If there are any biologist in the house I need your help!

[Flying Whales 311]

Okay, if anyone in here can confirm whether or not this is even possible it would be much appreciated.

 

I have this crazy theory that if we as human beings committed to junk food over a few generations we’d adapt to junk food to where that is what our body needs as nourishment.

 

I understand that we’d have enormous amounts heart attack, stroke, heart disease and all the other crap associated with a bad diet, but could we force and adaptation that way if we as a race ate exclusively junk food?

[Starshine 16,333]

One thing I'm pretty sure of: Adaptation doesn't work that way :x

 

Yes, only those who can handle all the artery-clogging fat may live and the rest of us would simply die early, but then only a small part of us may continue with the whole procreation business.

[Bronium 512]

Well, that's not how it's going to work. Of course, there might be an adaptation where we have a high tolerance to junk food, and through selection pressures, we might see more people being able to eat more junk food.

 

But it isn't likely we'll see a dependence on junk food. Dependence is a bad thing and is a trait that has a low chance of being passed on, and an even lower chance of it's frequency increasing. Also, such radical change can't occur over such a small period of time, without some major catastrophe affecting all humans.

[JeanHover 326]

That would be a form of evolution (I think) and as you probably know evolution takes a crap ton of time. Like thousands of years time. Sooo you wouldn't really notice any changes within one lifetime, not to mention it would require both parents of a child to always eat junk food, as well as their grandparents, etc.

 

But yeah, it could work that way.

[aperture_tech 56]

Yeah, it could work, but it would take a very long time. As a matter of the fact, we might have to backtrack in some of our abilities a bit in order to be able to survive off the nutrients in junk food. But as was stated, this would take thousands of years.

[Solar Wind 595]

No. Well... It would take a VERY long time for the human body to change so drastically and it would DEFINITELY alter the physical form of us. We would be fatter, less active, and most likely a few more. Also the risk of heart attack and stroke would go WAAAY up.

In all honesty it COULD happen but lets hope it never does. Humans need a variety of foods for a reason to stay healthy. Some foods even enhance color, hair, and nail growth, as well as teeth and bones. If we stopped taking in these things we would sufer SERIOUS reprocussions. Honestly the question you asked wouldnt be worth it. In short there IS a reason people dont eat junk all day.

[Jadefire 2,797]

Evolution doesn't quite work that way. In the end, the human body will still need certain compounds to function, and the adaptation to pull and convert the necessary compounds out of junkfood will definately not occur over a few generations.

[Whiteshade 1,426]

Okay, if anyone in here can confirm whether or not this is even possible it would be much appreciated.

 

I have this crazy theory that if we as human beings committed to junk food over a few generations we’d adapt to junk food to where that is what our body needs as nourishment.

 

I understand that we’d have enormous amounts heart attack, stroke, heart disease and all the other crap associated with a bad diet, but could we force and adaptation that way if we as a race ate exclusively junk food?

 

That falls in line more with the addiction than evolution per se. Humans will not evolve over a few generations. Also note that ingesting junk food exclusively is not nutritious in any sense, and such prolonged self destructive action is more likely to eliminate the human species rather than trigger an adaptation.

[Bronyponyfanatic 41]

If we woke up tomorrow and the only thing that we could eat were ding-dongs and cake, then a lot of humans would either starve or get sick (diabetes and such). So in the end your just weeding out everyone who can't eat sweets.. But I do understand your logic.

[Flying Whales 311]

Ah, I guess my crack theory isn’t really plausible http://mlpforums.com/public/style_emoticons/default/dry.png. Thanks anyway, when things seem ideal they are almost always usually too good to be true. Ah well.

[Evilshy 5,090]

Ah, I guess my crack theory isn’t really plausible http://mlpforums.com/public/style_emoticons/default/dry.png. Thanks anyway, when things seem ideal they are almost always usually too good to be true. Ah well.

 

Of course it's plausible. Just highly unlikely and completely impractical. Hypothetical situation time:

 

If humans suddenly switched to an all junkfood diet, the human race would probably die out before enough this could happen completely, since junkfood is toxic in relatively smaller quantities than most other things we generally consume (compare an all junkfood diet to an all meat diet, for example). Many people would simply die before they could reproduce, and those with enough tiny differences in their digestive system to survive would be extremely fat and unhealthy, in the early stages of our hypothetical attempt a artificial selection at least. So basically, anybody left alive probably wouldn't be getting laid anytime soon, and quite frankly, probably wouldn't be able to, being so sickly and weak all the time. Of the small amount of women who actually do get pregnant, many of the babies would die due to malnutrition of the mother.

Also, you must factor in the fact that there are a hell of a lot of people who simply wouldn't do it.

 

If, however, we had some tyrannical government that really controlled everything, and we had some healthy scientists (whose reproduction is extremely limited, and only to create the next generation of scientists, and strictly forbidden to mix with the test subjects.) artificially inseminating eggs and growing babies in test tubes, it is possible that over quite a long time, we would have humans able to survive on junkfood. The new bodily functions that supply vital nutrients wouldn't be very well developed yet, though, and these humans wouldn't have much better lives than the previous set. Cloning would probably be required, especially in the early stages, due to the extremely small number of viable offspring.

Also, at this point, we might see speciation, meaning that there is no going back, since the only "normal" humans are the few scientists carrying out the experiment, and probably the government leaders. The human race would have officially evolved into something new, and probably not better.

 

Many more years of this would be required to get humans who are able to fully function on a diet of junkfood, and even then, it would be more likely for something somewhere to go horribly wrong and result in everybody dying.

 

But say it did work. We'd no longer need the scientists, and they likely would've died off and/or been assimilated into the new human race. We have successfully artificially evolved our entire race.

We'd still have some major problems. Junkfood is artificial, and therefore a much more fragile food supply. You can't grow it on a farm, you can't hunt it, you can't find it in the wild. If a few major factories were disable somehow, a lot of people would lose all their food supply, and prices would shoot up. If, say, a huge CME (coronal mass ejection) knocked out all the power on a continent (which is entirely possible and is in fact likely to happen soon, on an astral time scale, at least). Millions would starve to death, and be killed in fighting over the remaining supplies. The civilization on that continent could not recover without help from others, because any natural food would be basically be junkfood to them, overloading them with nutrients they already get from other sources, and depriving them of the vital sugars and whatnot they get in their junkfood. Basically, we'd be in the same situation I described above, except with no scientists controlling it and no "normal" humans to revive the human race if it fails. If something happened to the entire world, we'd die out completely in a few generations.

 

So, yeah. This wouldn't really work. And I spent waaaaay too much time typing this

[thegoodhen 698]

According to Darwins theories I don't really believe, this is not how the natural selection works. Basically, the individuals who have something that is not practical, die, because they get eaten because of being too slow or something of that sort.

 

If the only food available would be junk food and if it would kill people before they could lay eggs get children, it would work according to Darwin.

 

But this is probably not how stuff works anyway, so...

 

But I don't see us getting used to junk food any time soon. There might be a genetical mutation where somepony can eat extensive amounts of junk food without getting in any sorts of problems, but there isn't any reason why this would spread.

[Cocodrillo 1,565]

Cocodrillo the Mad Scientist In da house!

Ok so.. I´m sorry if I´ll write something that has been already said, but I won´t read all that stuff.

 

For everyone who says that it takes a TIME to evolute: Evolution is continuos and gradual - it´s STILL going on and it never stops.

The major thing is - the adaptation is one thing, but enough of nutrients is the main thing.

Junk foods are high at fat, sugar and sodium. We need all of them of course, but everything has to be in some kind of balance. Junk food lacks proteins, vitamins et cetera. Ok now it´s time to say it could lead to diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, affect your energy level, damage your liver (and heart), and of course contribute to poor performance and obesity. I don´t feel like saying that because, you know, what you said was that we could adapt. But the point is I don´t think a person wouldn´t even get a chance to get any of these. Because if the baby (even prenatal or postnatal baby) doesn´t get enough of nutritions, it won´t grow well, the body will never be complete and eventually dies. And when you imagine it takes two adenosintriphosphats on every single cell just to keep the body working... I don´t think it could work.

So sorry, I´m not diplomed biologist yet, but I´m afraid I have to say "no".

 

Basically, the individuals who have something that is not practical, die, because they get eaten because of being too slow or something of that sort.

Well actually there are 3 kinds of natural selection - one gets rid of extremes and prefers averages, one prefers extremes and gets rid of below averages, one just prefers extremes... well, so for that regulative natural selection - Yeah but thanks to "modern medicine" and so called "cultured society", this does not apply for the human kind anymore. All the somehow handicaped ones would die. And I love how you said "something that is not practical" .. all the swaggers and stupid hoes would die. (and that´s why I love Darwin) Edited September 13, 2012 by Suntouched Coco

[Cosmic Charlie 129]

The only way humans would become adapted to junk food is if it became the only food source and the only people who survived were the ones who could survive and reproduce eating only junk food. Over time the humans who need regular nourishment would die off from malnutrition and the considerably less healthy humans would inherit the earth. That is not the kind of future I want for my species, thank you.

[~Lawful Jordo~ 2,066]

Not in the way you think it will. Humans would eventually adapt to have a high tolerance for junk food, but this would take dozens of generations, all of which must hold a steady diet of junk food.

 

Our mortality/obesity rates would absolutely skyrocket in the process, but I do believe we would eventually build up a tolerance to fatty/sugary foods.