A new crisis is threatening the prosperity of our great nation! This valuable white powder is being imported by the tons to satisfy the cravings of millions of deliciously delinquent addicts!
And the most frightening part? It's now being pushed on our children.
Doctors say this little girl might never come down. . . from her Sugar High! Why do our brains love sugar so much?
Even when we know it can be so bad for us? Chemically speaking, sugar is a broad term, a whole group of generally sweet tasting carbohydrates, basically anything on the ingredient label ending in that.
Sugar is a confusing part of our diet, because it isn't all bad. Your brain consumes a fifth of your daily calories, and it pretty much only wants those calories in the form of glucose.
So it's no surprise that our brains reward us when we eat sugar. When we take a bite of food, certain molecules activate receptors spread all over our tongue.
Taste buds evolved to pick out flavors that were important to our ancestors' survival. Bitter flavors could signal poisonous foods.
Sour might signal unripe or spoiled foods that could make us sick. Sweet tastes told our ancestors they had found a quick, easy energy source.
Those taste buds send signals to the brain, activating networks that help us learn whether we like what we're eating or if we should try it again. And sugar is a flavor we're born to crave.
This all worked fine when sugar was hard to find, but today, sugar is everywhere we look. The sugarcane plant was first domesticated around 8000 BC.
