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I Want to Eat Healthily, So Why Do I Eat Junk Food?

The lure of the fast-food joint often proves too much—don’t be too hard on yourself, though, because junk food contains an unholy trinity of the nutrients your body craves the most.

Your body is biologically hardwired to crave sugar, fat, and salt to survive potential famine. Sugar is released by the body as fast-acting energy; fat gives an incredibly concentrated supply of long-lasting fuel; and salt is essential for body-fluid balance. These were typically quite difficult foods for our hunter-gatherer ancestors to find, and no single naturally occurring food contains these three enticements together. So when you get your hands on a fast-food burger, with its sweetened ...