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[Phoebe]

The obesity epidemic in america is so very easily the product of processed foods.

The evening news did a story on this a few months ago.  They showed how food manufacturers go out of their way to make food as addictive as possible, mostly by adding sugar, transfats, & salt, so that people will buy more.  They research which ingredients make food the most irresistible (aka addictive) so that consumers will be compelled to eat more and more of it.

I've noticed that if I consume anything with corn syrup, fructose syrup, glucose syrup, etc., it ramps up my appetite horrendously.  Sugar increases my appetite, too, but not as much as the syrups that are everywhere now.

[goblyn]

Phoebe, its like the McDonald's effect.  If you haven't eaten there in a while, you get wicked sick from it, but then an hour later you're wishing you had another burger!

Ditto with chinese food!

Pink, I wouldn't necessarily expect to see sugar in beer, but I wonder if the sugar was added to increase fermentation and thus raise the alcohol volume of the beer?  I remember when we were all making kombucha, one batch I made I put in more sugar than I needed and found that it fermented more rapidly AND it tasted very strongly of beer!  I don't know if it necessarily had lots of alcohol content, but I do know that added sugar is a quick way to make booze!

[anacara]

I read somewhere that 16th (?) century brewers in Europe were heavily fined if they were found to be adding sugar to their beer.

[Pinkmug]

Heck, they should be heavilly fined now!!!  :x
I've searched, and noticed that they started adding sugar at the same time that they lowered the alcohol content to pay less tax money !!!
So to me this can only mean they are trying to keep their beer as addictive as possible.... sugar attracts thirst!

[An Alchemist]

The reason for adding sugar is likely as benign as trying to speed up the fermentation process, to allow them to brew beer faster (and thus, increase profit).

The lower alcohol content in beer is not due to the addition of sugar; its (beer's) alcohol content is lower than in spirits (which are not fermented with sugar) because beer is not distilled, whereas spirits are; hence, the alcohol content in spirits is increased relative to the non-distilled mother liquor.