The fasting month never fails to make my teeth ache. Nothing to do with my dental condition but a lot to do with the sight of all those multicolored sweet treats that are in abundance at this time of year: The bright green cendol, the red buah delima, the techni-color syrups and soft drinks that are nothing but sugar in clever guises to tempt this former sugar addict to give in to a past weakness.

Most of the time I lapse -- the mixture of coconut milk and brown palm sugar is just too yummy to resist -- however there is one drink that I invariably refuse like the devil himself -- the ubiquitous and horribly cloying Indonesian sweet tea.

Let me tell you why.

When I was a teenager my habit, as was the habit of the English, was to drink tea with milk (pour the milk first and then the tea) followed by two teaspoons of white sugar. I didn't think there was anything wrong with that and I'm sure many people all over the world including Indonesians do the same thing.

Until that is when as a student, I moved in with a couple who did not stock white sugar in their cupboard. I was quite happy to be the supplier of the white stuff but instead Celia, the landlady, proposed a bet. How about if I gave up using sugar in my tea for two weeks? If I succeeded then I would conquer what she referred to as the world's greatest addiction. If I failed I was free to continue with whatever harm she thought I was doing to my body.

At first I couldn't see the point of the exercise. After all, what harm was there in having a bit of the stuff in my tea? But a bet was a bet and I set out to do it. I was not allowed to have any white sugar in any form, including in cakes and biscuits so for those treats I had to make sure that the sweeteners used were brown or raw sugar or sugar free.

To encourage me in my endeavor she gave me a book to read. It was called Sugar Blues. It traced the history of sugar which basically started the whole slave trade business that as we all know already brought great misery, suffering and discrimination to a lot of people in the world as they were captured, traded and forced work in sugar plantations and treated inhumanely.

Moreover, the introduction of sugar to societies that had not until then used white sugar as part of their diet opened up a lot of new diseases that were alien to them, tooth decay being a small part of it. Whereas in modern times, sugar finds its way into practically every type of food that is guaranteed to create health problems in people young and old such as diabetes, obesity and hyperactivity. Moreover, the book said, too much sugar can cause men's hair to fall out.

I felt scales fall off my eyes as I then realized that the gleaming white granules that gave so much delight to my taste buds were nothing short of the devil's creation itself.

The book was truly an eye opener. Sugar was bad and to eat it meant I was a willing participant in a history of wars, systematic human rights abuse, obliteration of indigenous societies and destroyer of the human health that had gone on for centuries.

However, my body said otherwise.

The first few days of giving up sugar were painful. I had to give up my tea as it tasted like sewage water so I stuck to the herbal variety which incidentally was quite well stocked in the kitchen cupboard. I had cravings so bad I had difficulties in sleeping, migraine headaches and palpitations of the heart.

I just could not get my mind off the stuff. I was in the words of drug addicts, having cold turkey. To help get over my sweet cravings I was allowed dried fruits as a substitute though there was only so many raisins and sultanas one could consume at any given time without spending too much time in the privy.

I had not until then associated sugar with addiction. I thought you could only be addicted to drugs or smoking, but sugar was a nice food and something that helped the medicine go down in the most delightful way.

Moreover, there were never any surgeon's warnings on sugar commercials that said it is bad for your health and is addictive. But there I was, obviously a sugar addict -- but thanks to the patience and guidance of my landlady, found salvation before the stuff could cause too much irreversible damage on my poor abused body.

At the end of the two weeks experiment Celia allowed me to make myself a cup of tea with two teaspoonfuls of sugar. I was overwhelmed with a mixture of guilt and anticipation. I sipped the brew which had given me much comfort for many years especially on depressing, wintry days at school. What I tasted on my tongue however, was nothing like my memory of a good cup of tea.

The two weeks of abstinence had revealed to me the real nature of the white stuff. It was so cloyingly and unbearably sweet that I could almost feel my teeth throb with pain. I wondered how I had managed all those years to swallow it at all.

Until now, when I am served sugared tea or see people put sugar in almost everything they consume and how on television sugar ads entice the unknowing consumers with a sugar world of fluffy white clouds, angelic and cherubic figures, my teeth still feel the pain. And until now I'm still convinced the book was right. There's nothing sweet about sugar. It's evil stuff. Trust me.

The writer is a journalist based in Jakarta. She can be reached at www.desianwar.net and http://quotidian.desianwar.net

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