Acharya Prashant explains that the body's urge to lunge towards food, especially high-calorie items like sweetmeats, is a trait taught by evolution. The survival of the body is greatly dependent on the brain, which consumes 10 to 25 percent of the body's energy. The body wants energy, which comes from calories, not proteins or vitamins. A person is declared dead when the brain is dead, so the body wants to preserve the brain the most, and the brain requires a lot of energy. Even when sitting idle but thinking, a lot of calories are being burnt. Therefore, as a survival trick, the body is attracted to high-calorie food. Another evolutionary reason for this behavior is that in the past, high-calorie food was scarce, perishable, and subject to competition from other tribes or animals like monkeys. There were no refrigerators to store food. This led to the instinct to eat as much as possible, as quickly as possible, to secure the energy source. This is how the body learned to accumulate fat. Unlike excess vitamins or minerals which are excreted, the body stores fats, always wanting more. This is an evolutionary trait that one must see happening in the moment of attraction to saturated fat, recognizing it as the "old orangutan" within. Evolution is lazy and has not helped us unlearn what the orangutan learned. If we do not unlearn, we will go the way of the Australian marsupial and become extinct. To remain wedded to evolution is to remain wedded to the body and its lazy, lousy teachings, which are past their expiry date. An alternate definition of religion is to not live by the teachings of evolution. Most people live by the teachings of one guru, whose name is Prakriti (Nature/Evolution). The religious man is one who has a different teacher and does not do what evolution has taught him. Thinking is also a lesson that evolution has given us due to our large brains. Intelligence, therefore, is not about thinking more. If you cannot stop thinking, you are a prisoner of thinking, just as a fat man cannot stop eating; both are doing what their bodies command them to do. Intelligence lies in seeing this game of the body happen continuously and being able to differentiate between the lousy action dictated by evolution and the right action dictated by intelligence. Evolution was a commendable teacher when we were jungle dwellers, but we have moved ahead too fast, and its lessons are no longer useful. We still carry the basic instincts of a chimpanzee, such as sex, fear, lust, and attachment. While these are necessary for a monkey's survival, for a modern human who does not need them, carrying them makes one the "real monkey."
