Agenda UV

Sweet is not just a flavour. It is a whole world of shades and sensations bounded to the pleasure of eating. “Sweeter than honey”, the poets sang in flaming verses, knowing that there is no more sublime delight than sweetness in the lips.

Since the late Middle Ages the sugar obtained from sugar cane, and later from the sugar beet, has been the sweetener par excellence of sweets and desserts, and also an effective way of preserving food. White or brown, table sugar sweetens palates in the five continents.

With the change of 19th century, the introduction of artificial sweeteners -saccharine and those that would come later- started a new period for the food industry. And also for the pharmaceutical industry. It was not necessary to ingest carbohydrates to taste the sweetness. People with a sweet tooth could enjoy the sweet taste no matter if they were diabetic or if they wanted to follow a diet to lose weight, and it was not necessary for medications to be so bitter anymore. However, a series of controversies were opened, both among experts and in the public sphere, regarding the long-term danger of those artificial additives, whose production by chemical means aroused a certain amount of mistrust.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the stevia, which comes from Paraguay, has broken into our daily life, and its presence is evident in restaurants, supermarkets and even in pharmacies. The secret is simple: it is a sweetener of natural origin (E 960) that does not add calories to the diet. There are people who attribute it even medicinal properties. The sweet panacea?