There’s the holiday season.

Americans in particular really seem to have a habit of celebrating everything with sugary foods. We have cake on our birthdays, pies on Thanksgiving, candy on Halloween… and then there’s the holiday season. In America, we may as well call it the sugar eating season given all the sweets we eat during this time. Today was the last day of school which meant cookies, candy, and cake just about everywhere you look. We had a small party in one of our classes, and I was one of the only ones to bring something salty. Why exactly is it that we eat so much sweets during this time anyways? It certainly isn’t because it’s good for us, nor is it because we can’t get ahold of it any other time of the year. Perhaps it’s because we have always related sweets to happiness and celebration. For as long as humans have existed, we have valued sugar; for the early hunter-gatherer peoples, it was a valued nutrition which helped in their survival. But these days, we live easier lives and really don’t need this nutrient so much – especially in massive amounts that we consume during the holidays.