Eleventh International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

This ethnographic research approaches the process leading to an increment of sweet intake throughout three generations in Nayon, a rural Ecuadorian settlement in process of urbanization. Tensions between discourse and practice allow an immersion in moral scopes. While negative qualities and apparent rejection is attributed to artificially sweetened foods, naturally sweet foods are perceived as noble and said to be ‘sweet and juicy’. The interchangeable connection of senses, in this case, sweet taste with liquid textures, known as synaesthesia, allows the association of paradigms of natural sweetness with positive moral values. Consequently, liquidity becomes a vehicle of sweet taste modification, a space where negotiations of sweet types and intensity of sweetness take place. The daily consumption of sugary liquids, camouflaged within main meals, positively alters the perception of soft drinks and increases the tolerance of sweet taste. Taste, therefore, as an embodied social construct, prioritizes an indulgence of the senses regarding sweet flavour preferences, thus challenging rational nutritional discourses and imposing new challenges for public health policy aiming to control sweetened beverages consumption.