The Human Inclination to Sweetness

Sweetness is without doubt the most pleasant of the tastes to humans. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary gives its first definition of sweet as "pleasing to the taste". - [Source]

Proverbs, which carry the traditional wisdom of humanity in many cultures and languages, affirm the desirability of what is sweet. "Sweet is the wine but sour is the payment", says an Irish proverb. - [Source] This is confirmed by the Bible. "Pleasant words are as a honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones," Proverbs 16:24 tells us. "And thou shalt bring for a drink offering half an hin of wine, for an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD," according to Numbers 15:10. This inclination to what is sweet extends, inevitably, to sugar and sugar cane. "Sugarcane is always sweet people only sometimes so," asserts a Myanmaran/Burmese proverb. - [Source]

Other proverbs note that other animals share this love for sugar. "Where there is sugar, there are mice," says a Malawian proverb. - [Source] "Where there is sugar, there are bound to be ants," according to a Malay proverb. - [Source] We are advised by proverbs to use sugar, or something pleasant, when we have something unpleasant to say. "Rebuke should have a grain more of salt than of sugar," advises another traditional proverb. - [Source] Writers reaffirm this inclination to what is sweet, and to sugar. "My coffee gets increasingly better the more I drink and the closer I come to the bottom of the cup, where all the sugar is. " observes the writer Jarod Kintz in This Book Has No Title. "Sugar and spice, and everything nice," says the nursery rhyme. "Adjectives are the sugar of literature and adverbs the salt," Theodora Bosanquet quotes writer Henry James in Henry James at Work (Bosanquet, Theodora. Henry James at Work. London: Hogarth Press, 1924, rev. 1927.)

This association of what is desirable with what is sweet, and with sugar, extends to desserts and sweet food. "Ice cream is exquisite. What a pity it isn't illegal," is a quote attributed to Voltaire. - [Source] [Source2] "Cookies are made of butter and love," says a Norwegian proverb. - [Source] "Seize the moment ... I got thinking one day about all those women on Titanic who passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night in an effort to cut back" ("Forever, Erma: Best-Loved Writing From America's Favorite Humorist" (1997), "Seize the Moment - June 25, 1991" [Source] observed Erma Bombeck.

Researchers have tried to find the scientific basis for this inherent human bias for what is sweet. "Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers have moved closer to understanding why some people cannot resist the impulses brought on by sweets...The researchers created mice with the same sweet-tooth preferences as humans by inserting the gene that codes for a human sweet-taste receptor protein into the animals. They also inserted an entirely different receptor gene into the taste cells of mice; thereby producing animals that perceive a previously tasteless molecule as sweet...Our own sweet preferences are likely to be not simply an issue of cultural differences, as some have argued, but to be genetically encoded." - [Source]

Apparently, the desire for what is sweet has a genetic basis. Other studies demonstrate how infants prefer sweets from the beginning. "Scientific evidence shows that children not only have a stronger preference for sugar than adults – but that sweet-tooth is hardwired from Day One.

'We know that the newborn can detect sweet and will actually prefer sweeter solutions to less sweet ones. The basic biology of the child is that they don't have to learn to like sweet or salt. It's there from before birth,' explains Julie Mennella of the Monell Chemical Senses Center.

Unlike adults, who often find overly sugary things unpleasant, Mennella says kids are actually living in different sensory worlds than adults when it comes to basic tastes.

'They prefer much more intense sweetness and saltiness than the adult, and it doesn't decrease until late adolescence. And we have some evidence they may be more sensitive to bitter taste,' Mennella says."

In any case, the overwhelming demonstration of the human preference for sweetness, and sweet foods, brings home the great gap or deprivation that a prohibition on sweets brings to people because of health conditions, primarily on diabetics. Humans, we are taught, have the right to life, liberty and happiness. And happiness is made possible by the things that bring pleasant experiences and satisfaction to people, on different levels. Cutting these off, for whatever reason, impacts on our quality of life. When something so basic, so fundamental, is cut off, we condemn people to living with a glaring handicap. Considering the increasing number of diabetics, partly as a result of a rapidly growing population, and partly as a result of diet and the circumstances of modern life, those who make products that respond to this need, to provide food that satisfies the human sweet tooth, without violating the prohibition on glucose and sugar, have a ready market - a large, and growing one.

This blog hopes to become a useful guide to diabetics, to dieters, and those who prefer low-calorie or less fattening foods, to take advantage of foods which are just as sweet, but are not forbidden. It is our offering to help improve the quality of life of diabetics and dieters, who can, like the rest of the population, satisfy their sweet tooth, without the harmful, potentially dangerous consequences.