The need for sweetness

Catalyst last night had a feature on artificial sweeteners and the possible/potential dangers of them. Apparently they might just possibly make you want to eat more and therefore become obese. Which is depressing for those who are deliberately using them instead of sugar because they think it will make them less fat. But it's early days in the research and I'm not going to write about artificial sweeteners. But it did get me to thinking about sweet things and why we need them. Why do we like sweet things so much? So I googled it and:

"Studies indicate that responsiveness to sugars and sweetness has very ancient evolutionary beginnings ... Newborn human infants also demonstrate preferences for high sugar concentrations and prefer solutions that are sweeter than lactose, the sugar found in breast milk. Sweetness appears to have the highest taste recognition threshold, ... By comparison, bitterness appears to have the lowest detection threshold, ... In the natural settings that human primate ancestors evolved in, sweetness intensity should indicate energy density, while bitterness tends to indicate toxicity. The high sweetness detection threshold and low bitterness detection threshold would have predisposed our primate ancestors to seek out sweet-tasting (and energy-dense) foods and avoid bitter-tasting foods. ... The 'sweet tooth' thus has an ancient evolutionary heritage." Wikipedia

Which is interesting but not totally convincing to me. And indeed as I read on I saw that it's only since 2001 that they have begun to understand sweetness receptors. I'm not scientific so I don't really understand it all but I think they are saying that there are particular genes that influence how you perceive sweetness and that some animals such as cats and animals that eat no fruit, do not perceive sweetness at all. And some animals of the same species have different combinations of these genes and therefore the attraction to sweetness varies. This would explain why some people have a 'sweet tooth' and others do not, though I am willing to bet that there is virtually no-one who actively dislikes sweet things. I, for example, have a preference for savoury over sweet I think, whereas David definitely is the opposite. Nevertheless if you put a delicious dessert in front of me I won't refuse it. I just don't seek it out.

So I searched some more about why we like sweet things, but I have to confess I'm not very persistent and soon got bogged down in various self-help sites persuading you to use their method of beating your sugar addiction. However, what came out of this was that it does indeed seem to be an addiction and the commercial world is very good at pandering to addictions. Hence the addition of sugar or artificial sweeteners to almost everything - some expected - like soft drinks - and some not - like hamburger buns at MacDonalds, and toothpaste. There's something in the sweetness that makes you crave more. So if you worry about this read the small - or should I say tiny print - on the labels of what you buy. I think the ingredients are listed in order of percentage in the item, so if it's the first item that's the main ingredient. You might get a shock.

Going back to the Catalyst program - at the end one of the researchers said, that if you were worried about artificial sweeteners you should not return to sugar which we know is bad for you - you should just go for the unsweetened version. And 'no added sugar' does not mean unsweetened.

Sweet things are also used as rewards and to celebrate - another reason for making them desirable. We want what we can't have. When I was growing up just after the war - we still had rationing and the rationing of sweets was one of the last things to go. As a result the sweet ration was actually used and we were doled out a sweet every evening - I seem to remember liquorice allsorts and Quality Street as being regulars. I suspect that if there had been rationing we would not have had quite as many sweets. Although we were allowed to spend our meagre pocket money how we liked - and it was often on sweets (lollies you call them in Australia). There were entire shops dedicated to them and you used to be able to buy things for as little as a farthing (a quarter of a penny). Interestingly they don't exist much anymore except as tourist attractions, or as expensive chocolate shops - but chocolate is another thing - not quite sweet - so another article sometime perhaps.

Then there's the luxury/extravagance/decadence element. Sweet things as a slightly sinful thing. A safe sin - well not evil anyway. So is it all to do with a need to do 'naughty' things? Is this another reason for it? Does it give us a thrill? I see there is a program coming up on television Zumbo's Just Desserts which will feature competitors concocting fantastic desserts. They are the ultimate in decadence really aren't they - and they have been throughout the ages. And as well as those that you see on the television and in glossy cook books there are the pastry shops - patisseries in France and pasticcieri in Italy. Think Brunetti's in Lygon Street. Coincidentally, earlier in the evening when I had turned on the television there was Nigella making a beautiful looking fruit salad - mangoes, pomegranates and blueberries with lime juice - natural sweetness from the fruit and a little bit of tartness with the lime juice. And then with one of those irritatingly coy looks she has, she went to her fridge and added a big chunk of chocolate! A bit like the sugar in the yoghurt. Sweet as sin.

I think honey is Ok though. But I will look into that some other time. I'm going to book group tonight and no doubt there will be some delicious cake to go with the coffee. I won't be turning it down.

"a little of what you fancy does you good." Well I hope so.