The industrial pioneer Henry Ford actively monitored his employees' social lives and eagerly battled the United Auto Workers, but he was no match for granulated sugar. Ford worried about eating it, fearing the sharp crystals would tear his stomach lining and cause internal bleeding.
For the vast majority of Americans, sugar creates joy, not anxiety. Maybe too much joy.
In the U.S., the average person devours 60 pounds of it every year. And our nation is consuming 19 percent more sugar than it ingested in 1970.
How sugar-addicted have we become?
- This New York City bar made someone a custom cocktail that combined bourbon, strawberries, cinnamon, Bailey's and a crushed Hostess Twinkie.
- The Washington Post reports that the city's Georgetown Cupcake has become a full-fledged tourist destination, drawing long lines of customers -- even in the sweltering summer heat.
- With the help of Starbucks and other coffee bars, Americans have managed to turn coffee into dessert. Get this: even a "skinny caramel macchiato" reportedly contains a whopping 32 grams of sugar.
Fifty years ago, abstaining from desserts was generally enough to keep one's sugar consumption in check. But today sugar -- often in the form of high-fructose corn syrup -- seeps into our diets through a host of non-dessert foods: ketchup, peanut butter, salad dressing and even loaves of bread.
Beyond the obvious reasons for rethinking our romance with refined sugar (weight gain, tooth decay and other health problems), there's another reason: a nation with an enormous sweet tooth may not be tasting what it's eating.
Sugar can enhance flavors, but it can also mask them. I enjoy making pies, and, like the blogger at Joy the Baker, I have encountered several pie recipes that go overboard on the prescribed amount of sugar. The fruit flavors end up playing second fiddle to the sugar. This blogger provides a pie recipe recommended for those who "love apples and hate to see the taste cluttered by too much sugar-sweetness."
Chocolate is a good example of America's embrace of sugar overkill. Blogging for Slash Food, Erich Kuersten wrote, "Sugar-filled junk chocolate is as rich in American faux history as the Las Vegas pyramids and we wouldn't have it any other way."
For me, a trip to Brussels many years ago was an epiphany. Visiting some of the city's beloved chocolate shops was perhaps the first time that I tasted chocolate and felt as though I really tasted . . . the chocolate. It was a lesson in how sugar can interfere with intrinsic flavors.
Whenever they add sugar, Americans should consider all their options. Although consumers today have much greater food choices than their parents ever had -- organic produce, free-range poultry and gluten-free products, for example -- their sweet pursuits often lead them down a bland, one-dimensional path.
For most people, sugar means one of two refined varieties: granulated or powdered. Blackstrap molasses, a byproduct of refining sugar, is an option that most people overlook. One of my favorite side dishes is a mashed sweet potato with a tablespoon of molasses, a teaspoon of cinnamon and a little butter. Molasses adds a wonderful, smoky flavor that standard table sugar lacks.
Another bonus is the nutritional value of molasses. Unlike white sugar and corn syrup, which are largely stripped of their nutrients through refining, molasses has high levels of iron and manganese. Outside of dairy products, it's hard to find a food or condiment that has as much calcium per ounce as molasses has.
Maple syrup is another option, not just something to pour over pancakes. It adds a distinctive flavor to foods, and one of my favorite recipes is broiled salmon with a sauce made with maple syrup. Raw honey or minimally processed honey is another way to sweeten foods while preserving some nutritional value.
With all due respect to Henry Ford, sugar isn't something we need to fear. It enhances the pleasure of eating many foods, but we must think sensibly about it. There are a variety of sugar options besides the refined version, and, in whatever form we consume the sweet stuff, it's time to set some limits.