[HN Gopher] Darwinian Gastronomy: Spices taste good because they... ___________________________________________________________________ Darwinian Gastronomy: Spices taste good because they are good for us Author : magoghm Score : 24 points Date : 2023-02-11 06:15 UTC (2 days ago) (HTM) web link (academic.oup.com) (TXT) w3m dump (academic.oup.com) | overcast wrote: | Wonderful news, this chocolate eclair is healthy for me! | yjftsjthsd-h wrote: | Sugar - sadly - isn't a spice. | overcast wrote: | The title is implying tasting good = healthy. | yjftsjthsd-h wrote: | My point is that there's room for a little more nuance than | that; "your body likes X because it's good for you" doesn't | imply a universal rule, just a specific correlation. | TulliusCicero wrote: | It's really more like tasting good = evolutionarily useful. | carlmr wrote: | Which is true for sugar. It's good if you get a few grams | of sugar while running around the forest all day. It's | not good to get half a pound of sugar from big gulp | softdrinks while you're sitting in traffic. | beebmam wrote: | Not necessarily, even in the evolutionary biology model. | Something can taste good to humans entirely by accident, | and be evolutionarily neutral (or even a small amount | negative). Just like the reason men have nipples. | twelvedogs wrote: | The ingredients probably are, the quantities possibly not | mouse_ wrote: | Makes sense. Menthol (mint) is a vasoconstrictor, capsaicin is a | vasodilator. Children will have no idea what this means, but they | still know innately they're opposites of each other. Our | instincts guide us when we listen. | redtriumph wrote: | nit: This article should have (1999) in title. | | Interesting read nonetheless. | cm2187 wrote: | And so does nutella and peanut butter. | bretbernhoft wrote: | This is a thought I just finished having. Right alongside a bowl | of canned soup, that (with the help of spices) turned out to be a | five star meal. Food is medicine, as it is said. | gt565k wrote: | I always put black pepper and cayenne pepper in my soups. | | Warms me up and is healthy. | heyitsguay wrote: | And a touch of garlic powder! | cwkoss wrote: | Hmm. I wish this analysis accounted for availability of spices in | different regions: I would expect onions and garlic to be more | prevalent in Scandanavian dishes than cinnamon and ginger simply | because those are easier to grow in temperate climates. | | Would be interesting to look at which spices have 'broken into' a | cuisine despite being not agriculturally viable in that region. | How does this set of spices differ from the broader set? More | antimicrobial? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-02-13 23:00 UTC)