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Why is ice cream so delicious?
Ametrine Lavender
Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, UK
We have evolved such that our brains reward us for consuming sugary, salty and fatty foods. Ice cream is perceived as delicious because it contains high levels of sugar and fat, both of which our bodies/brains crave, since they are sources of immediate and sustained energy release, and can be stored as body fat for leaner times.
It also helps that ice cream melts in the mouth. Our brains tend to like foods with certain textures, and those whose textures change in certain ways as we consume them. Enjoyment of foods that melt in the mouth probably evolved to reward us for eating saturated fats, which are semi-solid and melt at mammalian body temperatures.
Originally, these would have been a good thing, when food sources could be scarce for several months of the year. The more fat reserves early humans could lay in, the better their chance of surviving winters and of being able to reproduce successfully. Human pregnancies are long, and bound to encompass at least part of the periods of food scarcity that early humans faced around winter and early springtime.
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