Sweet Seduction

On day five of Genesis, as one might imagine it, God was meeting with a committee of angels to put the finishing touches on the latest creation. “These poor creatures” He/She muses, “are going to have one heck of a life--let’s try and sweeten the pot with a bit of pleasure”. “Hey! I know”, calls out one of the seraphim (we think it was Raphael) “that fruit you invented was terrific--people will love the sweetness, let’s extract it and call it sugar”. “All right”, says God, “but only the sugar; no apples” At this point Grabriel blows his horn: “Well, sweet is terrific, but oonly one pleasure? How about we make procreation a little more fun!” “You got it”, says God--and the meeting adjourns.

And so the centuries passed with people enjoying sweetness and sex at every opportunity. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, however, it struck some that this pleasure thing was getting entirely ouat of hand. Something had to go--and that would be sex. Well, not gone entirely, you understand, but certainly put back in the closet where it belonged. Words like DECADENT and SINFUL were used to describe the exposure of a woman’s ankle. Self-appointed moralists determined what was proper, what was permissable fun, and where to draw the line. Bear-baiting, another popular sport for the masses at the time, was frowned on by puritans--not because it hurt the bear, but rather because it gave too muvh pleasure to the spectators. Purity was in, pleasure was definitely out.

Well, nothing like a couple of world wars to put things in perspective. Before long, sex was back with a bang. Playboy and Penthouse established that a woman’s ankle was acceptable viewing and once forbidden pleasures of the flesh were now even encouraged! Deep-down, hpowever, the puritan/Victorian spirit still waged its war--now with a new target: SWEET. Moralism joined forces with snobbism so that sweet pleasures became SINFUL and DECADENT and something only enjoyed by the great unwashed. Despite their greatest efforts, however, even the high-minded could be seduced by sweet (something they soon cloaked in moral acceptability by getting it in the form of honey or PURE maple syrup). Sugar was denounced from secular pulpits as white death; consumers were urged to find it on food labels and condemn the manufacturers. Parents were warned of the evils to befall those negligent enough to let their children have sugar--the dread hyperactivity! Criminals’ backgrounds were scrutinized, their evil deeds laid at the foot of sucrose. Prisons developed no-sugar policies to keep the inmates in a state of quietude. The murderer of a prominent San Francisco politician was given a light sentence because he acted under the influence of sugar--the so-called “Twinkie” defence.

On the surface it appeared that sugar was the target of the moralist/purist/sonbbist’s wrath. It soon became evident, however, that what really raised their ire was”sweetness” or, indirectly, pleasure. To wit, the flak about saccharin and cyclamates. “Unnatural” was the new cry, and any substance that attempted to provide the pleasure of sweetness without its alleged attendant miseries was going to have a monumental battle on its hands. Having the pleasure without paying the piper served only to outrage the moralists. The very notion that one could have enjoyment without any repercussions flew in the face of the very principle that moralists hold most dear--the wages of sin. If no wages were evident at first, it wasn’t long before they were trumpeted from every food-faddist pulpit. Lo, the wages of aspartame: headache, personality disorders, brain tumors, even, some claimed, weight gain. Aspartame and its cousin sucralose just weren’t natural.

At this point a new twist developed: sweet was still evil and certainly to be avoided in things like colas, twinkies and Kool-Aid. BUT, SUGAR IN VERY EXPENSIVE CHOCOLATES became morally and socially acceptable. Certainly the masses couldn't afford them--so this kept the snobs happy. Fancy--and expensive--chocolate
desserts became all the rage. Restaurants featured "Death-By-Chocolate
nights and Decadent Desserts were very in. Yes, the word "decadent" was
used, but in a wink-wink, nudge-nudge. fun kind of way. And, of course,
these sweets were "all natural", prompting a war of words between the
naturalists who felt that sugar comes from the earth and is therefore
"natural" and the ultra-purists who still only tolerate sweetness if it
comes from a fruit, fruit juice, or honey (special consideration for
unprocessed maple syrup).

As the war on sweet continued to rage, moralists began to use sweetness as
a way of judging their fellows. Much as the Victorians judged others by
their sexual mores, the New Victorians use sweet as their yardstick.
Shopping carts are examined for incriminating evidence; "bad" parents give
their children Kool-Ade (sweetened with sugar OR aspartame OR sucralose.
Recipes using honey instead of sugar are passed around; any child who
misbehaves is suspected of having a parent who lets sugar in the house.

Coincidentally, as sweet became a four-letter word, alcohol was undergoing
a similar illusionary transformation. HARD liquor, demon rum for example,
was being replaced on the cocktail circuit by soft liquors like wine and
beer. Never mind that the average glass of wine contains as much alcohol
as a regular mixed drink, wines--especially white--are seen as soft,
gentle, hardly even intoxicating. Sweet wines, of course, are only for the
unsophisticated or particular ethnic groups. Dry wines are much more chic,
even dry beer has become the drink of the knowledgeable.

What we have seen, then, are numerous ways in which nutritional fact can
be distorted to suit the philosophical approach of the distorter. Pleasure
is not evil, nor is the sweetness associated with it--but innuendo is
mightier than the scientific sword, and fallacies continue to flourish.

Why, one might ask, would a dietitian/nutritionist be-stir herself about
the mythology surrounding sweetness since, obviously, sweet is not an
essential nutrient. True enough, but, to this dietitian at least, the
sugar myth and the aspartame myth are but the tip of a huge iceberg of
nutrition nonsense. If people can be misled about one of life's little
pleasures, then how readily can they be fooled about things like mega
doses of vitamins, bee pollen, food combining, grapefruit pills and a host
of fakeries to numerous to mention.

Sugar does supply energy--a not insignificant element in the diet. A
growing problem for children of some over-zealous parents is simply
that--a growing problem. Diets devoid of sugar and fat (another favourite
villain) are simply unable to support growth, no matter the amount of
spinach and alfalfa sprouts consumed. On the other hand, too much in the
way of calories from either sugar or fat, will lead to a growing problem
of another dimension.

Dietetics is a combination of the science of nutrition with the art of
seeing that food gets eaten. A little honey on the carrots, some sugar
substitute on the coleslaw, brown sugar on your oat bran, sugar in the
cranberries; even a touch of molasses in the bean crock. The art of
sweetening the offering is very often responsible for getting the
nutrients ingested. Who could object when sweetening is practiced in
moderation?

A few quacks still persist. A "doctor" told a conference I recently
attended that the leading addictive drug in North America is sugar. There
are still those who feel we must be punished for our pleasures--the wages
of sin so to speak--and the wages are double if the sweetness is an
"unnatural" chemical. At the very least, lovers of sweet will pay with
obesity and hyperactivity.

But that view is becoming one of the minority as people accept the wisdom
of moderation in all things. The Victorian mind-set has had to accept that
safe sex doesn't mean no sex, and sensible sweetness doesn't have to leave
a bitter taste in the mouth.