Degree Dilemma

     It's no secret that too much sugar—in any form, organic or not—can be detrimental to your health. But watching this video makes me afraid for reasons entirely unrelated to my physical well-being.
     It's not a particularly interesting video; however, the doctor being interviewed is from Bastyr University in Seattle, Washington, which is where I plan to be studying nutrition as of fall 2010. I'm super excited about that fact, but I'm also feeling a bit doubtful at the moment. This isn't the first time I've heard or read about Bastyr profs and grads discussing the dangers of sugar consumption and the benefits of nixing it from the diet completely. Bastyr is, after all, a natural health arts and sciences school, which is why I applied there in the first place (and got in!).
      But I've said it before and I will say it again: I love sweets. Some people can tolerate them; others cannot. I am not pre-diabetic, nor am I genetically predisposed to it. In fact, raw sugar (and its naturally occurring variants) is one of the few substances to which my body simply is not sensitive. (I even have the blood tests to prove it!)
     And yet, in the name of all that is healthy, are they going to try and convince me to let go of my favorite food group?

     Don't get me wrong; I'm all about widening and deepening my understanding of foods and the way they interact in our bodies. That's why I'm spending all this time in prerequisite chemistry courses and preparing to go into massive amounts of student loan debt. But how much is that slip of master's degree paper really going to cost me?
     Think about it: Sans credentials, I can say anything I want when it comes to food. But once I have that official academic stamp of approval next to my name, my words will be judged more harshly, and I'll be held to a much higher standard. My taste buds, however, will not change! Will increasing my knowledge of this stuff steal the sugar-loving joy from my life?
     Maybe I don't want a degree, after all.
     Or maybe, I'll just have to make it my life's work to show the world that sweets can be a deliciously satisfying part of a healthy, well-balanced diet. You just have to know where to find the good stuff. And how not to overdo it. And how to burn off the excess carbs before they coagulate into a blubbery and disconcerting mass in your belly, or hips, or thighs. And so forth.
     Sigh.