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Comment by Aachen | Hacker News Reader

I heard of someone whose parents just didn't give them sweet candies as a child and they never developed the craving. This is just a "I heard of one person ever" but since it's so rare, it's all I have to go on. I wonder if this would be reproducible.

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I'm glad my parents weren't like that. I have so many good memories of birthday cakes, sharing treats with my siblings, Hallowe'en, etc... where some sweet thing was a core part of the event.

One of my favorite memories of my Dad is being out with just the two of us and we took a break for a surprise ice cream cone. Having him just to myself for a bit was pretty rare and to sit in a Dairy Queen somewhere for 30 minutes chatting and having ice cream was the absolute best.

On the topic of parents, I’m second generation immigrant. All of my family grew up in other countries, in poverty. None of them have ever developed cavities and such. I’ve never seen my parents ever express any craving for sweets.

I once quit sugar for 6 months. It was harder than quitting alcohol, nicotine or caffeine. My first super-sweet treat after those 6 months was a donut and it almost made me vomit on the first bite. The dopamine rush quickly overwhelmed my physical aversion.

I remember going through that after basic training and AIT(Ft Sill, Oklahoma- absolute Hell). As a kid/teenager/young adult I was very active in gymnastics, Tae Kwon Do, Tang Soo Do, skateboarding, rollerblading, and I watched what I ate. While in basic I was losing a lot of weight(super fast metabolism) so they shoved sugar/carbs down my throat in basic- made me drink soda, eat burgers, donuts and pizza in the mess hall (also my platoon hated me over it because they weren't allowed to touch any of it, and here I was so full I'm gonna puke and here comes a Drill Sergeant who slides me another donut which I now have to eat). It sucked because I had to run 2x per day as opposed to once a day/every other day, so it felt like I had a lump of cement in my stomach. The side stitches give me chills to this day. Puking while running is not fun, and then what was the point of filling me to bust if I don't get to digest a quarter of it?

Anyway, by the time I got to AIT I was so happy to not have to touch any of it, I didn't. So while my classmates went off-post on weekends and got fat on garbage I went out and had fun, but at well at the mess hall.

By the time I was out of the service (2yrs) I hadn't touched sweets/caffeine/crap in almost that whole time. I remember being able to taste the caffeine in sodas(if you've ever drunk ginseng you probably know what it tastes like), and they felt like straight syrup.

Somewhere along the way I had a girlfriend who got me back into them, and they just became a part of my life again.

Now, here I am, 40, getting rid of them again. But now it's worse because I really enjoy my morning coffee and knowing I will be replacing it with running (which I used to love until the US Army), doesn't help my motivation much.

But yea, quitting sugar and caffeine. Smoking cigarettes wasn't this hard to quit :(

Just out of curiosity, whey are you quitting caffeine?

Just for the record, I wasn't saying we can't have nice things and everyone should start to live this way. Not at all. It was just an interesting data point. You do make it sound, though, like sugar is required to have a nice childhood. I don't think you're right and the conclusion that you're happy you got to do all these drugs, I mean, yeah of course you'd not want to live without if you had it. I wouldn't either because I also had it. But might an alternative history not also have been able to be nice? That's what I'm wondering about.

But you could still do all of that with carrots. … /s ;)

It's one outcome, the other is that the child feels like they've been repressed all their life and go on a sugar binge. I've heard similar stories about kids raised vegetarian discovering bacon and hamburgers for the first time.

I know only one person who was raised vegetarian (most people in Europe are fervent meat eaters) and this didn't happen to my friend at all, but yeah I can totally see that happening to many on a broader population.

My parents didn’t let us drink sweetened sodas except on special occasions, and never Coca-Cola for some reason. It massively helped, to the point that apart from a few high school and college years, I don’t really drink them.

Same. Milk was always an option.

During college I availed myself of all-you-can-drink soda, and pretty much stopped drinking milk. Surprise, surprise the change (coupled with stress) resulted in some pretty serious and frequently recurring GI issues.

Finally isolated the cause (docs were useless), went back on a 1+ glass of milk a day practice, and everything returned to normal.

Since then, I pretty much cut soda out of my diet as well. IMHO, if we're looking at it from a caloric perspective, there are a lot more delicious things to spend 140 calories on.

Grew up in a country where no coca-cola was available. The sweets were given to kids only on special occasions.

Now as an adult I am happily consuming great amount of Coca Cola, however never developed a taste for Americanized supermarket style sweet treats (Oreos, etc. )

For me it was the opposite. Only got exposed to standard candy and chocolate here and there. I still love chocolate, and hate any kind of carbonated drink. It boggles my mind how people manage to drink that stuff voluntarily.

But to each their own. I think this whole guessing the best diet for kids can go any way because it's just one of many factors. Though there are definitely known risk factors, e.g. how drunkenness at a young age greatly increases the risk of alcoholism later on.

My personal experience with that situation is that half the people grow up with no desire to eat sweets and the other half end up with an eating disorder. It’s a gamble, but if you get lucky it’ll pay off with a lifetime of stable blood sugar.

I think it might be all in the how, not in the what.

If you specifically deny your kids sugar and tell them it's the debbil and all that, you're gunning for the disorder when they finally rebel and try the forbidden carbohydrate.

However, if it's just not a thing. You never point it out, you never mention it, you just don't have sugar around, then they're more geared for the dismissal of it.

There's difference between "no sweeties" and regular cola drinking :P

I only drank coke on special occasions as a kid. When I finally had free reign I went on a coke binge for years and I still enjoy it, though I've limited the amount I consume. Given we're keyed towards enjoying sweet I don't think denying kids soda would mean they hate it on first contact - I'd imagine it'd be like kids who did get exposed to it - some hate it, some love it.

My 3 year old hates sweets. Ice-cream, cakes and chocolates/candy are a hard no. So much so that he cried once my wife tricked him into tasting ice-cream. OTOH he loves ripe sweet tasting fruits so it is not aversion to sweet taste.We'll see how long this lasts...

My five year old is the same, although he had a "breakthrough" last year and now loves pan au chocolate.

I've known many a parent that has tried this. However, the wheels fall off the bus as soon as the kid enters public schooling. The only parents that I've know to be successful are ones that home schooled their kids.

I know a 9yo who never got candies from their parents and doesn't seem to like them so far.

There's also a doesn't-like vs doesn't-like-the-quantity question. I could easily eat a whole chocolate bar in one go some time ago. Since then I reduced my sugar intake a lot. Now I feel like one row is overwhelming - 1-2 pieces is just fine.

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