It just seems that all of our food is so darn sweet!
As an example, I've long assumed that the story about Johnny Appleseed was mostly a myth. Like most of us realize, apple trees are grown as clones. You decide on a tree that has wonderful apples and then graft, graft, graft. One hundred thousand apple trees later, you've filled the orchards and supermarkets with Red Delicious.
The recent show with Michael Pollan on PBS raised doubts about my thinking. Early American settlers weren't grafting their apple trees. Apples were primarily used for cider. Producing alcohol - another easily digested source of calories

. . . but lets not get into that.
Our fruits and veggies are all tender, tender, tender - and who doesn't want them like that

?? And, they are sweet.
Forget about the processed food - the stuff is not much more than flavored sugar - but realize how fibrous our diets were a century ago. It's a wonder we haven't lost the ability to chew!
An apple is 10% sugar. A soda pop is 10% sugar. Cooked broccoli is 1.5% sugar - which, if I did the math right, is about the same as 1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar per serving of broccoli (ignore the rest of the carbs for a minute). At least, the apple is 2.5% fiber and the broccoli is a little more.
USDA Database
The brownies that DW made JUST for me yesterday === 58% sugar!
I have few virtues but being an underachieving athlete may be one of them

. What I've hoped to gain from winter exercise is #1, feel better; #2, stay somewhat flexible. I would also like to: #3, keep my heart healthy; and #4, be distracted from the available food . . .
There's no way that I'm going to gain much strength this winter, probably not even with another record snow season

. Not losing too much strength would be nice. And, if I need 20 to 30 minutes of aerobic exercise to benefit the heart muscles - I'm not getting it by just going thru the first 10 or 15 minutes with Miranda. Tuesday, I'm supposed to pick up some DVD's at the library. With the opportunity to go from the beginning of 1 session to the beginning of the another session - my exercise time should rise to that 20 minute threshold. And, as long as there's not too much shoveling in between, I'm willing to enjoy some afternoon exercising along with the early mornings!
BTW -- you should see the gaps in the shelves for these sorts of things at this time of year!! Plenty of things for OLDE people. Why, I'm not olde!! Maybe in another 10 years . . . !

Steve