While driving through Maple Valley this week, I noticed the banner ads announcing “Maple Valley Days”; the city’s annual fair coming up on the 10th. As soon as I saw it, visions of fair food flashed in front of my eyes.

Burger in a bucket. Deep fried elephant ears. Bricks of oily curly fries. All the stuff I shouldn’t eat, but do anyway. I could blame it on poor impulse control, no self-discipline, or a made-up thyroid condition, but I think I’ll blame it on my hunting and gathering ancestors.

After a quick search online, I found an anthropologist who agrees with me. You see, our early human ancestors mostly lived on vegetables they found, and occasional meat they could catch (which was very lean). Salt was unheard of unless you lived near the ocean. Food with oil and salt simply didn’t exist.

When fatty or sweet foods were found on rare occasion, the body would quickly appreciate the extra satiety of these foods, and the brain was trained to seek those foods out.

That’s the theory anyway, and it keeps me from having to accept any blame. It’s not my fault, man; it’s my brain chemistry!

In recent years, we’ve learned a lot about how chemical levels in the brain can affect our behavior. If your serotonin is low, then you’ll probably be depressed. Very high testosterone or estrogen levels can lead to behavior problems and wild mood swings. If your dopamine levels are off, you may have trouble dealing with reality (this explains many of my issues).

Science still doesn’t understand consciousness yet, so we can’t completely define free will, or even if we have it. You might choose to eat that brick of curly fries and rationalize your actions with reasons such as “potatoes are a vegetable” or “I only get them once a year”, but how much influence did your brain chemistry have in that decision?

Food scientists know that they can get you to buy more of their items if they can hit all of your taste sensations at once. The right combination of savory fat, salt, sweet, sour, and bitter is the holy grail of food science.

For example, buffalo wings hit the fat, sour, and salt sensations pretty good, but you can only eat so many of them before it’s too much. Pair that with a sweet and slightly bitter blue cheese dressing, and you’re only a $9.99 appetizer away from flavor country.

With billions of food dollars on the line, corporations can reap huge benefits from finding the right flavor combinations through a little research and development. The companies that don’t do this research will quickly fall behind as consumers pick the more flavorful options.

Big chain restaurants are getting into the act by making your food easier to chew, which will get you to eat more. If you’ve ever wondered why most of the restaurant chicken you eat seems juicier and more tender, it’s because a lot of it is tenderized by machines and injected with salt and water. That means you don’t have to work as hard to chew it, and you’ll definitely eat more.

I think my favorite commercials are the ones by Applebee’s, which I consider ground zero for food science experiments. They bring out a new menu every few months, and something is always flavor-blasted. The ads always show food falling from a short height onto a skillet, while spices fly up in the air. Gravy and cheese are poured onto the meat, while sizzling shrimp in their own sauce spills over the filet.

I’m not complaining about these advancements. I understand how the game is played, and I’m still convinced that nacho cheese Doritos are nature’s perfect food. You’ll still see me in line for most of the foods at Maple Valley Days.

But I’ve gotten past the thought that I have complete free will to avoid them. Now, I just feel a lot less guilty about it. Blame it on the brain.