The Great Sugar Prohibition

 

Cannabis = no big deal / Sugar = 😱

As I've mentioned before, "sugar was my gateway drug. I mean, if you believe in that kind of thing." It's the first line of my upcoming book, The Cannabis Confidential: 99 Stories of My Weed Friendly Childhood & Life. As promised, I'll use this blog to share some of those stories. This is Story #1. 

The Great Sugar Prohibition

I remember being insatiable to sugar as a child, at its mercy whenever it was near. My mom was convinced I had a sugar addiction. I knew sugar as something forbidden and heavenly tasting. White sugar was not allowed in our hippie household when I was little. But in my childhood, aside from my mom no one really cared about sugar until later, around the mid-80’s. Quite the contrary in the 70’s, sugar was often used to market foods! Cereals were branded with sugar in the name! (i.e., Sugar Smacks, Sugar Corn Pops)  

The first word I remember learning to read was “sugar”. My mom insisted that I be allowed the freedom to choose what kind of cereal I wanted, as long as “sugar” wasn’t one of the first three ingredients. As a result, at the ripe age of 3 years old, I understood what “ingredients” were, where to find them on the box, and how to review that list of data for “sugar”, like a word search I always felt hopeful to win (by finding it way down the list). 

Little did I know the game was rigged. And my mom knew it. But she was teaching me to fish, as the saying goes. She wanted me to experience the lesson rather than just being told “no” …a true hippie perspective in raising kids.

Back then, even Cheerios—yep! toddler-friendly, heart healthy Cheerios!—relied on sugar as their third ingredient, making it ineligible for representation in our cupboard. Any cereal I wanted and aisle researched, from Corn Flakes to Cheerios to Wheaties, was not allowed in my sugar-free household. Nope. I got Grape Nuts. God, how I hated them! I couldn’t even wrap my head around the name—Grape Nuts--being they were neither grapes nor nuts. Come to think of it, I never really knew what, exactly, Grape Nuts were…?

If I wanted them to taste like anything at all, I had to pound the block of brown sugar from our pantry on our tile kitchen floor to break it up enough to sprinkle some on my cereal, only to watch it immediately sink to the bottom... disappearing until those last couple sips of milk when it would suddenly reappear thick and confident, like a strapping super hero an hour late to the crisis. 

My mom’s sugar prohibition continued for years. Eventually she would become consumed with juggling work and duties at home so she lightened up a bit over time. And when my parents split up when I was 7, I quickly realized my sugar loving genes come from my dad. Oh, how I relished the freedom of Trix and Lucky Charms for the first time in my young life!

The contrast between the cannabis-friendly/anti-sugar household went totally unnoticed by my family until recently when I started realizing just how these contrasts have shaped me into who I am today. Looking back it seems so odd, though! 

My mom was right, I do have a sugar addiction. But she taught me well ...to pay attention, read labels, cook at home, listen to my body. Dad taught me that ice cream is one of life's necessities, non-negotiable.

I have not eaten Grape Nuts since I was a kid. I know my palette has developed, and I may like them as plenty of others do. I. Just. Can’t. 

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