The System of Satisfaction
Though it may seem that we have endless reasons to eat—to celebrate holidays, to beat stress, to pass time between Super Bowl commercials—there’s only one real reason why we need food: for energy. That energy allows our organs to function, our muscles to move, and our bodies to keep warm. And to a large extent, our brains help control how we convert food to energy. To help understand the process that your body goes through to use energy, we’ll break down the metabolic path into two phases.