Introduction
While watching Thor, the God of Thunder and Lightning, unleash his fury on our town, a cup of a tea and a smoke would add to the excitement of watching streaks of lightning fill up the sky. In pouring me a cup of tea and stretching for the sugar, a thought crossed my mind.
Does Thor have the ‘sweet tooth’? What does he consume in order to quell that desire that we mortals crave for sometimes? Just sugar or sugar alternatives? And does he fling lightning bolts at us when he doesn’t get his ‘fix’ of saccharine?
Surely, he doesn’t have to bother about cavities, decay and other health issues that crop up due to the excess consumption of sugar?
But enough about him with all due respect… back to reality!
Is sugar bad for you?
Day by day, sugar is not necessarily gaining in popularity due to issues with fatigue, obesity, gum disease, raising bad cholesterol, lowering of the body’s immune system, eczema, liver and pancreatic disease, kidney disease and even premature aging according to some studies.
And why does this happen?
Most of us consume white (refined) sugar, which has been processed to 99.9 % purity completely drained of vitamins and minerals that would be otherwise present in light or dark brown sugar (due to the presence of molasses).
A Life without sugar: What’s a boy to do?
So, with this discovery, there are two options that one has:
a) Stop eating sugar or condiments that use sugar
b) Search for other alternatives that are healthier and get with on with your damn life
Obviously, option a can be considered as a form of celibacy, so it can’t be ruled out leaving us with option b…
Sugar Alternatives
‘Out of the frying pan and into the fire’ is how one can describe this predicament of switching from sugar to alternatives. Aspartame, for example, caused such a furore (over rats dying) that the Food and Drug Administration did not pass for a long time, and it was only recently that it was considered ‘safe’.
Not even Splenda could get away with bad press, thanks to disgruntled sugar companies stating that its slogan ‘Made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar’ was in poor ‘taste’ as it isn’t grown or cultivated in a natural environment.
Such is the fate of artificial sweeteners!
But as always, with the inventiveness of man being the distinguishing factors between us and every other living being, it is amazing that we have several safer alternatives that are and healthy minus the unnecessary bad press that comes along with it.
These natural alternatives are either extracted from plants or gathered from other natural resources that we have at our disposal here on Earth.
The most common natural alternative to sugar made from sugar cane or beet is honey, except for the fact that it adds a healthy number of calories once consumed. Agave sugar is another alternative although the plant takes a long time to grow and mature in order to consider it a viable source of sugar with the demand often exceeding the supply. Rice syrup is another option made from cooked and fermented rice and which does not go well with baked products.
Sugar derived from plants such as maple, birch and dates also serve as alternatives to refined sugar and can be found in health stores as well.
In Closing
And while the lightning and thunder rages on, people (like me) find it pleasurable to muse over mythological figures and their habits in this age of science and reason.
Who knows for sure?
Perhaps in embracing these man-made (and dare I say, creative) assumptions, one can’t help but notice our desire to ‘deify’ or ‘personify’ the fury of Nature and that which is incomprehensible. And perhaps the same is true of sugar as well…
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