.
With these ideas on fat, the crisis of abundance, and hyperpalatable foods in mind, let’s step back to our Greek philosopher.
Epicurus And Redefining What Makes Us Happy
Steven Gambardella in his fantastic article Could Epicurus Save Us: A Philosophy of Pleasure Could Cure Our Modern Ills says the philosopher’s base goal was happiness. But he had a unique way of getting there. Gambardella states:
“To be happy you need to change your desires.”
Epicurus thought the default state of humanity was happiness and we diminish it with our unnecessary desires.
Innately, there are two types of pleasure: kinetic and static. While kinetic requires “active fulfillment,” static is “the tranquility of the absence of pain” generated by having no needs.
The philosopher thought we only needed a limited amount of kinetic pleasure (food and drink) to reach that state of static tranquility. And it wasn’t just the amount. It also included what was needed to fill yourself.
Ultimately, he believed we are all made up of atoms whose course was unpredictable and not controlled by fate. This lack of control gave us the free will to choose. Our happiness, therefore, depended on our choices in pursuit of two different types of desires: necessary and unnecessary.
A necessary desire is thirst or hunger. Gambardella notes if you’re denied water, or basic sustenance, you’ll die. However, if your desire for a vintage bottle of wine is denied, it only results in wounded pride. So that’s an unnecessary desire.
Consequently, taking pleasure in the necessary and simple, results in that innate state of happiness all humans are structured with. Chasing the unnecessary results in insatiable desires; so he’s putting limits on the unlimited world to stave off unhappiness.
Just substitute “unnecessary” with hyperpalatable foods and a crisis with abundance, then you see an incredible parallel. Now, let’s add one more expert to show us how to act on all this knowledge.
A Nutrition Expert’s Epicurean Advice
Stan Efferding has focused on fitness for thirty-five years. He’s won titles in powerlifting, bodybuilding, and studied to become a nutrition expert. In a recent interview, he revealed a secret about diets. According to his research, none works better than another.
Efferding references a long term study done by The National Weight Control Registry of over ten thousand subjects that have lost sixty pounds or more and kept it off over five years. They share these commonalities:
Ninety-eight percent not only went on a diet, but had an overall long-term plan. The type of diet itself didn’t matter.
Ninety-five percent of them increased their activity level (walking being the number one activity.)
Seventy-five percent weighed themselves regularly (average weight being more important than daily weight.)
He also says in working with his own personal clients, meal prep is also crucial. Planning meals ahead of time enables that choice Epicurus spoke of — or changing your desires. So, you banish the hyperpalatable foods ahead of time.
Efferding also talks about satiety, or fullness, being a way to stop overeating. Behavior can influence this. He says drinking water, diet drinks, or even eating protein first can fill you up and stop you from chasing the unnecessary desire of unhealthy foods.
He also explains you can increase activity not only by exercise but by “high nonactivity thermogenesis,” or moving your body regularly instead of the nonstop passive sitting we do nowadays.
As Ariel and Will Durant remind us, the prized traits which brought our early ancestors success are now sins. The fat which saved us has become the base for the hyperpalatable foods which are killing us today, as it killed the Mongol lords centuries ago.
But our crisis of abundance isn’t unstoppable. As Epicurus notes, unnecessary desire is destined to lead us to unhappiness. To be happy, one must change their desires.
Stan Efferding and Dr. Attia might rephrase this as: plan out meals, be more active, and be aware of our internal wiring in our present age of plenty.
-Originally posted on Medium 9/24/23