I know it’s hard to believe, but this world we live in filled with food stores, next day delivery and stable safe shelter…. was not the norm for the majority of our species and greater primate history.
In fact, this world we’re accustom to (the last ~10,000 years) accounts for less than 00.1% of the historical reality that our ancestors experienced an a daily basis. Having to deal with the constant threat of starvation and lack of shelter while somehow developing the ability to biologically function for long periods of time without one or either.
And yet, here we are! Much, in thanks to our flexible biological machinery which adapted ever so resiliently to these harsh conditions and allowed us to overcome these periods of hardship. One of these adaptations being, the ability to store and seamlessly transition between energy substrates (glucose & fatty acids) and maintain the ability to “Do Work” until a solution to the problem was found. This feature, in todays world, is coined “Metabolic Flexibility”.
