Not So Sweet

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Sweets are known to be one of the most indulgent flavors humans long for. We make sure to save room in our stomachs during a meal so we can treat ourselves with having our last bite of food being dessert. An important mantra my grandmother used to share is, “Eat dessert first, life is short,” suggesting that we deserve sweets before the nutrition of our actual meal.

We call it one of our comfort food and it seems to cure any wrongdoing, like how ice cream and chocolate can fix emotional turmoil. We eat sweets when we’re feeling distraught, lost, and empty and use them to fill ourselves. Sugar can be known to heal burns on your tongue after taking a sip of a hot beverage. And we especially know that sugar can mask bitter, unpleasant tastes, and so we use it to help “the medicine go down.” By this logic, sugar is good for us as it can help us get physically and mentally better.  
We also use the word sweet to describe things that aren't food, like people and feelings. We may call our loved ones sweeties our sweethearts, or when someone gives you a thoughtful present you may tell them they are sweet. Sweet inherently evokes positive emotions and a kind of love and caring that seems to comfort us. 
The reason we’re so drawn towards sweets may draw from our survival instincts. From when we were merely hunters and gatherers, we were attracted to eat fruit from trees and bushes which is how we got our nutrition. Today all of our foods are high in sugar, especially processed, inexpensive foods. Our food systems profit off of specializing in one type of crop, and corn is easy to grow quick and in very large quantities. Instead of growing nutrient dense corn, we instead create high-fructose corn syrup that has no nutritional value and happens to be the first ingredient in dozens of snacks and juices in our grocery stores. Food systems were able to profit from our natural tendency to magnetize to sweets, and although this used to be healthy and imperative to our survival, it begins to bite us back and take advantage of our taste buds.

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