Sugar

Asians do love their sugar. Most Thai food for example contain (not so) little amounts of sugar. Curries, papaya salad and pad thai – all have sugar, which partly explains the delicious taste. Granted sugar can enhance the taste of many meals (take teriyaki sauce for example, which is basically soy sauce and sugar), but Thai seem to go over the top with excessive amounts of sugar. I have never been to India, but apparently it is even worse, considering it leads the world charts with both sugar use and diabetes case per capita. Most Malay drinks are sweet to the point that they are barely drinkable. I had excellent chrysanthemum tea in China, but Malaysian one is ruined with enormous amounts of white powder. Lipton Ice Tea sold in Asia is, for one, much sweater than its European counterpart. Fruit shakes, fresh juices, yogurts and lassis have unholy amounts of sugar as well. Tasty meal and a sweet drink is an excellent combination, though, as long as the sugar contents is reasonable, which is unfortunately not the case in Malaysia or Thailand. And do not get me started on pastries and desserts. Like sugar in everyday meals was not enough, most desserts are sickly sweet. Combined with snow-white dough and you have got a recipe for obesity, diabetes and ruined teeth. Some desserts are not even good at all, just sweet and unhealthy. For example, bakeries in Hong Kong and Shanghai were terrible.
I like sweet stuff as much as the next person, but consuming all this sugar daily made me thinking what the hell I am doing to my body. Another realization I made recently is how addictive sugar is. After having a little bit of sugar (like a single Oreo cookie) makes me immediately crave more, even if I didn’t want it in the first place. It is really hard to stop until there is something left to consume. Sigh. One more thing about sugar is that mosquitos and bedbugs apparently love sweet blood, so consuming all that sugar makes you a desirable target for them. Now it would be fun to stop consuming all the sugar and see if that makes any difference with mosquitos (hopefully no more bedbug encounters). This is one goal worth pursuing.