Sweet!

October 15th, 2016| Topic: RaMbLeS | 0

In the U.S. 33% of adults are overweight, 30% are obese, and 6% extremely obese. That leaves only 31% who have a normal weight or are underweight (BMI under 24.9). Yikes!

No wonder many are on diets of various kinds—Atkins, Zone, Vegetarian, Vegan, Weight Watchers, South Beach, Raw Food, Mediterranean, Paleolithic, etc., etc.

Good news for these folks! Soon these dieters can have their cake and eat it too!

Scientists at the University of London unveiled a gadget recently at The Big Bang UK Young Scientists and Engineers Fair, in Birmingham. It’s called Taste Buddy.

This magical device makes foods with low sugar taste sweeter! It emits a low-level electrical current that stimulates particular taste buds to perceive sweet flavors, even in the absence of such sweetness.

Said Adrian Cheok, Director of the Imagineering Institute, Malaysia, and Chair Professor of Pervasive Computing (!) at City, University of London:

With further development it could be used to allow people to taste something they enjoy while eating a healthy dish, for example making tofu taste like steak or vegetables like chocolate. What started out as a fun engineering experiment has now led to something much more exciting with the potential to have a positive social impact. The Taste Buddy could eventually help save lives, by allowing people to switch to healthier food choices. Many children hate the taste of vegetables. So I knew that when I became an engineer, I wanted to make a device that could allow children to eat vegetables that taste like chocolate.”

Hmm … Broccoli that tastes like chocolate?

Soon—we hope—this thingy will be fitted into utensils like spoons and forks and cups.

Declared Kasun Karunanayaka, one of Prof. Cheok’s associates:

We’re hoping to make the taste buddy smaller and smaller, to eventually fit within cutlery, fizzy drink cans, utensils and cups, and to be powered by a bluetooth device, to choose the levels of taste you’d like.”

[Scientists at Oxford have already shown that simply listening to certain sounds while eating changes how you perceive the taste of food—“sonic seasoning,” that makes a dish up to 10% sweeter (or saltier) with the aid of sound!]

And I say, to all that:

Woo-hoo!”

But the Bible says that not everything sweet is good.

“Stolen water is sweet;
And bread eaten in secret is pleasant.”
Proverbs 9:17

And their fate ain’t pleasant.

… the dead are there, … in the depths of Sheol.
Proverbs 9:18

In other words …

Bread obtained by falsehood is sweet to a man,
But afterward his mouth will be filled with gravel.
Proverbs 20:17

In fact God pronounces a curse on those who pervert true sweetness.

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness;
Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
Isaiah 5:20

Of the wicked person, one of Job’s friends says:

“… evil is sweet in his mouth.”
Job 20:12

The Bible declares that it is God’s words that are truly sweet!

They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold;
Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb.
How sweet are Your words to my taste!
Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Psalm 19:10; 119:103

In fact, we should be producing such divine, godly, sweet words ourselves.

Pleasant words are a honeycomb,
Sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.
Proverbs 16:24

And …

Oil and perfume make the heart glad,
So a man’s counsel is sweet to his friend.
Proverbs 27:9

Let’s go and be sweet!