Fruit Full, the sugar spell

sweet feed

Sugar has magical properties. Firstly, it is pure energy. All the carbohydrates we consume (sugars, starches and fibre) are made up of a combination of simple sugars such as glucose and fructose. Glucose is the basic molecule that all organisms use as an energy source. In the gut, more complex carbohydrates are broken down into simple sugars. Glucose is then used as fuel and the other simple sugars are either converted into glucose or stored as fat for future energy use.

Sugar makes food taste sweet. It preserves food, adds texture and bulk to recipes, decorates dishes and tenderises meat. It can be transformed into a hard, soft, stretchy, fluffy, moist or liquid substance. It combines perfectly with fats to make some of our most desirable foods, such as cakes and chocolate. It is also added to many foods which don’t taste sweet, because it actually improves their savoury taste. So called "hidden sugars" are found in bread, meat, soups, sauces, frozen foods, baby foods, even pet foods. The list goes on.

why we like sugar so much

So why do most of us like sugar so much?

The taste buds in our mouth, all 10,000 of them, have receptors which are able to recognise five tastes: sweetness, saltiness, bitterness, sourness and savouriness or umami. However, unlike for the other tastes, every taste bud has receptors for sweetness. When we consume sweet foods or drinks, these receptors release neurotransmitters which activate the pleasure centres in our brain. Endocannabinoids are then released which stimulate appetite, amongst other effects.

So sugar makes food pleasurable and encourages us to want to eat. Our taste for sugar starts early in life: breast milk is sweet, with roughly 40 percent of its calories coming from lactose, a type of sugar. This sweetness encourages the baby to eat more, which in evolutionary terms must have been a good thing when survival was tough, all those millennia ago. So our brains are hardwired to desire sugar, a source of pure energy which in evolutionary terms may have helped guarantee the survival of our species.

processed sugar

In the long gone past, people had access to sugar but only by eating foods such as fruits and the occasional honey. Fresh fruits contain very important micronutrients, such as fibre and vitamins. Crucially, they slow down sugar digestion in our gut, which helps to prevent blood glucose spikes.

Now, our food contains sugar which has been extracted from plants, then purified and added as free sugar. Its molecular composition is identical to that of sugar in fruits but its detrimental effect has become magnified. Because it has been added to an ever increasing range of foods and drinks, we now eat vast amounts of it. And, as we know, we love sweet food.

So, we eat too much: too much sugar and too much food. The term "empty calories" describes foods made up of pure sugars and fat, with few other nutrients apart from lots of calories. Eating more calories than our body requires, combined with a sedentary lifestyle, are the main contributors to the current obesity epidemic sweeping across the world.

sugar habit

In most parts of the world, the basic composition of the human diet has been remarkably consistent, up to a century ago. The core diet was made up of mainly starch. Other foods such as proteins, fats, spices, fruits and vegetables gave it taste and variety but they never replaced it. Just like with Spaghetti Bolognese, where pasta is the core starch ingredient, served with a tasty meat and vegetable sauce.

Most nutritionists agree that this type of diet has served us well for a very long time: a balanced diet should consist of about 50 percent starches, about 15 percent protein and no more than 35 percent fat.

The advent of refined sugar, together with an increased consumption of fatty meat, has fundamentally altered this traditional diet. In the UK, on average, 12 percent of our total energy intake now comes from free sugars (the recommended amount is less than 5 percent).

Wealthy and powerful people started this trend. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, the royalty ate a lot of sugar and fatty meat, whilst commoners ate the traditional diet. The Queen herself had blackened teeth, ruined from eating so many sweets. It was the same story at the French court in Versailles. They were the first to be able to afford what was then luxuries. However, when sugar became a cheap commodity, there was no stopping it from taking over the world, alongside fat, its perfect partner.

sugar and junk food

Profound changes in the way we eat have taken place over the last century. Terms such as fast food, junk food, takeaways, ready meals, all illustrate a common trend: we now often eat outside the home and when at home, we eat foods which have not been made by us but by a company somewhere else in the country. Food preparation has gone from the kitchen to the factory. On top of this, the traditional rituals of family meals, work canteens, school dinners, Sunday roasts, etc, have largely gone or are disappearing fast. Eating together is losing its importance as a social activity.

As humans, to be happy, we need to experience pleasures and if one is lost, we find another. And so, could it be that our once enjoyable times spent eating together are being replaced with the sugar highs of junk food and empty calories?

Our innate appetite for sugar is being expertly woven into an economic system whose only aim is to make money. Junk food is cheap to produce, it is cheap to buy, it tastes good and it fills you up: just like the poor man’s bread and jam of yesteryears (see About Sugar for more info).

As one says in French, "Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose" - the more things change, the more they stay the same...

references

The texts above were written by Françoise Sergy with references to these books:

Sweetness and Power, the Place of Sugar in Modern History, by Sidney W. Mintz, 1985.
Sugar, the World Corrupted from Slavery to Obesity, by James Walvin, 2017.
Sugar, a Global History, by Andrew F. Smith, 2015.

With thanks for advice on nutrition from:
Professor Julie Lovegrove, University of Reading, UK.
Professor Leanne Hodson, University of Oxford, UK.

A longer version is available to download as a pdf: A Brief History of Sugar

If you would like to find out more about the history of sugar, go to: About Sugar