How Sweet it Is; sugars and the body

    Our bodies, when we pay attention to them, include a group of tastes. These are usually referred to as sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and umami. They work by the chemicals activating  specific sets of nerves on the tongue. Bitter tastes are associated with poisons and sweet with high-energy foods. It is rare, in nature, for one taste to dominate and this causes a huge set of possibilities. Also, the "flavor" of foods is how the brain interprets the taste, smell, and texture of the food in combination.
    Since sweet tastes are an indication of higher-energy (calorie) foods, our bodies tend to favor sweet foods. Sweet tastes also activate a swallowing reflex within the mouth. (If a person is dehydrated but has trouble swallowing, try adding a single teaspoon of sugar to a glass of water.)
    In the past, a "taste" for sugar has not been a problem as, within most of history, getting enough food has been a much greater problem than eating too much. With modern food processing, concentrated sweetness is a cheap method of making food more appealing and, thus, has become a problem for many people.
    Natural sugars are a group of carbohydrates called saccharides. These may be monosaccharides which include glucose (a "blood sugar"), fructose (a "fruit sugar"),  and galactose. Disaccharides include sucrose ("table sugar"), maltose ("grain sugar"), and lactose (a "dairy sugar"). I put these common referents in quotes because, although associated with these types of foods, the sugars are not exclusively in these foods. Other substances can also activate the sweet sensors of the tongue. These include a group of chemicals called glycosides, some proteins and amino acids, and even some inorganic compounds.
    All fruits and vegetables include sugar as it is a by-product of the process of photosynthesis (conversion of water and minerals into food using solar energy). Some vegetation is considered a primary sugar source because the concentration of sugar is sufficient to warrant extraction and can be used directly as a sweetening agent for foods during cooking. Three of these are sugarcane, sugar beets, and Stevia leaves (which includes a glycoside rather than a saccharide)
    Historically, natural sugars have been used as sweeteners -- adding to food to make them more enjoyable to eat. It is possible, by the process of extraction, to increase the percentage of sugar by eliminating the fiber (pulp) and leaving a solution of sugar and water (still including other water soluble vitamins and mineral compounds). A final method of concentration reduces, or eliminates, the amount of water and non-sweet compounds until only relatively "pure" sugar remains.
    From the body's point of view, the unprocessed sugars are what the body was designed to appreciate. Eating an orange, combined with the pulp, is healthy (in moderation). Orange juice,with the pulp extracted, is much less healthy -- and a tablespoon of sucrose is the least healthy. Our bodies were not designed to deal with "pure", refined, sugars and making use of such within a diet can cause various problems, including an overwhelming of the pancreas causing diabetes.
    In order to combat problems associated with natural sugars -- including high calorie intake and tooth decay (the sticky sugar can remain on the teeth as food for bacteria) -- humans have created "sugar substitutes". Many of these substitutes activate the sweet sensors on the tongue to a higher degree than natural sugars. This means that a much smaller amount may be used for equivalent sweetness (increasing profits and decreasing any caloric intake that may still exist).
   This sounds like a win-win for producers of food as well as consumers but, as we will cover in the next blog, fooling "mother nature" can cause the body to react in ways that are not easily foretold.