Humans, and many other animals, evolved to seek out and enjoy anything sweet, because the sugars those foods contain provided us with much-needed calories and energy. That's a useful adaptation because in the natural world, sugar is relatively rare and comes in fruits and other plants that also provide other nutrients. But humans found a way to process sugar into its purest form, and we went wild for it. That's not healthy, but it is lucrative. The money to be made in sugar production led to some shady episodes in history. Even today, when we know that sugar is bad for us, it's hard to get away from it, even if you give up candy, soda, and sweet treats. Food products that aren't even supposed to be sweet contain sugar, and it's difficult to find alternatives without it. That's because those who profit from those products know we are evolutionarily wired to prefer anything with sugar in it.
Monday, January 23, 2023
The Sordid History of Sugar
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4 comments:
What is the name of the miracle fruit/magic fruit?
It's called miracle fruit, but the species is Synsepalum dulcificum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synsepalum_dulcificum
I once tested out miracle fruit tablets with some friends. I was late to the tasting party and was bombarded when I arrived by one of my friends waving a sour gummy worm in my face with the insistence that I taste it before I had the tablets. This was because they didn’t know if it was sour or not because they had failed to taste them prior to using the tablets. Needless to say, yes it was sour and after trying the tablets it was not. Neither was the lemon juice or anything else sour we tasted. Though, we still had to be mindful that just because things didn’t taste sour didn’t mean it didn’t have the effects normal sour things do!
Cool. I ordered some berry halves from Amazon just for shits&giggles.
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