After it was confirmed that I would be spending this spring in the UK, everyone I met was brimming with advice as to what to see, where to go, and what to expect. Perhaps unsurprisingly, if you know me in the slightest, people who had previously traveled in the area most often warned me about the lack of sweetness I would find in foods and drinks. And I accepted and prepared for this sad fact. I had English chocolates and candy previously; I enjoyed the more mild sweetness of it. So I came abroad expecting a fun foray in the different aspects of dark chocolate and spiced candies.
My first reality check came when I had just landed in Scotland and decided to buy a cup of hot chocolate to wake me up. I fully expected the warm and rich, slight bitterness of the drink itself. That was delicious. The face I pulled when I swiped a finger-full of whipped cream from the top of the mug, however, was enough to bring a wave of giggles from my travelling companions. As I reproachfully removed the rest of the whipped topping from my drink, my friends stopped laughing long enough to welcome me to the rest of the world: land of the no added sugar.
As I have previously mentioned, I expected the lack of sugar in actual sweets while in the UK. I did not think that this sweetness ban would extend to more savory foods, however. The yogurt tastes different, the milk tastes different, and the bread tastes funny, as do the French fries and pizza sauce. To be completely honest, I can tastes the lack of sugar in most meals that I eat while here.
So I suppose the moral of this story is that food manufactured for consumption in the United States contains a massive amount of sugar, which is slightly comforting, as it means that my sugar addiction is likely a much more universal phenomenon. Either way, the lack-of-sugar headaches are, unsurprisingly, not a bit of fun.