Well, we must agree to disagree on this one. Not being lower animals we don't just 'eat to survive'. Eating is something we plan, often as a social occasion. We think about it in advance, purchase foods/drinks, etc., whereas animals don't.
Unlike animals eating for us just isn't a primitive response. Whereas we may be able to manage breathing innately (which is a more-primitive function), we give much thought to eating... which means it's NOT an innate response to a primitive drive (hunger) like in more primitive species.
You might try having that discussion with an heavily pregnant woman at 3am when she wakes with a craving for pickles and ice-cream. Try explaining to her how it is all a conscious choice and nothing to do with primitive (biochemical) drives. You might (if you are particularly brave or foolhardy) suggest it is all in her head --"psychological" -- and not her body signalling the need to satisfy a required nutrient. If you survive the night intact, then we can talk.
Think about this: you haven't eaten all day, you just spent an hour at the gym... you find yourself at a fancy restaurant drawn in by the smells and sights of enticing food. You eat your fill... would you now feel hungry if that same food was offered all over again? Is eating
behaviour or
biochemistry?
Do you remember when people talked about going for a brisk walk to "work up an appetite"..? When did we lose sight of that concept? Now it seems that "exercise" is the key to weight loss!
If a "lower animal" can manage energy balance without weights and measures, are you suggesting that we are any less able?
Well, for thousands of years we've been farming... before industrialization that was pretty hard work for most... The vast majority of human beings for thousands of years have been working-class, and did toil pretty hard for their supper...
Consider the life of a medieval peasant farmer -- spring time busy with ploughing and planting, autumn busy with the harvest... so busy that the whole community would come together for this work -- followed by much partying and feasting. Summer...? Watching the crops grow..? Winter??? OK so if they have livestock there are a few hours each day of making sure they have food and water. Maintenance work around the farm, cutting some wood etc... but constant toil? There are parts of Europe where records show the peasants went into virtual hibernation during the Winter... nothing to do and so little food that they would huddle together and sleep for days on end.
In other parts of the World consider major building projects like the Pyramids. The latest understanding is that rather than being built by slaves these were made by Egyptian farmers/peasants with time on their hands -- work as a form of taxation. Clearly they still had plenty of time to raise a surplus of food. Of course the building was hard work (taxes) but consider that they did so in time that they did not need to be toiling on the land AND by all accounts they were well fed while so doing.
In fact look at any major civil engineering/construction -- from stone circles, through Egyptian tombs, temples and pyramids; Greeks, Romans, Incas, Mayans, European Cathedrals etc.. etc... and I think we can be pretty confident that there was a surplus of food, labour and energy. These people were not in a constant struggle from hand to mouth. It seems the cry in Rome was for "bread and circuses" as their leaders had to keep the citizens fed and entertained for fear they might riot from lack of anything else to do.
I am not trying to start an argument but I do think we need to shake up, or at the very least question, some of these widely held beliefs
We take many things for granted as if they are established facts and I'm not so sure they hold up to scrutiny.
