Last week pollythinks started a thread on candied orange peel. See here:
https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2323430,2323430#msg-2323430

It actually sounds pretty good, and most of the 4 cups of sugar is discarded after boiling the orange peel into submission, so it is not as big a sugar hit as the ingredient list sounds like. I may even give it a try. Will probably add some whole cloves to the boil.

Still, it reminded me of how sugar-addicted Mormon culture seems to be. Mo culture is even heavy on emotional sweetness: Disney-addiction, Hale Center Theater in SL, specializing in "family friendly" live theater, RS lessons. Even hearing the lugubrious speech pattern at General Conference made me feel like I was swimming in honey. Or motor oil.


But real live sugar is major thing with Mormons. There have been threads here in the past few years about the soft drink chains popping up in Utah, just as the rest of the country is decreasing consumption of sugared soft drinks. I thought I'd check and see how the Utah soda wars are going.

They are still going gang-busters, or were until the pandemic. Most are headquartered in Utah County, though the first one just has three stores only in SL County for now. The main players are: Thirst Drinks, Sodalicious, Swig, Fiiz, and Sip-N.

Here's a link covering places that sell soft drinks as a major or sole part of their product line in Utah, if you want to read up on some of the above comp[anies:
https://www.ksl.com/article/46536884/best-places-in-utah-to-get-a-drink--of-soda

They don't just sell soda, most of them also sell cinnamon rolls and the like, so they are selling sugar, using either water or flour as a carrier. the main product is sugar. Big servings of sugar. And I listed five separate chains along the Wasatch Front, which is not a particularly large population center. Oy vey.


They are not just selling a sugar high. They are also selling the chance to be a little bit risqué. OK, risqué by Mo standards.

You can order your drink "dirty" (a shot of half and half added) or add various flavor shots. Oooh, that means you can sound like those people at Starbucks who reel off 9 ingredients for their morning cup of coffee, plus just saying "dirty" is a thrill for a Mormon.

Not only that, but some of the chains have suggestive names for their drinks. Flaming Ginger. Second Base, Your Mom. What She's Having. All the thrill of ordering in a bar, but without the guilt of demon rum, and only half a gazillion calories a 24 oz cup.
https://www.businessinsider.com/crazy-drinks-from-utahs-dirty-soda-wars-2015-12


Somehow, I don't expect these chains to have much success outside the Wasatch Front. The rest of the world is becoming more health conscious. And like the thrill of Disney, the thrill of ordering a "Your Mom, dirty" kind of fades after junior high, unless you are Mormon, and trapped in eternal adolescence.

Come to think of it, eternal adolescence could explain a lot of Mormon culture. Looking at you, BYU.

Most mormons I know drink more soda pop in a day than I do in a year.

My TBM brother used to travel a lot for his work. When he passed through town, he would buy several bags of junk food, show up at the house, have big junk food party, and then leave.

When he and his family did road trips (often), they packed the car with cookies, candy, soda, chips, etc.

His dinner plate was brown and white, meat and potatoes, he didn't eat veggies and salads until in his 40s as I recall....I remember him telling me that he "eats salad now" like it was a huge breakthrough.

I think his diet and high stress from church service over decades is what caused his demise. He ended up with hormones out of whack and his body just crapped out. Then he got addicted to pain pills for several years while seeing doctors. ended up having to quit work and go on disability in his 50's.

"Just a spoonful of sugar
makes the medicine go down..."

Maybe without all that sugar, mormonism could not be swallowed?

Good one EOD.

A majority of mormon raised people are shocked if they dare to try any beverage that is not sweetened - black coffee, straight tea, any un-mixed alcohol, beer, etc.

They are shocked and usually repulsed that people would actually drink something that has no sweetener as an ingredient...

I recall being shocked at the obsession most TBM Utahns had with sugar.

(does anyone care?)

my fav beverage is currently Mango Juice which I stock-up from Costco once a month (usually 3 gallons)

Up here Raymond had a sugar factory...and everyone made candy

Sugar is deadly. It can kill you.It almost killed me.
I may yet go blind.
No mother would give sugar to her child if she knew what the consequences could be, Sugar is everywhere, and it is easily available to children.

Even if it doesn't kill you, it can make your life extremely miserable.

If it were up to me, I would ban sugar. The world would be a better place without it.

I have quit sugar and have diabetes in near-remission.

Artificial sweeteners don't do us any favor, either.

That's Mormons for you; ordering a 48 oz. soda with extra diabetes is perfectly acceptable but I've gotten remarks like "Why would anyone drink that?" while brewing a pot of tea*.

And don't even get me started on the culture of sweetness in Mormonism. "Stepford" doesn't begin to describe it.





*For the record, I take black tea with just a little milk and green tea neat. You brew tea and coffee right, you don't need sugar.

Actually, "Stepford" is an excellent start at describing it. :)

It's a vice they're allowed to have. If the WoW had banned sugar, Mormons would overuse something else. Dairy products, for example. Most traditional Mormon dishes have at least two forms of dairy in them. Or maybe they'd be big salt users. Something.

Having dairy in everything is how you make your food white and delightsome. Preferably, the food starts white (potatoes, for example), but any casserole can be made white.

Even Jello can be whipped and blended with a whitener to lighten it to a bland pastel. I think it is called ambrosia or some such.

But still, sugar is Mormon cocaine.

What about the Mormon addiction for

- attending church

- paying tithing

- being obsequious to leaders


I'd let them have sugary drinks until they're dead, but brain-dead Before they die? Sheesh!

My addiction to white, granulated sugar began as early in life as I can remember. My mother would pour me a dish of some "wholesome" (nasty) high-fiber cereal (usually all-bran, or if I threw that out and refused to eat it, all-bran with a light coating of Cheerios) and then pour milk over it. There would promptly be a dive for the teaspoon in the sugar dish. If I got there first, she slapped my hand away. If she got there first, she would put one measly little spoonful on the nasty stuff and then take the bowl away and put it out of reach.

Not surprisingly, my sweet tooth made me a prime candidate for a lifetime struggle with the Battle of the Bulge.Now that I'm in my Seventies, it no longer seems to matter. I can put away calories at a truly astounding rate and I don't gain weight.

I can enjoy a dish of winter oatmeal with a glaze of sugar over the top, and as I feel those sweet, crunchy granules explode between my teeth, I think, toward my mother (who has been gone for at least thirty years), "And you can't so a thing about it!" which was a favorite line of hers when withholding something I desperately wanted as a child but she withheld.

The emotional intensity of those Sugar Wars (which don't even exist any more) sometimes astonishes me. So far, nothing in my lab work suggests anything approaching diabetes.

It is not at all unusual to spontaneously buy a treat which she would have denied to me in childhood while feeling an inner rush of "NEENER, NEENER!!) Necco Wafers have recently returned to the markets here - and I really enjoy those.

I remember a poignant scene in "Jane Eyre" which I read as a child, in which Jane is occasionally given a dish of soup or porridge in a hand-painted china dish, and once she is done with the food, she begs to have a closer look at the design once the bowl is washed clean. Her nasty aunt denies her this small pleasure, time after time, until one time, when Jane had been desperately ill. Handed the dish she had longed to see for so many years, she is disappointed to see that the colors and designs she had so longed to see are not nearly as enchanting as she had imagined.

I never had that kind of letdown with sugar. It rewards, every time.

So true.

It took me a long time to like coffee, tea or alcohol without having to select a sweet version. I still don't care for alcohol, and I still like a lump of sugar in my coffee.

Going from punch and cookies to something not sweet was definitely an adjustment.

'brown sugar' is white sugar + molasses


Sugar- isn't as unhealthy in baked goods such as pies, .....Right?

The addiction to sweet is part of a broader issue with people mentally. The problem is many (most?) people are only comfortable if they hang onto a child's way of thinking into adulthood.

sweet (like processed sugar, hard candy, sticky stuff) is also known as "the poor man's cocaine."

loud primary colors and "shiny". "Candy colored" describes the connection to sweet.

impulsive, live by reacting to another's aggression. Impulsive living always loses. If you're having a fit about finding tax deductions after December 31, you've already blown your chances.

Emotional, attachment to a preference for magic, fixation on nutty conspiracy theories, too, in place of a rational world view. Magical environmental mental state trumps numbers and the appreciation for expertise. Since I want the world to conform to Pollyanna, it must be true. (Lots of people want to believe in a candy colored world, live in Disneyland-like suburbia, a place where everybody's nice and cares about your feelings. Feelings trump logic. People getting arrested or fired always think they can "explain" why they won't be losing to authority. All they do is dig themselves deeper and deeper in a pit.)

My mother and brother are both diabetic. Our home growing up was always loaded up with sweet processed foods. My family had an aversion to savory/spicy, I gagged on processed foods. My brother still has an attachment to cheap sweet sticky stuff and mass processed meats because they were "cheap" and he follows me everywhere with candy like a drunk at a party wanting everyone to blow off and get loaded.

A belief that they can beat the house and get rich with something THAT WILL NOT WORK. They'll have a temper tantrum in dismay when you point it out and hate you for it, desperately clinging onto their escape.

They talk to salesmen like they're new friends and open up to the manipulation. They can't go shopping without REALLY wanting to buy something, anything, instead of just walking out of the store empty handed. They keep shoving their mouth into any of your negotiations and wanting to close the deal --they panic and try to take over-- while you're walking out of a bad deal that won't work out. You have to isolate them, literally, and block their influence out whatever it takes to keep them out of it. They will search you out to inject themselves into your life. They keep trying to make friends with enemies and explain....

These kind of people will always try to manipulate you into some kind of group conformity, because they're only comfortable being on the receiving end of someone else's leadership.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/2020 02:44AM by snagglepuss.

> The addiction to sweet is part of a broader issue
> with people mentally. The problem is many (most?)
> people are only comfortable if they hang onto a
> child's way of thinking into adulthood.

Alternatively, humans lived for hundreds of thousands of years on the brink of starvation and evolved through natural selection a profound fondness for densely packed carbohydrates as well as fat, the substances most likely to prolong life. In this scenario the problem isn't childishness but biological history and the fact that the genetic predispositions that served the species well 20,000 years ago are disadvantageous in a world of abundance.

In either case, discipline usually leads to a better result; too much of a good thing really can be a danger, which is why I refuse to play golf at night.

See, it's called matcherity...magurady ...metueridy ...where's a goddam dictionary when you need one!! Oh for heaven sakes get out of the bathroom, I'm not going to hit you...

> In either case, discipline usually leads to a
> better result; too much of a good thing really can
> be a danger, which is why I refuse to play golf at
> night.

Hah! We all know why you refuse to play golf at night--and it has nothing to do with discipline.

Or does it?

It's part of the infantilization of Mormons, especially adults as they're not allowed to enjoy adult things like coffee, tea, or alcohol, so sugary drinks are the only thing they can have. To me, they sound like children pretending to be adults when they order their "dirty" sodas and other things. I've mentioned before that when I left Mormonism, I lost weight because I replaced the sodas with unsweetened iced tea and coffee. My TBM ex has diabetes running in his family, so with the way that he would drink Mountain Dew like it was water, I wouldn't be surprised if he now has it himself.

My nevermo mom went to a Utah wedding reception where they had a soda "bar," and she thought the drinks were way too sweet for her. Now, I thought that some of those soda beverages might be improved with a little rum or vodka, but then again, I'm just an apostate.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/2020 04:04PM by doyle18.

I never even thought about this... But yeah, there were several soda shops in Rexburg where they mix different flavored sodas. My brother came off of his mission a sudden expert on energy drinks.