Sugar Detox Clinic is a detoxification clinic for treating sugar addiction, suspended between a parody of the therapeutic industry and the dystopia of a society controlled by sweetness. Its treatments, designed for different consumer-addict profiles, are grounded in sensory research showing how the perception of flavour is shaped by all five senses.
This prototype grows out of Elena Romeo's thesis "Cut Down On Sugar, Not On Taste!" (2023) at the Basque Culinary Center, which focuses on the multimodal interactions that explain how we perceive flavour through the combined action of all our senses. Sweetness is intensified by high-pitched sounds, soft textures, certain colours and aromas. Even geometry matters: right angles reduce sweetness, rounded shapes emphasise it.
Humans have an innate preference for sweetness, present in myths and stories that symbolise desire and prohibition. With industrial food production, sugar became omnipresent. Our relationship with sweetness is cultural and psychological: diet as control, sweetness as reward, candy as childhood regression.
Sugar Detox pushes the confusion between remedy and illness to its limit. The addiction is treated with precisely what best sums up our complex relationship with sugar: the gummy. Five therapeutic gummies, designed with the BCC, work as a food-innovation prototype and a small work within the work, reclaiming gastronomy as an art that combines creativity and science.
Concept, design and artistic direction
Elsa Yranzo
Research and gummy production
Nahuel Pazos and Elena Romeo, Basque Culinary Center
