This week’s New Yorker has an article by Burkhard Bilger called “The Search for Sweet,” about the difficulty of creating substances that taste good enough to serve as a substitute for sugar. (Unfortunately, the article’s not online.) At one point, Bilger notes that the less sugar you eat, the less of a taste for it you have. This made me think of something that happened yesterday. I’ve been told that it’s good to eat some peanut butter before working out, because it contains a lot of protein. I was doing that, but a few weeks ago I decided to switch to sugarless peanut butter, as it’s healthier. When I first had a spoonful of it, I was overwhelmed by the concentrated pungency of peanuts. But I’ve grown to like it.
Unfortunately, I ran out the other day, so yesterday I had a small spoonful of Skippy Creamy Peanut Butter instead. Blecch. I could barely eat it. I used to like the stuff, but yesterday it tasted so artificial and un-peanut-buttery. Give me sugarless peanut butter or give me death.
It’s amazing how many processed food products contain sugar. We really are addicted. It’s a good thing the Middle East isn’t a hub of sugar cane instead of oil, because then we’d be even more screwed than we are now.
Bring on the ethanol and switchgrass sugar-substitutes…
All commercial peanut butters tend to contain high amounts of sugar. That is why they are so addictive. Try coming to my store, Whole Foods, and having the freshly-ground, organic peanut butter… you’ll never be the same.
I started buying natural peanut butter because it is much healthier. Now processed peanut butter tastes like plastic. ich! If you don’t eat natural peanut butter you don’t know what your missing.
This is all part of the preparation to bring on Senomyx which is a substance using biotech drug techniques. It has a GRAS (generally recognized as safe) rating from its own trade association thereby by passing FDA testing protocol. It is a drug that when passed on the tongue by drinking fools the senses into thinking it is eating…say…sugar…but you are not. It is heralds an epoch of chaos where children, people in general will not be able TRUST there sense. I have a Senomyx thread if you are interested.