Sweet tooth

　　My mother always said that when I was three years old during the Lantern Festival, I ate thirteen Lantern Festivals in one go. If she hadn’t stopped it in time, I might have to eat more. Of course I can’t remember it, but I can remember my sweet tooth craze. There is a “milk station” near my house. If I do well in the exam, my dad will take me to eat a bottle of honey yogurt, or buy me a piece of “tiger skin cake”, which is a cream roll. Desserts were rare in those days. Leather cake is the ultimate dessert.
　　Later, when I was in high school, I would pass by a “dessert shop” in Beixinqiao on the way to school. There were many desserts there, colorful ones placed in small bowls. My favorite was almond tofu, which was soaked in sweet water. Besides sweetness, there was also a An almond taste, that’s probably my initial understanding of complex flavors. Middle school students at that time didn’t have much pocket money, so they didn’t have many opportunities to eat desserts.
　　Later, when I made money, I bought six egg tarts from KFC, and two cream rolls from the cake shop. Desserts are a must for western food. Later, I gradually started to have a concept of healthy eating, and I restrained myself from eating sweets.
　　Then, I had my son. On his second birthday, I took him to eat ice cream for the first time. I licked it first, and then I couldn’t stop. I held a small spoon in my hand and kept sending it to my mouth. It is said that children can taste the slight bitterness of vegetables, so most of them don’t like to eat green leafy vegetables. Breast milk is sweeter than milk. Breast milk used to provide almost all nutrients for babies, and it was the only way for them to feel the sweetness. , After they eat sweet things, it will be smooth all the way. I watched my son eat ice cream bite after bite, and cake bite after bite, and my heart couldn’t help feeling sweet.
　　I have a friend who never feeds sugar to his children. There will be sugar in tomato scrambled eggs, and some sugar may be added to taste, but never let children eat fruit candy, milk candy, cakes and desserts. teeth, but there is a puritanical mindset in it. Sweets increase pleasure, and he doesn’t want sweets to determine a child’s pleasure. To put it bluntly, sweets are a child’s drug.
　　Indeed, scientifically speaking, eating sweets gives us instant pleasure without waiting for the sugar to be digested. Research has shown that sugar receptors in the mouth are linked to areas of the brain that release endogenous opioids, natural morphine-like chemicals that induce a sense of pleasure and comfort, and even block the flow of painful stimuli to the brain. transfer. If a child cries, give him something sweet to taste, and he will calm down. Sweetness can stimulate the pleasure center in the brain. When the Jews perform circumcision on their children, they will have a piece of cloth soaked in sugar water in their mouths, which is similar to the effect of “opium” and “morphine”. The words “opioid” and “morphine” are too scary for adults to touch, so kids shouldn’t touch sweets either.
　　In addition to its sedative effects, sugar can also increase babies’ alertness and promote coordinated movements between their hands and mouth. This also matches my observation. After my son wakes up, he always likes to drink a “Yakult”, which is much sweeter than milk; when he eats sweets, his hands and mouth are most coordinated, and even if he is asked to eat noodles and rice, he can’t use a spoon so well.
　　Of course I don’t want to indulge him to eat sweets, but he will say, but I like to eat sweets. Every time he picks him up from school, he always buys a bunch of candied haws at the school gate. He has to eat the sugar on the candied haws to relieve the pressure of collective life in the kindergarten. I saw small vendors gathering at the gate of the school, selling sugar-fried chestnuts, roasted sweet potatoes, and candied haws. These kinds of food are the same as when I was in school, and the children would line up to buy them as usual. However, there are fruit stalls in front of the school now, which was very rare in those days. Eating a lot of fruit can replace sweets, but children will soon find that the sugar in fruit is not addictive.
　　I can barely fight against my child’s “sugar addiction”. I eat bread and jam in the morning, the jam is so sweet, and I eat sugar triangles, which are even sweeter. In the kindergarten snack, I will eat cupcakes. After school, eat candied haws and fruits. On weekends, my son will say, should we go to the dessert shop? I want to eat an apple cake. Near my home, there is a big dessert shop with a pond, swans and koi in the pond, rockery and bushes, and a variety of breads, cakes and chocolates in the shop. Every time my son went to that dessert shop, I was powerless to dissuade him, in fact, I didn’t want to dissuade him. That shop had a very thick hot chocolate, the best I had in Beijing, and I was so happy to go to the dessert shop with my son, buy him a cake and myself a cup of hot chocolate.
　　This is to satisfy my “sweet tooth addiction” that I have suppressed for a long time. When I drink hot chocolate and watch my son eat cake, I always think like this-if adults can’t restrain their addiction to smoking, use cigarettes to relieve anxiety; if adults can’t restrain themselves Your own preference for spicy food can be used to stimulate your appetite; if adults are under pressure in life, they like to have some high-sugar and high-fat foods; standard; then we have no moral right to ban sugar from our children. If we have many unhealthy living habits, we cannot ask our children to live a healthy and pure life.
　　For a father who grew up in a time of scarcity, with his own repressed sweet tooth addiction, watching his son eat sweets can bring an eerie sense of pleasure, a bit of guilt in it, does he seem to be eating too much sugar? There is also a little guilt of lack of responsibility: I have to brush his teeth twice more, and it is time to take him to get fluoride. There is also the fear of the future, I want my son to know how sweet life is, and it is best to be sweet forever, but when should you taste the bitterness of life? However, we should not be too anxious. Children can’t restrain their taste for sweets, and adults can’t overcome some of their quirks and hobbies. We should still seek pleasure.