I love sweets. Candy is number one, rich dense stuff like dark chocolate, nut-free fudge, See’s bordeaux chocolates (love those sprinkles). I adore Junior Mints and Peppermint Patties, Kit Kat bars, 3 Musketeers (which used to come as three bars, chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla) and Milky Way.
Next on the treat food chain is ice cream, any chocolate or caramel-type variety (again sans nuts, although pecans in pralines & cream and walnuts in rocky road are acceptable). The ice cream must be topped with lots of gooey topping (chocolate, caramel or butterscotch). A little whipped topping and a cherry are okay, but not required.
Then come fudge brownies and chocolate fudge cake, preferably frosted with a nice ganache. I also adore lemon bars and lemon cake and just about any kind of pudding. I’m a bit ambivalent about cookies, although a chewy, fresh-baked chocolate chip is pretty yummy.
Yeah, kind of ridiculous. Luckily I have some self-control, which keeps me from eating a Halloween bag’s worth every day as I might like. I eat a piece of chocolate here, a bowl of ice cream there, then exercise like crazy to keep the sweets from jumping directly on my hips. I really try hard not to gobble up everything in sight.
Not so the Milky Way (the galaxy, not the candy bar). Apparently, that monstrously big collection of stars has been gobbling up other galaxies in the neighborhood. Astronomers have discovered stars within the Milky Way that all have similar speeds and chemical compositions, which indicates they originally came from a common source. This Science News article describes how the Aquarius star stream within the Milky Way is fairly compactly grouped, which indicates the stars were gulped down by Milky Way somewhat recently. They haven’t yet had time to stretch out, although the Milky Way’s gravity is stretching Aquarius like taffy. There are other star streams that astronomers have identified as well, which were consumed by greedy Milky Way billions of years ago.
So maybe I don’t feel so bad about my sweet tooth. At least I’m not munching up galaxies like the Milky Way does. I’ve got way more self-control than that.
Of course, if the galaxies were made of chocolate, it might be a different story entirely.