When we feel frustrated or depressed, many of us turn to food, especially food loaded with carbohydrates or sugar. We don’t eat because our stomach tells us to, but because our brain does .
An increase in the concentration of sugar in the bloodstream stimulates the production of insulin and this, in turn, makes the neurons of the brain receptive to tryptophan , from which serotonin , known as the pleasure hormone, is created.
Our body needs balanced glucose levels and an excess in its intake can cause a slight euphoria, followed by a small dysphoria. But if the amount consumed has been very high, the dysphoria will be greater, causing a phenomenon that has come to be called ” sugar blues ” or “sugar crash”. In short, it acts just like a drug.
Most people live under its effects continuously . Recognizing its addiction is very complex since it is a product of habitual consumption and its intake and therefore the glucose level are almost never lowered. There are those who are so “hooked” on sugar and consume it in such high and prolonged quantities that they do not realize the lack of it until they find themselves without it.
Are you addicted to sugar?
The addiction to sugar is such that it exceeds 8 times that generated by cocaine . This was demonstrated at Princeton University by studying 43 rats that were exposed to the consumption of both substances. After a period in which they were subjected to a diet of sugar water and cocaine, 40 of them chose sugar over coke . In addition, when withdrawing access to sugar water, they found that all of them experienced an increase in anxiety, characteristic of the abstinence period, as well as a greater taste for alcoholic beverages to which the researchers gave them access.
And the dangers of its addiction are not only nutritional. Cases have already been described linking hyperactivity in children or learning difficulties with excessive sugar consumption . Even its dependence, like that of caffeine and alcohol, is present in the diets of patients with schizophrenia.
Film director Darren Aronofsky knew the implications of sugar consumption and its suppression, so before shooting the film ” Requiem for a Dream ” he asked two of its protagonists, Jared Leto and Jennifer Conelly, to refrain from consuming it for A whole month. Thus, they would arrive at the shoot knowing perfectly well what it feels like to suffer a withdrawal syndrome.
The sugar-free diet of Leto and Conelly, in the film Harry and Marion, and that feeling of withdrawal is not the only thing that brought them closer to the real world of drugs. There is a curious scene, in a supermarket, where the extras are real drug addicts, captured near the filming location, who are said to have been paid in drugs for their work. There are those who may think that it is nonsense to make a film that shows how drugs destroy dreams and have real junkies to shoot it. But isn’t it better to serve asparagus powder that is snorted in a high-end catering?
Snorting asparagus, chocolate and alcohol
In 2011 a group of British chefs deconstructed white asparagus to a powder. And the way in which they wanted to give their guests a taste of their elaboration consisted of presenting it lined up in stripes, on some mirrors and instead of cutlery they offered them a card and some tubes made with a fake 100-dollar bill. They called the dish Colombian white asparagus and tasting it cost nothing more and nothing less than 50 pounds per gram, about 60 euros at the time.
A few years earlier, in 2007, Belgian chocolatier Dominique Personne had the idea that it would be fun to change the way we consume chocolate. While preparing the catering for a Rolling Stones party, he remembered his grandfather’s old snuff machine and created a new one made of methacrylate, which fired a mixture of cocoa and other substances such as mint and ginger. The aforementioned little machine was a complete success in his Antwerp store. Of course, in the box where it was sold there was a warning that it was not healthy to sniff excessively and, of course, that it should not be used by children.
Little was missing for this fashion to jump into the world of the night. In the summer of 2011, the so-called “oxy shots” or ” inhaled shots ” appeared in Mallorca, a very dangerous way of getting drunk quickly with high-proof drinks at the cost of causing injuries to the respiratory system and the central nervous system.
