Your brain evolved to seek calorie-dense food under scarcity, and roughly ten thousand years of cultural evolution hasn’t changed the genome — that gap is what “evolutionary mismatch” names. Modern foods exploit it from both ends. Hyperpalatable foods trigger dopamine responses resembling those of addictive substances, and dopamine governs wanting more than liking, so craving can persist without matching pleasure. Meanwhile satiety fails by design: on an ultra-processed diet people ate 508 calories a day more while reporting no difference in pleasantness, hunger, or fullness — and their appetite hormones didn’t move.
This companion covers the environment that built your brain, the modern mismatch, the four systems being exploited, and what actually helps. (5 min read)
Written by AI, directed and approved by me. How this is made →