What do you associate with the word ‘sugar’?
Images of sweet shops, filled
with an array of different goodies – ones that I could easily polish off in a
short amount of time given the chance. Happiness, joy and perhaps a rather
large sugar rush? All of these associations appear to portray sugar in a rather
positive light. However, in recent years sugar is no longer viewed in the sweet
and positive way in which we have grown to love this food. In fact, sugar is
now becoming the enemy thanks to Jamie Oliver and his campaign for a tax on
sugar. Even Amsterdam’s head of health service, Paul Van der Velpen, has gone
so far as to say that sugar is in actual fact a drug. (Full Article)
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Are they wrong? Well, let us go
back to our association with the term sugar. The terms: sugar rush and sugar
fix, all ascribe to the notion of a thrill. We want to eat something that will
fill us with pleasure for a matter of moments. So, if we were to replace the
subject of what we are describing to an illegal substance would we need to
adapt our description in any way? Not at all.
Words such as ‘addiction’ and ‘cravings’
are associated with both illegal drugs and our beloved sugar. I am sure all of
us have craved the sweet smooth, creaminess of chocolate the same way in which
a drug addict craves the sweet hit that their preferred drug gives them. However,
we appear to distance these two acts, even though they are essentially the same
thing.
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If we binge too much on sugar we
gain weight, increase our chances of diabetes and increase our risk of heart
disease. Yet, we still crave sugar? Joe Wicks even admits to having a sweet
treat now and again, ‘Guilty’ became his catchphrase for when he felt the need
to indulge. By using the term ‘guilty’ we can understand Joe’s association with
sugar and desserts. He knows that by indulging he is being ‘bad’ to his body,
hence why he feels remorseful about his addiction. However, that doesn’t stop
him.
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With the rise of Facebook videos,
instant sugar fixes are now available as virtual fixes. Tasty being the best
page for indulgent food videos, all of their food videos are decadent and
appealing. No longer are we bound to descriptions of foods and recipes in
cookbook, but we not have the ability to visualise exactly how the recipe
should look throughout each process. This heightens more senses than the
standard approach to cooking and makes it easier for novices to concoct something
up as they have a step by step visual guide. Food videos give us another dimension of the term addiction, as even I can admit that I am addicted to living my cravings through watching decadently sweet food videos online!
Join me on my next post where I will be discussing Tasty's much healthier sister, Goodful and how meat is not as popular as it used to be!
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