Sweet Temptation

A love for sugar starts early … and stays

Paywalls are so annoying—get rid of them with a paid subscription, $6 a month or $65 a year. And a big thank you from me!

Sugar is a blessing … and a curse. As babies, delighting in the taste of first birthday cake, we start down the path of sweet tooth for life. Taste buds sing to the rush of sugar and the seductive textures of velvet-smooth ice cream, chewy chocolate chip cookies, and oh so many more. Of course we love sugar!

Sadly, sugar and health don’t pair well and therein lies the curse. Sugar’s bad-guy reputation is based on its troubling association with serious health conditions including diabetes type 2, obesity, high blood sugar, insulin resistance, higher triglycerides, metabolic syndrome, plus it’s just awful for your teeth. Newer studies have even coupled excess sugar consumption with a disturbing link to memory problems and cognitive deficiencies.

Natural sugars …

It almost goes without saying that negative health implications do not apply to naturally occurring sugars, you know the ones in fruits, dairy foods, and grains. The body needs these sugars and the brain in particular depends on them to meet its high energy demands.

The problem we are addressing concerns what we now call “added sugar,”

the stuff that makes our treats taste so yummy.

As you no doubt have assumed, we eat way too much sugar. Americans consume on average seventeen teaspoons of sugar daily. I know this might not sound like all that much, but it adds up to a whopping sixty pounds of sugar a year! Picture a staggering sugar heap for a moment to get the real picture.