Sugar, AGAIN.

I am waiting in line at the food bank. I have arrived very early, in hopes of a good supply of vegetables. Lately, I have mostly gotten potatoes and onions. Wonderful for soup, but I want to make pasta salad, and potato salad, as it is too warm for cooking during the day. As the line-up gets longer, a staff member comes out with a basket, to offer us a treat. How kind, a lollipop. They would never offer a beer, or a rum and coke, or even cocaine, for that matter. But sugar, well, we all know we should eat less sugar, but, after all, it is just a little sucker, and you can "just say no". Just say no, when I am currently feeling food deprived, panicky over money, stressed into immobility. Yesterday, I ended my day by eating half a bag of chocolate-peanut butter chips, and readimg an entire book, partly to escape the heat, partly in a sugar-abetted state of non-functionality. Just say no, to my daughter, from thousands of miles away, calling the local cupcake shop, and ordering me a cupcake for Mothers Day, wanting to give me SOME sort of treat. Just say no to the dancer offering me her trust, along with one of her favorite candy bars. Just say no to the enormous selection of sweet goodies at the food bank, offered as treats. "You don't do sugar, well, we have diabetic goodies, with no sugar". But lots of chemicals. In our evolution, sweets and meat were difficult to get. Grains and vegetables were easy to acquire, and grain stores easily. An untrained harvester can harvest enough grain for two weeks in a half day of harvesting. Vegetables for one person for one meal can be harvested in thirty minutes, and in many climates, there were vegetables of some kind available all year. Fruit was easy to get, but more limited in season, and harder to store. Sweets and meat were MUCH less available. None of us are adapted to enormous quantities of sweets, and very few of us are adapted to enormous quantities of meat. Our bodies are hard-wired to crave the energy we can get from sweets. Sugars in fresh fruits are in balance with fiber and nutrients. Dried or juiced fruits have a different balance between sugars, fiber, moisture, and nutrients, and should be eaten in limited quantities.