50 ‘Forbidden Foods’ You Should Never, Ever Eat (New Pics)

"For the lion’s share of human evolutionary history, the only foods that existed were natural foods. So on one hand, it makes sense that we would be attracted to foods that have a resemblance to natural foods. Fresh fruits and vegetables are examples," Dr. Geher explained to Bored Panda in an email.

"On the other hand, humans are omnivores. And from an evolutionary perspective, omnivores have an interesting approach to food. Omnivores evolved a curiosity regarding a variety of foods. This is why sometimes an omnivore will taste something that they may have never had before just to see if it tastes good and might be edible," he said.

"I would say for this reason, humans evolved to be open to eating foods with all kinds of visible features. We definitely tend to avoid things that are obviously overcooked or that are obviously rotten. But, again, we are omnivores. So humans are open to eating a variety of foods by nature."

Bored Panda was curious how people have been affected by the fact that, in modern times, they have plentiful and easily accessible food in developed nations. However, in the past, our ancestors lived under very different conditions.

"Humans evolved largely under conditions in which famine was common. Under such conditions, humans evolved to like food that would put fat cells on their bodies so as to help prepare for adverse conditions. We like foods that are very high in carbohydrates and salts because, in combination, these foods do that,” Dr. Geher said.

"Under ancestral conditions, such food preferences were healthy and adaptive. Under modern conditions, however, the world is not always matched to those ancestral conditions. Today, we have many processed foods that are extremely high in carbohydrates and salt (think doughnuts!)," he explained.

"People still tend to like foods like this because our ancestral tendencies have not had time to evolve in a way to match modern conditions— conditions under which food is plentiful. This is partly why we often prefer foods such as cookies, even if these foods tend to be very unhealthy today. This is a classic example of what we call evolutionary mismatch."

One of the main lessons to learn from this post is that you should never ever exclusively rely on just one of your senses to make sense of the world. When your senses work in concert, you get a far more nuanced picture of reality than when you’re left using just one of them as a crutch.

Now, pair that up with an instinct NOT to taste anything before fully examining it and you’re golden. (And to be fair, we’re not judging anyone. Many of us have accidentally popped some home decor knick-knacks or potpourri into our mouths, thinking it was candy.)

In other words, before you take a big juicy bite out of whatever tasty treat you’ve found in a decorative bowl at your friends, examine it. Sure, it might look like candy, but does it smell like it? What does the thing feel like? What’s its texture and weight? If you take just a bit of time to examine the thing, you’ll probably quickly realize that it’s not edible at all. In other words, you’ve found an example of forbidden food. Snap a pic and share it online. There are lots of online communities that love things like this.