Why do people crave sweetness?
Research shows that people have an inborn desire for sweet taste, one of the four fundamental taste sensations. Newborn infants have been observed to react positively to sweetness. Also, studies with adults, as well as infants, have demonstrated that the pleasant response to sweet solutions is a reflex, innate reaction, rather than a learned response. Historical evidence, such as a 20,000-year-old cave painting of a neolithic man robbing a wild bees’ nest, indicates that humans may always have had a preference for sweets. It also is likely that sweetness was used in early times as an indicator of safety in selecting foods. This phenomenon may have led to the search for sources of additional sweetness (sweeteners) to make foods more palatable. How is the desire for sweetness satisfied? Honey and fruits have long been sought out for their sweet taste; however, since it was first refined some 600 years ago, table sugar (sucrose) has been the standard for sweetness. Until recent decades, s
