Superstimuli and the Standard American Diet

In the animal kingdom, creatures sometimes exhibit behaviors called "fixed action patterns" which are evolved responses to particular stimuli that occur identically across the species, and are not learned.  The greylag goose, for example, has an egg-retrieving behavior that it will perform if one of its eggs rolls out of the nest.  The goose approaches the egg, lowers its head so that the egg is cradled against the underside of its beak, then tows the egg backwards to the nest.

This behavior is called a fixed action pattern because if you or I were to sneak up on the goose and snatch the egg while it was in the middle of retrieving it, the goose would continue to waddle backwards with its beak to the ground all the way to the nest.  Basically the behavior is coded in the brain as a single unit, so that once the stimulus (it is always a unique stimulus) triggers the behavior, the animal has to complete the act, regardless of whether or not it is even successful.

Enter jerk scientist holding a volleyball.  The scientist flicks one of the goose eggs out of the nest and the goose watches it roll off, thus activating the fixed action pattern egg-retrieving mechanism.  But the scientist also gives the volleyball a gentle tap, so that it comes to rest in the reeds a couple of feet away from the goose's own egg.

The goose is like WOAH.  That egg is bigger, it's rounder, its shinier, and had I better go get it right this fucking instant.  And now the goose is maneuvering around this volleyball that is nearly the same size as its body, trying to drag it back to the nest, while neglecting its unborn gosling.

The volleyball in this study is known as a superstimulus.  When an animal's brain is instinctually programmed to respond to distinct qualities, like big/round/shiny, it can easily lose track of the holistic significance of the true egg. 

Many animals respond to superstimuli.  A beetle in Australia mates with female beetles that are large and orange- but prefers mating with a bright orange beer bottle, because it's bigger and oranger than any female.  There are obvious risks to a species if enough of its members neglect their normal behaviors in favor of behaviors that only resemble normal behaviors.

So what if humans are likewise dangerously motivated by superstimuli?  It's not difficult to decode the role of the superstimulus in human sexual ideals (see Tom of Finland art, or the chests of most female porn stars).  Except for the occasional case of body dysmorphic disorder, or cosmetic surgery mishap, these exaggerated models are benign.  But dietary superstimuli have the potential to be extremely damaging to the many populations worldwide that are becoming subject to them.

Our species has evolved to prefer foods whose traits once denoted safe and nutritious sustenance.  What follows are three examples of qualities we seek out in our food sources:

-Sweetness: Naturally sweet foods like ripe fruits have a very high antioxidant content.  In fact, the more ripe (and therefore sweet) a fruit is, the higher the antioxidant content, and the more nutritious it is.

-Familiarity: Foods we have consumed before without becoming ill are remembered.  (Even more memorable are foods that have made us ill.)  If something looks the same, smells the same and tastes the same as something we've eaten before, we surmise it is safe to eat again.

-Uniformity: If our bunch of grapes consists of 28 round, similarly-hued and -textured pieces of fruit, plus 1 pale, shriveled, or squishy fruit, then we chuck the odd man out.  (This sounds similar to the familiarity idea right now, but has different implications when it comes to processed food).

Processed foods essentially act as superstimuli that lead us away from the natural foods that our genes once "instructed" us to eat, i.e. our real goose eggs.

The bastardization of sweetness is obvious; our tongue rewards us for eating a bag of Skittles, because it thinks we're consuming a sweet, ripe juicy fruit.  If we eat the fruit after the Skittles, our brain message us that we're barking up the wrong tree, namely, an apple tree.

Familiarity is probably the most compelling reason why Mcdonalds has successfully gone global with 31,000 restaurants.  Americans in Paris are likely to forgo the foie gras and escargot in favor of something they recognize, like a cheeeeeeseburger.  YES.  Ironically, our primal side interprets Mcdonalds as safe food.

When I think about the tendency to gravitate toward uniform foods, I remember being young, and picky about eating raw fruits and vegetables because each bite was a little different from the last one.  Slight variations in texture, color and flavor stood out when compared to the other half of my dinner plate, a continent of macaroni and cheese comprised of utterly uniform noodles, and color more exact than a can of paint.  Our foods intoxicate us with processed perfection, distorting our judgment during the ancient game of "eat or throw".

So that is how I believe superstimuli are partially responsible for the popularity of junk food.  Ironically, humans' mass-production of foods and our ability to alter edible substances to our tastes is usually interpreted as a step away from our animalistic origins.  I think it's interesting that we might actually be slaving to our instinctual selves, preparing ever-more complicated foodstuffs to satisfy what is actually a very old craving for the simple nutrients that helped us to eat good caveman diets.

On a final note, I LOVE MACARONI AND CHEESE more than almost any food on this planet.  And I just ate a rice krispy treat.  I love junk food.  But I eat my veggies too.