06/06/2026
🍔 Most people know fast food isn’t healthy. What many people don’t realise is that these foods are designed around some of the strongest reward signals in human biology.
For most of human history, calories were difficult to obtain. Sweet foods signalled valuable energy. Fat signalled a concentrated fuel source. Salt was essential for survival. Our brains evolved to seek these things out because they increased the chances of making it through another winter, famine, or failed hunt.
The problem is that our biology has not changed nearly as quickly as our food environment.
🧋Modern fast food combines refined carbohydrates, added sugar, fat and salt in concentrations that our ancestors would rarely, if ever, have encountered. A milkshake or frappe can contain more sugar than many people should consume in an entire day. Some breakfast meals exceed 1,000 calories before lunchtime. Many products deliver large amounts of sodium, saturated fat and rapidly absorbed carbohydrates while providing very little fibre.
Much of that sugar arrives in forms that are absorbed extremely quickly. Soft drinks can deliver the equivalent of dozens of teaspoons of sugar in just a few minutes. Some burger buns contain surprisingly large amounts of added sugar despite being marketed as savoury foods. Unlike whole fruit, which comes packaged with fibre and takes time to chew and digest, these sugars enter the bloodstream rapidly and in large quantities.
The body responds not only to how much energy we consume but also to how quickly it arrives. Rapidly absorbed carbohydrates produce large spikes in blood glucose and insulin. Repeated exposure to this pattern contributes to insulin resistance, one of the hallmarks of type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome. Excess calories are more likely to be stored as fat, not only beneath the skin but also around internal organs and within the liver itself. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is now one of the most common chronic liver conditions in the developed world.
🍟 Many ultra-processed foods provide plenty of calories while removing much of the fibre that would normally slow digestion, support gut health, and help regulate appetite. People can consume a large amount of energy yet find themselves hungry again a few hours later. Hunger returns, more food is consumed, blood sugar rises again, and the cycle repeats itself.
Over months and years these repeated cycles can begin to alter the body’s metabolism. Excess energy is stored as fat, insulin becomes less effective, blood sugar becomes harder to regulate, and inflammation increases. Blood pressure often rises. Cholesterol and triglyceride levels may become abnormal. Together, these changes increase the risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, cardiovascular disease, heart attack and stroke.
Calories are only part of the picture. These foods are also engineered to be highly palatable, easy to consume, and difficult to stop eating. Food manufacturers understand very well that humans are drawn to sugar, fat and salt. Those instincts helped our ancestors survive. In a world of drive-throughs, meal deals and ultra-processed snacks available 24 hours a day, the same instincts can work against us.
An occasional takeaway is unlikely to cause harm. The concern is what happens when these foods become everyday staples rather than occasional treats.
The human brain evolved for a world of scarcity. Fast food is a product of abundance. That mismatch is proving costly.
The video below features entrepreneur Bryan Johnson taking a detailed look at the nutritional profile of a range of McDonald’s products. Whatever you think of his broader views on health and longevity, it raises some interesting questions about the relationship between modern food environments and long-term health.
https://youtu.be/agF-JwliFw0?si=2XtggBDTyyqBjc5D
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Richard Ashton BSc (Hons) Acupuncture Lic. Ac., Dip. (Tuina), MBAcC
British Acupuncture Council member: https://acupuncture.org.uk
