America's Sweet Tooth

This country has no lack of sugar lovers and junk food junkies. We know why we love all of the different kinds of desserts, but what is the history behind all of the sugary snacks? Many of the items we consume every day were created out of accident or pure experimentation. We eat them so much so that sweets have become a staple in the modern world. They are something you must have each day, and can not live without. The things that sugar lovers often must have are the reason for billiion dollar industry. After all, food is something we need to have, right? Some people may think that they aren't contributing to the sugar craze since all they have a weakness for is coffee, think again. Others may only partake of anything sweet on the way to work by stopping in at their favorite shop. One of America's favorite dessert staples is made every day in over half of our households.

One of the biggest industries in the United States is the coffee business, with Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks being the giants. In 1946, Bill Rosenberg founded Industrial Luncheon Services, a company that delivered meals and snacks to workers in the Boston area. This convinced Rosenberg to start the Open Kettle, a doughnut shop in Quincy, Massachusetts. Two years later Open Kettle changed its name to Dunkin' Donuts. Today, there are over 5,000 franchises in the country. They serve over a dozen kinds of coffee to over 3 million customers per day. One can get all types of latte with creams, sugars, ice cream, or chocolate. Starbucks is yet another big venture, it was founded in 1971 with the first store opening in Pike Place Market in Seattle. Today, they operate over 7,000 kiosks and are boasted to have made over 9 million last year. It's nothing unusual for college students to spend around $2,000 a year on their favorite sweetened up drinks.

Nothing goes better with coffee than donuts, and Americans definitely love them. The recipe for the famous sweets were created by a French chef from New Orleans named Joe LeBeau before the Great Depression. The yeast-raised doughnuts, are rumored to be the first of their kind in the United States. LeBeau opened his first donut shop in Paducah, Kentucky and later sold it in 1933. The new owners. Vernon Rudolph and his uncle, moved the business to Nashville, Tennessee in 1935. There are now almost 500 Krispy Kreme donut shops in the United States, generating more than $429 million in sales. Who could do without the glazed doughnuts that are served fresh and hot out of the fryer? In addition to its original glazed variety, Krispy Kreme serves cake and filled doughnuts, crullers, and fritters, as well as hot coffee and other beverages.

Last, but not least is the chocolate chip cookie, which is the favorite of most Americans. Supposedly, the chocolate cookie was invented by accident. Ruth Wakefield invented chocolate chip cookies at the Toll House Inn she and her husband Keneth ran near Whitman, Massachusetts in 1937. The story goes that she wanted to make chocolate butter cookies, so she broke up one of the bars of semi-sweet chocolate that Andrew Nestle gave her. Thinking that the chocolate would mix with the dough and create a totally chocolate cookie, she made the country's most loved snack and dessert. They were a hit with the guests and she published the recipes in several newspapers and the recipe became popular. Ruth called this cookie, the Chocolate Crunch Cookie. She then struck a business deal with Nestle that would allow them to put the recipe on their chocolate bar if they supplied her with free chocolate for her cookies at the Inn. Soon, people everywhere were buying the chocolate bars with a free chopper inside of the package and her recipe, later they became the morsels that we buy today to use in our favorite recipes. Nestle/Tollhouse has sinced franchised and said to have almost 100 stores in the United States. However the cookie crumbles, Americans love their sugar.