10/14/2026
It may be National Dessert Day but I want to share that when I was very young, I would pop a piece of candy in my mouth and suck on it for as long as I possibly could. I’d never swallow any candy still in a solid form.
So why do we eat candy?
Because it tastes good. A lot of our desires and food preferences are simply biological; our brain subconsciously craves calorie-dense foods because it helps with survival. So swallowing these foods is satisfying because our brain desires it.
Spitting out good-tasting foods goes against our biological drive.
Digesting sugary foods is what makes you feel "good" when eating sweets, not just the taste! Because sugar is high energy, our bodies are hard-wired to dump dopamine when you eat sugary foods--encouraging you to eat more!
Now imagine when our kids consume this.
Excess sugar, added sugars and other simple carbohydrates like white flour and 100% juice are associated with dental caries, metabolic syndrome, inflammation, hyperglycemia (or high blood sugar), diabetes, insulin resistance, overweight, obesity, heart disease, and even Alzheimer's disease.
Sometimes, the relationship is causal; other times, it is one component in a group of factors that leads to disease.
