About nutrition and cheating

This article links our tendency to eat non-nutritious foods to the jealousy shown by males towards their partner. In view of the existence of contraceptives, the woman's infidelity must be legitimized, at least to the extent that the man's infidelity is legitimized.

Both images are taken from a hunting cave painting, a cave in South Africa, Kamberg Park site, Drakensberg

The modern lifestyle has brought with it various phenomena related to a poor and unbalanced diet. Many like foods rich in sugar and fat - cream cakes, cream ice cream, sweets of all kinds, all kinds of junk food - chips dripping with oil, hamburgers and who doesn't like a juicy and fatty steak.

We also exaggerate the seasoning and salting - the foods are not tasty enough without salt, even though it is known that the body gets all its needs from salt in the normal diet and the addition of salt can in some cases be harmful.

On the other hand, we don't really crave fiber-rich foods - fruits (unless they are sweet), vegetables, legumes, grains, etc. It is known that bran, for example, is very healthy, but show me someone who sees bran as a food of lust.

Excess fats, sugars and salts and a lack of fiber are the basis of most human diseases - obesity, heart and blood vessel diseases, metabolic problems, certain types of cancer and more.

The question arises why we crave what harms us and avoid what benefits us. It could be thought that we would intuitively prefer the beneficial and avoid the harmful - like all other animals.

It turns out that our eating urges actually make sense. Settlement, agriculture and animal husbandry began about ten thousand years ago, but tens and hundreds of thousands of years before that (and even millions of years - if we take into account our ancestors, the human species that preceded us), we were small hunters. A group of people would migrate from place to place and earn a living by gathering fruits and edible plants and hunting. Here is the place to emphasize that the hunter was a marginal factor in the economy of the human race because he was rare and success in it was even rarer.
Plant food was plentiful; Meat not so much. Availability of sugars as a source of energy was not very high and fats even less. The salt was not easily obtained either.

No wonder then that man developed a tendency to crave sugars, fat and salt, while plant fibers were found in abundance. These tendencies find expression today in our genes, but what was good for the human species for millions of years, today is bad for us. Our food processing technologies provide us with sugars, fats and salts in abundance and at a cheap price. Due to this and due to our primordial tendency to crave them, we often consume them and this is in our hearts.

We need to overcome our inherent tendencies and thus we will keep our health. Circumstances have changed, so those tendencies that helped us in the past hinder us today.

There is another subject in which the conditions have changed and perhaps also regarding it we can say that we can try to overcome the tendencies inherent in us. It means a man's jealousy of his partner. Most cultures are lenient towards a man who cheats on his wife and take the wife's betrayal more seriously. This fact has two explanations. The anthropological explanation talks about preserving the family unit - a male who is confident in his children will always return to his family and take care of his offspring. The genetic explanation is not much different - a male's female partner grew horns for him and takes care of the offspring not for him - the distribution of his genes will decrease. On the other hand, the male who jealously guards his partner, takes care of his own offspring - the distribution of his genes will increase. Therefore, the genes for the male's jealousy trait dominate the population.

Today, in the era of contraceptives, just as the man's infidelity does not bring offspring into his family that are not of both parents, so does the woman's infidelity. Just as today we eat unhealthy food because of genetic tendencies that are not suitable for the conditions in our modern world, so also the great severity with which males view female infidelity is because of genetic tendencies that are not suitable for our modern world where there are contraceptives.

In connection with this, it is worth noting that in various genetic studies conducted in Western countries, studies in which blood samples were taken from newborn babies and their parents, for the purpose of investigating various genetic diseases, the researchers were surprised to discover, in quite high percentages, that the babies were not their fathers. The rates ranged, in different countries, in different populations and in different periods, between 5 and 30 percent. The investigators kept it a secret but it was later made public. The rates of infidelity in practice are even higher, because in the studies, at least the first ones, complete genetic compatibility was not tested, but only a certain genetic parameter that may coincide with that of the legal husband and besides, most sexual contacts do not end with pregnancy and childbirth, even if no contraceptives are used .

It is also interesting to note that the Jewish religion, which views a woman's betrayal of her husband very seriously, does not declare the son of such a woman a bastard, if she continues to live with her husband. As we know, the child born to a married woman who is not from her husband is considered a bastard, but even if there is evidence of the woman's infidelity and a child is born that is doubtful whether it is the legal husband's, then the Halacha holds that since and the greater chances are that the newborn is the legal husband's (is it true?), the matter should not be investigated (in the language of the Halacha - "Most women follow the husband").

In conclusion - do not follow your appetite - eat healthy food, according to the nutritionists' recommendations; And regarding a different kind of appetite - women are also allowed... and men... if they are suspicious - let them do genetic testing and if something is wrong - please do not tell the rabbis (unless there is an argument about food, but then - the offspring will be declared a bastard). But it seems that it is difficult to overcome the genetic tendencies inherent in us... Most of us will continue to eat harmful food and the males among us will find it difficult to overcome the jealousy of their partner...

For Aryeh Seter's previous articles
The computer and the brain according to Asimov
Why do chimpanzees have large testicles?