你知道你有5種不同的食欲嗎?

你知道你有5種不同的食欲嗎?

When you're hungry, what do you eat? Do you reach for fresh fruits and vegetables or grab chips or ice cream? There's likely no consistent answer. After all, appetite is complicated.

當你餓的時候，你吃什么?你會吃新鮮的水果和蔬菜，或者吃薯片或冰淇淋嗎?可能沒有一致的答案。畢竟，食欲是復雜的。

Your appetite is a lot more complicated than you thought. (Photo: Andrey_Popov/Shutterstock)

In studying how animals eat, researchers learned about the human diet in the process. They found that humans have five distinct appetites that work together to make sure we get the proper amount of nutrients our bodies need to work efficiently.

在研究動物如何進食的過程中，研究人員了解了人類的飲食。他們發(fā)現(xiàn)，人類有五種不同的食欲，它們共同作用，確保我們獲得身體有效運作所需的適當數量的營養(yǎng)。

"It is a mistake to think of appetite as a single, powerful drive to eat," researchers David Raubenheimer and Stephen Simpson write in New Scientist. "We need separate appetites to keep track of various nutrients, and hence to construct a balanced diet."

研究人員大衛(wèi)·勞本海默和史蒂芬·辛普森在《新科學家》雜志上寫道:“將食欲視為單一的、強大的進食動力是錯誤的。”“我們需要不同的食欲來記錄各種營養(yǎng)，從而構建一個平衡的飲食。”

The five appetites are for protein, carbs, fats, sodium, and calcium.

這五種食物分別是蛋白質、碳水化合物、脂肪、鈉和鈣。

"Those five have been singled out by evolution for good reasons," they write. "One is that there is a limit to how complex biological systems can get and still operate efficiently. We couldn't have specific appetites for dozens of nutrients. Another is that these nutrients are needed in very specific quantities. Third, some components, like sodium, were often rare in our ancestral environments and we needed dedicated machinery to seek them out, for example in mineral deposits."

他們寫道:“這五種食欲被進化論挑出來是有充分理由的。其中之一是，復雜的生物系統(tǒng)能夠達到并仍能有效運行的程度是有限的。我們不能對幾十種營養(yǎng)物質都有特定的胃口。另一個原因是，這些營養(yǎng)素的需要量非常具體。第三，有些成分，比如鈉，在我們的祖先生活的環(huán)境中通常很稀有，我們需要專門的機器來尋找它們，比如在礦藏中。”

Raubenheimer and Simpson discuss the five appetites and what else they learned by studying how nature solves this problem in their new book, "Eat Like the Animals: What Nature Teaches Us About the Science of Healthy Eating."

羅本海默和辛普森在他們的新書《像動物一樣吃:自然教我們健康飲食的科學》中討論了五種食欲以及他們通過研究自然如何解決這個問題而學到的其他知識。

Researchers followed a Cape baboon like this one and recorded everything she ate for 30 days. (Photo: Benny Marty/Shutterstock)

Raubenheimer and Simpson didn't start their appetite studies working with humans. It all began with locusts.

羅本海默和辛普森并沒有開始對人類進行食欲研究。一切都始于蝗蟲。

As researchers at the University of Oxford in the 1990s, they started their appetite experiment by putting 200 locusts in individual boxes. They created 25 foods that were a combination of protein and carbohydrates at different concentrations. Some were a mix of high protein and high carbs. Others were low protein and high carbs. And there was every other combination of the two nutrients, which are the main ingredients in a locust's diet.

上世紀90年代，牛津大學的研究人員就開始了他們的食欲實驗，他們把200只蝗蟲放進單獨的盒子里。他們創(chuàng)造了25種由不同濃度的蛋白質和碳水化合物組成的食物。有些是高蛋白和高碳水化合物的混合物。其他的是低蛋白質和高碳水化合物。還有這兩種營養(yǎng)成分的所有其他組合，它們是蝗蟲的主要食物成分。

Each locust was fed just one of the food combos until they reached maturity. They were allowed to eat as much as they wanted. Researchers recorded how much they ate, as well as how much weight they gained, and how much fat and lean tissue they added. Using all this information, they were able to determine the balance of protein and carbs that best allowed the locusts to thrive.

每只蝗蟲只被喂食一種食物組合，直到它們成熟。它們想吃多少就能吃多少。研究人員記錄了它們吃了多少，體重增加了多少，以及增加了多少脂肪和無脂肪組織。利用所有這些信息，他們能夠確定怎樣的蛋白質和碳水化合物的平衡，能讓蝗蟲最好地茁壯成長。

The researchers found that although the locusts were on a limited diet, they tended to eat the ideal amount of protein. For those that were on a low-protein diet, they overate carbs to get the protein they needed. For those that were on the high-protein diet, they ate too few carbs to keep their protein levels at the correct amount.

研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)，盡管蝗蟲的飲食有限，但它們往往會攝入理想量的蛋白質。對于那些低蛋白飲食的蝗蟲來說，它們過量攝入碳水化合物來獲得它們所需的蛋白質。對于那些吃高蛋白食物的蝗蟲來說，它們攝入的碳水化合物太少，無法保持它們的蛋白質水平在正確的水平。

In a second experiment, locusts were given access to two different foods with varying combinations of protein and carbs. Again, they ate just the right amount to get the ideal balance of protein and carbs.

在第二個實驗中，科學家讓蝗蟲吃兩種不同的食物，其中含有不同的蛋白質和碳水化合物。同樣，它們吃適量的食物以達到理想的蛋白質和碳水化合物的平衡。

"This demonstrated that when locusts have a wide choice of foods, their two appetites collaborate so they consume an optimal diet. But when they are given imbalanced foods, as in our first experiment, the appetites for protein and carbohydrate compete, and protein wins," the researchers write. "That suggested that, more so than carbohydrate, protein has to be carefully calibrated in the diet."

“這表明，當蝗蟲有廣泛的食物選擇時，它們的兩種食欲會相互配合，從而吃到最理想的食物。”但是，當它們被給予不平衡的食物時，就像我們的第一個實驗，蛋白質和碳水化合物的胃口競爭，蛋白質獲勝，”研究人員寫道。“這表明，蛋白質比碳水化合物更需要在飲食中仔細調整。”

The 5 appetites of humans

人類的五種食欲

Having five distinct appetites works seamlessly in the natural world, but a glut of ultra-processed foods in real life leads to obesity. (Photo: Colorcocktail/Shutterstock)

Researchers replicated their locust work in a way with humans. They had a volunteer group of 10 people stay in a Swiss chalet for a week. For two days, they ate whatever they wanted from a buffet. Then they were broken into two groups for two days. One group ate from a high-protein buffet, while the other chose from a low-protein, high-carb, high-fat buffet. On the last two days, they ate from the original all-encompassing buffet.

研究人員以一種人類的方式復制了他們的蝗蟲工作。他們讓一個由10人組成的志愿者小組在瑞士的小木屋里呆了一周。兩天來，他們吃自助餐，想吃什么就吃什么。然后他們被分成兩組，持續(xù)兩天。一組吃高蛋白自助餐，而另一組吃低蛋白、高碳水化合物、高脂肪的自助餐。最后兩天，他們吃的還是原來的自助餐。

The human volunteers responded like locusts, the researchers said. Those on the low-protein diet ate more calories and carbs to get the protein they needed. Those on high-protein diets consumed fewer calories. The results are published in the journal Appetite.

研究人員說，人類志愿者的反應就像蝗蟲一樣。那些低蛋白飲食的人攝入更多的卡路里和碳水化合物來獲得他們所需的蛋白質。高蛋白飲食的人攝入的熱量更少。研究結果發(fā)表在《食欲》雜志上。

This five-appetite system works seamlessly in the natural world. But in our modern lives, filled with ultra-processed products like cookies and cereal, pizza and ice cream, the system struggles and can't work as it should. More than half of the typical diet in the U.S. and U.K. is made of ultra-processed foods, the researchers write.

這五個食欲系統(tǒng)在自然界中無縫地運作。但在我們的現(xiàn)代生活中，充斥著像餅干、麥片、披薩和冰激凌這樣的超加工產品，這個系統(tǒng)掙扎著，不能正常工作。研究人員寫道，美國和英國超過一半的典型飲食是由超加工食品構成的。

"The thing about ultra-processed foods is that they tend to be low in protein — which is expensive — and high in cheap carbs and fats. It is these foods that have largely been responsible for the dilution of protein in Western diets since the 1960s. And the more ultra-processed foods people eat, the more calories they need to consume to get the target intake of protein, with disastrous consequences," say Raubenheimer and Simpson.

“超加工食品的問題在于，它們往往蛋白質含量低(這很昂貴)，而廉價的碳水化合物和脂肪含量高。自20世紀60年代以來，正是這些食物在很大程度上導致了西方飲食中蛋白質的稀釋。人們吃的超加工食品越多，他們需要消耗的卡路里就越多，才能達到蛋白質的目標攝入量，這會帶來災難性的后果，”羅本海默和辛普森說。

"Ultra-processed foods make us fat, but not because we have strong appetites for the fats and carbs they contain, as is often thought to be the case. Rather, it is because our appetite for protein is stronger than our ability to limit fat and carb intake. So, when protein is diluted by fats and carbs, our appetite for it overwhelms the mechanisms that normally tell us to stop eating fats and carbs."

“超加工食品會讓我們發(fā)胖，但這并不是因為我們對它們所含的脂肪和碳水化合物有很強的食欲，而事實往往如此。”相反，這是因為我們對蛋白質的食欲比我們限制脂肪和碳水化合物攝入的能力更強。因此，當蛋白質被脂肪和碳水化合物稀釋時，我們對它的食欲就會壓倒通常告訴我們停止食用脂肪和碳水化合物的機制。”