If you've seen That Sugar Film, you'll know what the Bliss Point is. For those who haven't, I highly recommend finding and watching That Sugar Film. For those who don't have the time for that - the Bliss Point is the point at which the food industry can not add any more sugar to a product to make it taste good.
It was discovered with science, of course, when a flavour technician for Doctor Pepper was taste-testing new flavours. No shock, then, that the more sugar he added, the better a flavour tasted. Up to a point. When that one high point was reached, more sugar made it taste worse. He named that peak, the Bliss Point, and it's spread everywhere since then.
It's not just in sweet stuff. It's in savoury stuff, in any sauce you care to name, in anything that you open and use. The food industry finds ways to put sugar in everything... and when they can't cram sugar into it, they'll add carbohydrates.
I'm positive a certain amount of carbs fit into the Bliss Point. They metabolise into sugar without making a thing taste too sweet. And, let's face it, carbs can be tasty. That's our body telling us that it's found a source of energy that's way easier to deal with than fats.
However, the path of least resistance makes men, rivers, and metabolisms crooked. Going for the 'easy fix' puts our bodies in a bad place. Carbs are easy, but our bodies are designed to run on fats and forage. So things break down, and you get a rise in all sorts of maladies. Diabetes, Hyper-insulinaemia, Atheriosclerosis, Alzheimer's, ADD, ADHD, ASD... and various other disorders of the body.
But since we've thrown fats under the bus, modern medicine only has one answer - less fats, more carbs. Eat more greens, go vegetarian. Go vegan. It's like recommending more kerosene to put out a fire. It just doesn't work. Sure, for some people, you get limited health benefits, but it's just a way for other health problems to sneak up on people who think they're doing the right thing.
The food industry isn't any help. They make their money by making things easier and more convenient for us. There's heaps of "healthy" food out there with sneaky carbs and sneaky sugars masquerading as good food, but it all comes down to the Bliss Point. How much of this sugar replacement do we need to make this otherwise bland product tasty?
Since Hubby is a diabetic, we've had to eliminate all the easy stuff. And it turns out that you can use lots of another flavour enhancer to make meals delicious - salt.
Yes, we all know that too much salt is evil. But how do we know? That's right. Medical advice from people in charge who are essentially paid to let sugar slip by. As long as it's not called sugar.
They dress it up as "nectars" or "evaporated fruit/cane juice" or "all natural sweeteners", but it's still sugar. And the carbohydrates are worse. They can actually be all-natural ingredients (buckwheat, rye, quinoa, etc) that are the new "superfood" and allegedly healthy. But guess what they break down into, folks? Yup. Sugars.
And in the United States, especially, you have High Fructose Corn Syrup. A by-product of subsidising the corn industry. It's very evil because, not only is it sweet and tasty, but it also stimulates your hunger hormones and makes you want to eat more foods containing High Fructose Corn Syrup.
The good news - such as it is - is that the food industry is starting to notice a trend towards whole foods and a shunning of carbohydrates in general. However, since fats are still "evil", they can only do so much. I have seen pre-prepared Zucchini Noodles and Riced Cauliflower in my local Woolies, so there is some hope.
I'm still very suspicious of everything that comes out of a cardboard box or a pop-top bottle, all the same.
(Picture © Can Stock Photo / bds