LUDIC LOG

America has terrible taste, and for once I am not referring to the persistence of Whitney Houston's career. I mean to say that in terms of cuisine, our taste becomes more juvenile and less sophisticated by the day.

Now, certainly, I won't exculpate myself here. Readers of this space know very well my weakness for ballpark food, for breakfasts that prominently feature cartoon characters, for meat that comes in a sack. And while I flatter myself a good cook with a fairly sophisticated palate, time, finance and a legendary lack of willpower conspire to prevent me from preparing all my own meals. And I won't bore you with an extended discursus on everything that's wrong with American eating habits; that's a book-length topic that has already been covered by people much more skillful than I. (I will point the curious reader to the outstanding "Bad Food" chapter of Paul Fussell's excellent book Bad.)

What I'm specifically bugging about today is the presence of sugar in almost everything. Now, I like sugar (though see below) as much or more as the next fat-ass -- in the right place. Sugar is what makes things sweet, and I like sweet fine. My objection is that sugar has been put in places where it has no place, where it is entirely inharmonious with the intended flavor of the food. It has become commonplace, even ubiquitous in foods that are meant to be starchy (bread), salty (nuts), savory (dressings and relishes), bitter (alcohol, especially beer), and anything but sweet (tomato-based products, wines, soups, and even meats). Where a sweet taste is intended, enough sugar has been added to make it hyper-sweet; a bottled juice drink that consists only of juice (which previous generations thought sweet enough to drink unadulterated) is now so rare that its labeling must call attention to its absence of sugar. Where sweetness has no business, it appears anyway -- particularly in processed foods, such as packaged meats, canned meals such as pastas and soups, and pre-made sauces and seasonings.

Why would these products, in particular, need to feature sugar? The heart-clutching amount of salt in most processed & packaged foods at least has a semi-reasonable excuse for being there: salt is an inimitable natural preservative. It retards spoilage and is cheap, to boot. Sugar, on the other hand, is not a preservative, it's not that cheap, and it doesn't blend with the flavor of many products the way that salt does. Try preparing some carved turkey, some spaghetti and meatballs, a nice oil-and-vinegar dressing at home, using the ingredients in a packaged version of the same meal less the sugar. You'll find it's either no different or better. So what possible reason can there be for the dulcification of America? Can it just be the inevitable market response to our increasingly childlike tastes? Somehow, I don't think so.

Like most people who are about to throw out some bizarre, unsupportable nut-job theory, I will preface this speculation by saying: I am not normally given to conspiratorial thinking. But in light of recent discoveries that cigarette and alcohol manufacturers have deliberately cut their products in order to make people more chemically dependent on them, I don't really feel too much like a Kennedy assassination nut when I say: maybe the companies are putting lots of sugar in everything to get people hooked on them. To make them addictive.

Sugar, it's well-documented (see in particular the 1987 study sponsored jointly by the USFDA and their Canadian counterpart, noting the horrendous effect of the white stuff on Indians), is quite addictive for an unregulated substance. I myself, not generally a big fan of sweet, am completely addicted to soda -- while the caffiene may play a part, it's the sick slick sweet I can't get enough of. It's pretty much the one thing that I want all the time, and when I don't have it I think about getting it. I will sometimes drink it until I can't drink any more of it. Maybe it's just the buzz from this RC cola talking, but it's hard to imagine what tomato sauce and lunchmeat needs sugar other than to get people hooked on eating it.

I dislike the hippie/food-purist revulsion of sugar. It's a naturally occurring substance like any other, and isn't inherently awful, any more than any other product. I cringe at the Black Muslim creed that teaches that sugar is poison, as deadly to the body as knives, bullets or swine. And I roll my eyes at the control-freak parents who won't let their kids have a single pop or piece of candy, knowing that those kids will almost inevitably grow up to have serious food issues. But I believe in the Yorkeian notion of everything in its right place, and increasingly, C12H22O11 is sticking its sweet where it don't belong.