There is nothing in the world, and I mean it, that gives me the same feeling than eating something sweet. It is a mix of a high feeling with a soothing effect. For the majority of my life, I said ‘give me bread and dessert’ and that would literally constitute the perfect meal for me. I did not mind to skip meals often if at the end of the day I had my sweet treats. Sugar kept me going in a frantic world and became one of my best friends. It took me a life time to realise that I had a real addiction to sugar. The interesting part like any addiction is that I was able to manage myself well in all areas of my life, but when it came to sugar my willpower would just disappear. I know I am not the only one who feels this way, so let us explore why are we biologically wired for sweet things.
Stone Age and Sweetness
The world might have evolved a lot, but our DNA as human beings is the same as the Stone Age. We are still wired as our hunter ancestors.
So, why do we like sweetness so much? It’s because in Stone Age times the taste of sweetness signalled foods that were both safe (there are no foods that are both sweet and poisonous) and packed with energy. In a time where food wasn’t easy to find, it was an advantage to eat the fruit before anything else could, so we evolved to feel pleasure when we tasted something sweet and to over eat it.
What science says about sugar addiction
When we eat something sweet, a hit of a chemical called dopamine floods our brain. This is the same chemical that is released when we have sex, play video games, scroll down social media, drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, or use illegal drugs. And we can never get enough of it.
In a 2016 study, mice were given a lever with which they could activate their own dopamine neurons (thanks to a special optical sensor). The researchers saw a peculiar behaviour: if they left the mice to their own devices, the mice spend all their time pressing the lever to activate their dopamine neurons, over and over. They stopped eating and drinking – to the point where eventually the researchers had to end the experiment because otherwise, the mice were going to die. The mice’s dopamine obsession had made them forget their basic needs. This is all to say that animals, including humans, really like dopamine. And eating sweet food is an easy way to get a hit.
In another study with rats, it was concluded that sugar was eight times more addictive than cocaine. When rats were given the choice between cocaine and sugar, rats choose again and again to consume sugar. The research also concluded that sugar altered mood, created dependency and rats experienced sugar withdrawal symptoms in the same manner of what illegal drugs cause.
Modern life fuels sugar addiction
Nature intended us to consume glucose in a specific way: in plants and occasionally. In the rare occasions where starch or sugar was available, there was fibre as well. This is important, because the fibre helped to slow our body’s absorption of glucose.
Unfortunately, when humans find something good, we tend to take it to the extreme and do more damage than good. Plants have been concentrating glucose, fructose and sucrose in their fruit forever, but a few millennia ago, humans began to do the same: we started breeding plants so that, among other reasons, their fruit would taste even sweeter. Fruits today are the result of many generations of breeding to reduce fibre and increase sugar. They are quite different than their counterparts thousand years ago, they are bigger and sweeter. They are also no longer seasonal as we have them available throughout the year. So even when we eat fruit, a natural source of sweetness, we need to be mindful about it.
And then, by boiling sugarcane and crystallising its juice, humans created table sugar – 100 per cent sucrose. This new product became very popular in the 18th century. Sugar sources changed over time – we now extract sucrose from beets and corn, too – but regardless of which plant is used, the resulting sucrose added to processed foods is the chemical copy of the one found in fruit. What’s different is its concentration and the convenience to get it.
Sugar has become ever more concentrated and available: we have gone from eating in-season foraged fibrous fruit in prehistoric times to eating minuscule quantities of sucrose in the 1800s, to eating more than 94 pounds of the stuff per year today. We keep eating more of it because it’s hard for our brain to curb its craving for things that taste like fruit. Sweetness and dopamine feel forever rewarding and in this process we poison our bodies with the amount of sugar consumed.
Today, the vast majority of supermarket shelves are packed with products that contain mostly starch and sugar. Fibre is nowhere to be seen and this is on purpose: the little fibre is often removed in the creation of processed foods, because its presence is problematic if you’re trying to preserve things for a long time.
To get this point, place a fresh strawberry in the freezer overnight. The next morning, take it out to thaw on a plate. If you try to eat it, it will be mushy. Why? Because the fibre was broken into smaller bits by the freezing and thawing process. The fibre is still there (and still has health benefits), but the texture is not the same. Fibre is often removed from processed foods so that they can be frozen, thawed and stored on shelves for years without losing their texture.
Something else is done to foods to turn them into successful supermarket products: their sweetness is increased. These are the basis of food processing to first strip away the fibre, then concentrate the starch and sugars (and sometimes salt).
As the mice experiment shows, it’s important to understand that the inclination to reach for a chocolate isn’t our fault. It’s not a willpower issue – far from it. It is a deep, old evolutionary programming, however the programming that in the past made us survive, in modern days with the type of food we have available, is making us slowly sick. However there is hope!
Personally, this was probably one of the most difficult health milestones for me to master, to decrease my sugary intake. Three things that helped me on this journey are:
- Awareness: to stop blaming myself for lacking willpower and feeling bad about it. When I re-lapse in my sweet addiction I take things easy and remind myself that I am genetically programmed for it and I am living in a world surrounded by temptations everywhere. I am just being human, so let’s try again;
- Whole Foods: I fill my meals with whole foods rich in fibre and I have decreased the intake of processed foods. When I shop, I remind myself that processed food is usually full of sugar, depleted of nutrients and fibre. I now know that if I eat it, I am going to crave more. So, I avoid as much as possible to bring it home.
- Fruit: I use fruit, the whole fruit, for my daily sweet fix in moderation.
With time as you become healthier (you give your body all nutrients that needs), your sweet tooth cravings diminish. Nowadays I go for many weeks without eating something sweet.
So, if you have a sweet tooth why don't you try some of these strategies.
Sources:
Glucose Revolution, Jessie Inchauspe, Octopus Publishing Group
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