Please join the Book Club on December 13 at noon at iCreate Cafe 130 King Street, in Pottstown to discuss our pick of the month: Sweetness #9 by Stephan Eirik Clark. Clark takes a satirical look at over two decades of food wars, family life and American culture.
The main character, David Leveraux, is a flavor chemist who starts his career in 1973 at a company whose new product is an artificial sweetener called Sweetness #9.
His job is to test the product on lab rats and monkeys and monitor the health effects. He reports a lot of side effects that are covered up by the company.
Sweetness #9 soon becomes the artificial sweetener used in diet drinks, and many other foods, and is also marketed in little packets for use in coffee and tea. When Leveraux sees Americans overcome by the symptoms he found in the lab animals — like obesity, rage, depression — he feels personally responsible for not having blown the whistle on the manufacturer.