Women and Sweets

A friend of mine claims that women prefer sweet, men prefer savory (which means – as I found out not too long ago, salty…). Men prefer a steakhouse, women prefer a bakery. Men prefer scrambled eggs, women prefer waffles with syrup. Women, famously, love chocolate.

I can think of plenty of exceptions. Female friends that don’t like sweets, male friends that salivate for desert. But let’s assume that generally, my friend’s statement is true. What does it mean?

Well, it’s almost the equivalent of saying that men like proteins and women like carbs. Which in a pop science way would make sense. Men’s metabolism is geared towards building muscle, women’s metabolism is geared towards storing fat. And why? For the much ballyhooed evolutionary reasons that men need to fight, protect, conquer, while women need to store enough to sustain pregnancy and nursing.

Which of course doesn’t truly hold in our modern society. I’ll have to order a round of protein smoothies for all. It’s a nice, albeit not totally natural, combination of carbs and protein.