It starts with breakfast: cereal or fried egg? Coffee or tea? Bread or croissant? We make 200 decisions a day when it comes to food. On the one hand, we love variety, but on the other hand, no other living creature worries so much about daily meals. And we often choose things that are not good for us at all... Early humans had it easier. They simply ate what was available: grains, berries, seeds, some fish and sometimes some meat. But then something happened that would change our eating habits forever: we started hunting. This started a momentous parallel development: more protein in food and more cooperation during hunting led to a massive enlargement of our brains, explains the Frankfurt evolutionary geneticist Axel Janke. This made us increasingly clever at finding, preparing and optimizing food for ourselves. In just two million years, the size of our thinking apparatus - and our food diversity - tripled. Of course, we have strong evolutionary needs when it comes to food, such as hunger or a preference for sweet or energy-rich foods. Complex systems in the body signal to us a specific appetite for certain things, and this can even be proven using modern medical methods, explains Munich nutritionist Marina Lommel. But something else has now taken the forefront when it comes to our food choices: our feelings. These control our choices more than anything else when it comes to food, nutritional psychologist Katja Kröller from Anhalt University is convinced of this. The industry is trying to take advantage of this: we should eat what the food manufacturers want, warns neuroendocrinologist Robert Lustig from the University of San Francisco. The industry mixes sugar into many products because it can make us addicted. Do we even have a chance of choosing the right thing in the jungle of today's giant supermarkets? Documentary series, Director: Doris Tromballa (D 2021, 30 min) Click here for the soundtrack of 42: https://so.arte/spotify_playlist Click here for the playlist of 42: https://so.arte/42_playlist Sources and further links: 1. Early man Goethe University Frankfurt, Institute for Evolutionary Genomics, Prof. Axel Janke: https://www.bio.uni-frankfurt.de/4573... How hunting changed the human brain (study): https://www.mdpi.com/2571-550X/4/1/7, https://journals.plos.org/plosone/art... 2. How hunger and appetite arise and are regulated Hypothalamus and Co.: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti... Gut-brain axis: https://www.spektrum.de/news/die-darm... 3. Sugar & Ready-made products Sugar makes you sick and addicted: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20800... Ready-made products under criticism: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti... Website Dr. Robert Lustig: https://robertlustig.com/ 4. Mindfulness when eating More mindfulness when eating means choosing the right portion sizes: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30859..., Overview of mindfulness & food intake: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28718... #food #science #documentary Video available on YouTube until 11/12/2022 Subscribe to ARTE's YouTube channel: / artede Follow us on social networks: Facebook: / arte.tv Twitter: / artede Instagram: / arte.tv