Glucose + Fructose = So Gross!

(Or sucrose, get it?)  Day one of National Geographic school had us examining an article titled Sugar Love: A Not So Sweet Tale.  The hardest part about NG school is paraphrasing the articles so that my younger kids will pay attention.  The other hard part is Ian reading the article first and interrupting with off topic questions/statements.

Ian measures out 10 teaspoons of sugar to add to 12 ounces of water-the amount of one average soda.

I started by just showing the girls and Daniel the pictures: a doughnut being sprinkled with sugar and a top-down view of sugary artificially colored drinks.  I'm glad my kids didn't identify the drinks right off the bat.  They said things like chocolate milk and apple juice instead of Gatoraid and Koolaid (score a point for me).  Then Daniel shouted, "Sugar juice! Yum!"  Then I had Ian measure the amount of sugar found in a typical soda and add it to water.  They all got a drink and immediately asked for more (not a surprise).

Then we went through the article, talking about the history of the sugar industry from ancient times until today, talking about the health risks of sugar consumption, and how much sugar one person consumed per year in 1700, 1800, 1900, and today.  Boy, were they amazed!  I even had a brand new 25 pound bag of sugar that they hefted around and imagined eating spoonful by spoonful.

The big question was, "If sugar is so bad for us, why are we wired to want it so bad? And why can't we stop eating sugar?"  It was so easy to illustrate this.  The kids got all grossed out about how toxic sugar was, but as soon as I showed them a picture of candy, artistically arranged by color, they immediately got excited about what candy they wanted to eat and forgot all about the fact their brains were acting like a drug addict's brain.

After we were done talking, I sent the kids outside to forage for blackberries and Ian and I looked at the different sugars and their molecular arrangements.  Even now, that cup of sugar water is sitting on the counter.  Various kids keep asking for "one more drink, just one."  Evie just said, "The experiment is working.  I want more.  It's okay to want, but its not okay to have more. So I'm not going to have anymore.  But I still want it."  Wow!