Sugar and spice and everything ... vice?

For two years, I have been ranting against sugar in this blog. Until then, I was merely talking about it.

I know that because I tracked down the post from March 2018, in which I wrote quoted from a report: "Sugar is the driving force behind the diabetes and obesity epidemics."

In a later post, I referred to sugar as the devil in disguise.  

Chemically speaking, sugar is present in many forms naturally.  Banana has sugar, and so does orange or any fruit.  Right?  Obesity isn't from eating one too many bananas.  Instead, it is because of the sugar that we add to every damn thing: "the health risks associated with sugar relate to overeating so-called free sugars, not those naturally present in whole foods like fruits, vegetables and milk."

I buy fruits all the time.  The last time I bought a fruit juice was, ahem, I have no recollection.  I rarely buy them.  Even if the juice has no added sugar, I way prefer to enjoy the fruit--fiber and all.

A couple of days ago, after a long time, I had a favorite ice cream.  The devil that comes packed in a simple and attractive container ;)

Of course we are biologically wired to taste the devil and, boy was the devil delicious to taste!

The food industry knows that they have to rethink their sugary concoctions before they kill their customers.  Nah, they are rushing to rethink because they are worried that governments might come down on sugar, and they want to get ahead of the curve ... by racing to find the best sugar substitute.

This New Yorker report is all about that race to "redesign sugar."  It is not about creating yet another artificial sweetener.  Nope.  "Researchers are now developing new forms of real sugar, to deliver sweetness with fewer calories."

You read that correctly.  Real sugar. But with fewer calories, so that you can eat your cake and the sugar too.

All because there is something special about the manner in which sugar gives us the high when it meets the taste buds:

Sucrose is delivered to the taste receptors on our tongues by saliva, as sugar crystals dissolve in our mouth, but only about a fifth of the sugar in a typical bite of cookie actually connects with a receptor. The rest of it is washed down into our bellies—calories we consume but never taste.

However, you reduce the sugar in the formula and the taste buds immediately know that it ain't sweet enough.

The challenge is, therefore, to provide that sweetness without all that extra "wasted" sugar that is responsible for obesity and diabetes.

It is easier said than done.

Because, our biology is too damn smart. After all, without the intricate and complex biochemistry, we humans would not here, right? You try to fool the biology, and you end up with some "collateral damage."

So, even as scientists are at work, what might be the way out?

[Even] the scientists redesigning sugar admit that the ultimate goal is to gradually lower sugar levels and retrain our palates—and that their innovations represent a sophisticated, but ultimately short-term, fix. Just as the only good substitute for sugar is sugar, the only good way to eat less of it, sadly, is to eat less of it.

Stay. Away. From. The. Devil!