Photos of sugar packages from all around the world

Photos of Sugar Packages from All Around the World or From Endless to Micro- Scale Collections or From Lack of Sugar to Addiction and Back.

AUTHOR:	Dr. Alisa Palatronis;		PUBLISHED:	November 3, 2021;
SOURCE:	www.z-antenna.com;		LENGTH:	6 minutes (1233 words).

You have probably seen my sand and pebbles collection which was recently donated to the Nature Research Centre in Vilnius, Lithuania:

Photos of sand and pebbles from different coasts

Sugar Packages from All Around the World

This time, let‘s take a look to sugar samples, gathered from all around the world within more than 20 years! This collection was recently donated to the charity and support organization Maisto Bankas.

My sugar collection contains 2-10 g sugar packages from 42 countries and weighs 16 kg (35 lbs).

sugar samples from Portugal, 2006 — **Portugal,** 2006

sugar sample from Portugal, 2006 — **Portugal,** 2006

sugar samples from Portugal, 2010 — **Portugal,** 2010.

Countries from where sugar samples were collected by myself, my friends and friends of my friends:

Latvia, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, UK, USA, Germany, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Monaco, Japan, Sri Lanka, Russia, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Ukraine, Israel, Austria, Greece, Montenegro, Canada, Hungary, South Korea, Australia, Kenya, Turkey, Benin (West Africa), Ireland, Scotland, Indonesia, Caribbean, UAE, Jordan, Cyprus, Singapore, Morocco, and Belgium.

sugar samples from Lithuania, 2013 — **Vilnius, Lithuania,** 2013

sugar samples from Lithuania, 2014 — **Kaunas, Lithuania,** 2014.

Sugar is one of the few food products that does not spoil and therefore has no expiration date. The charity organization Maisto Bankas thinks to donate this collection to one of the organizations they support – perhaps a nursing home or a society for the disabled, with the idea that sugar will not only flavor coffee or tea, but also become an educational tool for remembering and perhaps even getting to know the countries it came from.

sugar samples from Italy, 2015 — **Italy**, 2015

Small sugar packages are not only a sweet additive to a cup of coffee or tea. Sugar packages reflect the culture, the time period, the events, and even bring a message to those who see it.

sugar samples from Czech Republic, 2017 — **Czech Republic**, 2017

sugar samples from Morocco, Afrika, 2018 — **Morocco, Afrika**, 2018

sugar samples from Barbados, 2018 — **Barbados**, 2018

sugar samples from Zakopane, Poland, 2018 — **Zakopane**, Poland, 2018

sugar samples from Budapest, Hungary, 2020 — **Budapest, Hungary,** 2020

sugar samples from USA, 2017 — **USA**, 2017

sugar samples from Bali, Indonesia, 2017 — **Bali, Indonesia**, 2017

sugar samples from Cotonou, Afrika, 2018 — **Cotonou, Afrika**, 2018

sugar samples from Canada, 2018 — **Canada**, 2018

sugar samples from Izmir, Turkey, 2019 — **Izmir, Turkey**, 2019

sugar samples from Athens, Greece, 2020 — **Athens, Greece,** 2020.

From Lack of Sugar to Addiction and Back

Lack of sugar forced me to gather it

During my adolescence, sugar was often lacking. I remember how sad it was when I opened the box and saw that the sugar was over and I could no longer sweeten the tea with it. At that time, sugar was deficit goods. I figured out that when we (family) get a new pack of sugar, I need to put some of it separately. At the end of the box used by the family, I pulled out my accumulated sugar to enjoy the sweetened tea with my parents. With a time, the whole family knew that they can rely on me in “sugar questions”. In this way, I became a kind of sugar keeper, and over time, this habit grew into a sugar collection.

The abandonment of sugar led me to write the first sugar-free book

In January 2019 I have radically changed my diet, lifestyle, rest regime, started do sports regularly, reading scientific articles and books about food, deepened my knowledge in the field of vegan diet and gave up sugar almost forever.

A few months later, many of my chronic ailments disappeared as if they did not exist, and the body gained new physical and spiritual strength.

A few more months have passed, and I decided to create my own website http://www.z-antenna.com where I started writing on various topics. Later, when I experienced on my own body what it means to live absolutely without any sugar or artificial sweeteners, I started writing on this topic as well.

One November evening I came up with the idea that I could put all my festive sugar-free recipes in a book. I worked day and night, with no rest, but kept up. My first recipe book appeared before the 2020 New Year, you know it: Festive, Sugar-free Recipes for Almost Vegans.

“Festive, Sugar-free Recipes for Almost Vegans” is a great book for those who make a promise to live healthier after the New Year.

Later, I published a second book of sugar-free recipes for daily nutrition Daily, Sugar-free Recipes for Almost Vegans.

Prolonged healthy lifestyle resulted in so much strength and energy that I and my husband took the meaningful activity – we have collected about a ton of plastic and other rubbish from the Baltic Sea seashores in two years (2020-2021). This experience lays as a story with scientific facts and artistic illustrations in the third book Rubbish Paradise.

A few grams of sugar won’t hurt?..

I am confident that a few grams of sugar won’t really hurt. But nowadays we cannot rely on this truth.

As from my own experience in childhood, sweetened tea was the only source of a sweet taste for months, till a party cake. A party took place a few times per year: family members’ birthdays, New Year and Christmas, that is all! A home-baked cake was a true great party for a child.

These days, mothers take good care of their children and the whole family, and “support the brain with chocolate”, “nourish the body with glucose” on a daily basis for years and decades.

Children grow on sugar and become addicted to it.

Children grow up and become adults addicted to sugar: any gram of sugar for them may lead to sugar overeating and imbalance in food and mood. Is it normal? Of course, not…

These days we are often confronted with the truth that living well means consuming, consuming too much. This leads to a wide range of illnesses or a deterioration in the quality of life, even though it may look different from the outside. These days, rarely can anyone limit themselves to just a few grams of sugar a day, and let’s remember that sugar is everywhere: in wine, beer, cakes, candy, ketchup, mayonnaise, yogurts, beverages, pizza, processed food, etc.

Therefore,

one of the right solutions is to limit and share.

From Endless to Micro- Scale Collections

There are people who tend to collect something, or maybe let’s just call it a wish to heap and accumulate? So am (was) I.

Collections of sugar samples, shells, maps, books, stickers, calendars, magazines about beauty, fashion and knitting, magnets to decorate a refrigerator wall, “information” about healthy living, manuals and other scientific literature, herbarium of rare and local plants, pieces of traditional soap from various countries, postage stamps, and coins …

Some of my collections (endless accumulation) have lost any value, some still live on as endless passion, and others have discovered their true value after many years.

Thus, after decades I found a new true value for the majority of my collections, that is – I have donated them.

Currently, I have donated my shells collection to the Zoological Museum at Vilnius University, Lithuania; the collection of sand samples to the Nature Research Center, Vilnius, Lithuania, volcanic rock pieces from the Azores islands to the Museum of Geology at Vilnius University, Lithuania, and the herbarium to the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Kaunas , Lithuania, for educational purposes.

When you give – you always get instead.

But the aim of this philosophy is not to receive, but really to give, to share, to search for that person, an institution, or a place where your passion collections, which have become “accumulative objects” over the decades, can really gain a “second life”, bring value to science, the state, education, the common man.

Completed micro-scale collections of sand, shells and sugar samples

sand samples from Australia and Azores — Micro collection of **sand samples** from **Uluru mountain**, Australia, 2015 (on the left) and volcanous sand from **Azores islands**, Sao Miguel, Portugal, 2007.

collection of corals, shells and fossils — Micro collections of **corals and shells** from **Praia do Martinhal**, Sagres, Portugal (2019 08) and **Caldes d’Estrac**, Spain (2015 08). Fossils from Simona Urr: **New Zeland** and **river Nevezys**, Lithuania (2015).

sugar collection, samples from Lithuania, Poand, Portugal and France — Micro **sugar collection**, samples from **Lithuania, Poland, Portugal and France**.

Even when you are ready, it is hard to say goodbye for your passions. That is why I decided to transform my three collections, weighing 45 kg / 100 lbs, to a completed, micro-scale collections. In fact, it is just a few specimens. Total weight of all my current micro-collections is 680 g / 24 oz (including glass bottles).

In 2021, my endless, heavy collections of shells, sand and sugar samples have transformed into completed micro-scale collections.

Nothing will be added and nothing will be taken out.

Voilà! The magic of finding true value has happened.

Z-ANTENNA is the “E-Magazine for Curious Mind” brought to you by Dr. Alisa Palatronis, who shares her personal experience and scientific knowledge about longevity, art, travelling, psychology, nutrition and urban chemistry in the 21th century. Contact us any time at zet.antenna@gmail.com.

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