Welcome back to another edition of Cool Stuff Ride Home where we cover some of the more interesting, intriguing, and cool stories from around the world.

On today's episode, how the change in climate may be making us eat more sugar, plus what that sugar does to our body.

That's coming up on Cool Stuff.

Speaking of unhealthy things, I love sugar.

I love chocolate, I love sugar, I try not to, I try to reduce my eating of it.

In fact, I try not to drink a lot of soda.

But I still get the cravings.

And it turns out, as the mercury rises, so does America's appetite for sugar. A new study in nature climate

change finds that global warming is driving U.S. households to consume hundreds of millions

of extra pounds of sugar each year, mostly in the form of sodas, juices, and frozen treats.

Researchers from the U.S. and United Kingdom analyzed detailed purchasing

records from 40,000 to 60,000 American households between 2004 and 2019, then compared them

against local weather data, including temperature, humidity, wind, and precipitation.

Their findings are quite interesting. For every 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit

or 1 degrees Celsius of warming, households consumed an extra 0.7 grams of added sugar per person

per day. That adds up to more than 100 million pounds or 358 million kilograms of sugar compared to consumption 15 years ago.

And there is a sweet spot for those cravings. It is between 54 and 86 degrees Fahrenheit,

or 12 to 30 degrees Celsius. Above 86 degrees Fahrenheit, the appetite actually starts to dip again.

My guess, not scientific here, is it gets too hot and we're too lazy to move, so it's just a lot of work to try to get some of that sugar.

Let's just sit here and not move when it gets too hot.

And while an extra sip of soda here and there may not sound like a lot. The sugar does add up.

Study co-author, Do-Uchan, a climate scientist at the University of Southampton, said, quote,

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