Sugar News

From a very long article in the current New Yorker by Burkhard Bilger, called The Search for Sweet...very worth reading:

" When Columbus introduced cane to the New World, sugar was an exotic luxury. Most Europeans had never eaten sugar.

By 1700, the Americas had become a vast sugar mill and the English were eating 4 lbs per person per year. By 1800,

they were eating 18 lbs; by 1900, 90 lbs. Last year , the average American consumed about 140 lbs per person per year....

50 % more than the Germans, or the French and 9 times as much as the Chinese."

 

Now special companies are finding blends with taste potentiators or chemicals. Stevia is the only natural sweetener that gives us fewer calories. All the rest are chemicals and potentiators,such as Saccharin, Sucralose (Splenda), Aspartame, Neotame, cyclamate and one I see frequently in combination, Acesulfame-K (K for potassium). If the quantities of the chemicals are small, they don't have to put it on the label. It will join the other "natural and artificial flavors." 

 

Do read the article if you are interested in the details of sugar and taste buds...sugar receptors. By the way, I thought it

interesting that receptors for salty and sour have not been found yet.

 

"Artificial sweeteners, far from diminishing our appetite for sugar, often seem to reinforce it."  I suppose we could go for

spicey, salty, tangy, or sour. I tend to crave sour more then sweet.