SIMON'S FOOD SCHOOL:
Stuff You Didn't Know You Didn't Know About Food
SUGAR
I don’t have much of a sweet tooth. However, that seems to be most unlike the majority of my fellow countrymen. It is probably no surprise to hear that most Americans consume far too much sugar. In fact, in a recent article, it was calculated that the average American consumes about 82 grams a day. To put that in context, that is the equivalent of 19.5 teaspoons a day or a whopping 66 pounds a year. Now, I don’t think this newsletter is the place to talk about the nutritional and political aspects of our sugar consumption, but I did think you might be interested in the history of one of America’s most consumed, discussed and controversial ingredients.
The origins of sugar are believed to have begun with the growth of sugar cane in South East Asia in 8,000 BC, and from there to the Polynesian islands and India. Once in India it began to be traded with other nations and empires who craved its sweetness. These included those of Alexander the Great of Macedon and, Darius the emperor of the mighty Persian Empire, who called it “the reed that gives honey without bees."
It was, scientists believe, in India that sugar cane was first refined into crystals and, it was in this form that it could most easily traded and found itself becoming a product of great value both in China and by the 11th and 12th Centuries in Europe, where it was first introduced by returning crucaders.
It remained an item reserved just for the massively wealthy until early colonial nations, such as Portugal, began to discover lands, such as Brazil and the islands of the Caribbean, that it began to be grown on a much larger scale during the dark days of the slave trade. In fact, not only did sugar production depend on the slave trade for its growth, but in return it was one of the main determining factors in the growth of the slave trade.
Despite the increase in production, sugar was still too expensive for most ordinary citizens until the discovery, in the middle of the 18th Century, by a wonderfully named scientist called Andreas Marggraf, that an almost identical product to cane sugar could be extracted from the pulverized roots of beets.
It still took a while for sugar to reach the masses, thanks primarily, to blocking techniques used by the wealthy producers of cane sugar. But, with changes to legislation made during WWI, beet sugar became more readily available to food producers, and the American love affair with sugar really began in earnest.
So, when you are next considering your consumption of sugar, also take a moment to consider the long and often dark history it has undergone to get to your lips and hips.
