Sugar by James Walvin
Pre-Columbian Times
The ancient world’s most popular sweetener was honey. Honey was widely coveted, was used for a variety of religious and ceremonial purposes, and had lots of medicinal properties attributed to it (not backed by modern science).
Sugarcane, native to southeast Asia, was a relatively obscure crop that was limited to sub-tropical and tropical climates. In Europe, cane sugar was a rare and expensive import from the Islamic world.
European royals and aristocrats consumed sugar conspicuously and without restraint. Though the wealthy were in better overall health than the poor, the wealthy had far worse dental health, with blackened and missing teeth being the norm.
The Age of Exploration
As European countries discovered and colonized new lands, they gained access to tropical climates and the ability to grow crops that couldn’t be grown in Europe’s climates. Sugarcane was found to be well-suited for the Atlantic islands, Brazil, and the Caribbean. The rainforests of the New World were slashed and burned to make way for sugarcane plantations.
Sugarcane farming required significant amounts of manpower and the labor itself was gruelling. Sugarcane plantations solved their labor shortage by importing slaves by the shipload from western Africa. About 12 million Africans in total were transported to the New World in what was then the largest forced migration in history; Africans became the largest ethnic group in many regions. A variety of crops were grown in the Caribbean and slaves worked a variety of jobs, but sugar was the dominant crop and being a sugarcane field hand was the most common slave job. The slaves’ working conditions were terrible, but their plight was little-known outside the main sugar islands.
Sugarcane was sent by boat to Europe, where it was refined and shipped to consumers. The Caribbean sugar plantations drastically increased the supply and reduced the price of sugar in the West.
Sugar had no trouble finding willing consumers. Sugar tasted great, it was a reliable source of energy, and various bogus medicinal benefits were attributed to it. The sugar habits of the wealthy trickled down to all other classes of society, likely due to maidservants taking high culture home with them. Sugar was widely used as an additive to make ordinary foods more palatable, as the basis for sweet treats, and as a preservative. Sugar’s most visible role was as a sweetener of bitter beverages; Britain’s famous tea culture and America’s famous coffee culture both arose during this time. Desserts evolved into a standalone course of a meal. Cakes became a common way to celebrate occasions like weddings. Sugar production byproducts like molasses and rum gained popularity too; rum caused a significant drunkenness problem, especially among native Americans. The serious tooth decay problems that were once limited to the wealthy had now spread to everyone else.
In less than a century, sugar went from being a luxury spice to being an ordinary commodity that could be found in the most humble shops in the most remote towns. Sugar had gone from something few people had to something even the rural poor took for granted and couldn’t imagine life without.
The Industrial Revolution
With sugar being a major staple of the Western diet, the public taking it for granted, and the population rapidly growing, increasing and securing the sugar supply was an economic and political imperative. When slavery ended in the Western world throughout the 19th century, slaves were usually replaced with imported indentured laborers, often from India. New technology made it economical to get sugar from farming beets, which unlike sugarcane, could be grown in temperate climates like those of Europe and the northern United States. American private interests invested heavily in sugarcane plantations in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and the Hawaiian islands, bringing all of these territories firmly into America’s sphere of influence. Worldwide sugar production diversified significantly and the Caribbean’s historic dominance started to wane.
New technology led to the mechanization of many industrial processes, the consolidation of much of the sugar refining industry, and lower prices for consumers. New bottling and canning technology enabled the mass adoption of jams and jellies. The diet of poor Europeans was soon built around bread, jam, and tea, with all three sweetened with added sugars.
World War I and World War II caused major disruption to sugar supply chains, forcing the participant countries to enact unpopular sugar-rationing programs. Sugar consumption rebounded quickly after the wars, reaching peaks of over 100 pounds per person per year in the middle of the 20th Century.
Modern Times
The food industry continued mechanizing and consolidating, making food more abundant, more cheap, and more convenient. Food manufacturers systematically worked to make their foods as palatable as possible; this usually involved adding lots of sugar as part of processing. New forms of media such as TV gave food manufacturers new ways to promote their concoctions. Since dietary norms and habits are established during childhood and then tend to be sticky, the food industry’s advertising targeted children in particular, trying to indulge their sweet tooth to win their consumer loyalty.
The industrialization of food resulted in many novel food products. Sugary cereals became common at the breakfast table. Sugary soft drinks became a ubiquitous feature of gas stations and corner stores. Fast food restaurants started dotting the highways.
Direct consumption of sugar by the general public fell into decline, but this was counteracted by ever-increasing amounts of sugar in processed foods. When deregulation of the sugar industry led to price volatility, food companies increasingly turned to high fructose corn syrup and to artificial sweeteners.
The rise of sugar-rich processed foods and the increasingly sedentary lifestyle of ordinary people caused the obesity rate to rise rapidly towards the end of the 20th Century. In a reversal of historical norms, poor people were more likely to be fat than rich people. The growth rate of obesity is especially high in developing countries and especially high among children.
In the early 20th Century, the young field of nutrition science had investigated sugar and found it to contain absolutely no vitamins or minerals. By the middle of the 20th Century, sugar was widely blamed for dental problems, especially among children. By the end of the 20th Century, the consumption of sugar (especially soft drinks) was found to be the main driver of the global rise of obesity. The global food industry objected to these claims at every turn, sponsoring research that reached opposite conclusions or blamed causes other than sugar.
Sugar had gone from being an unqualified good to being a public health enemy that health-conscious consumers intentionally tried avoiding. Middle and upper-class people took matters into their own hands to protect themselves from mainstream food culture and obesity, triggering the rise of the diet and fitness industries. Public figures increasingly drew parallels between sugar and tobacco. There was increasing public support for top-down interventions such as bans on junk food marketing to children and taxes on sugary beverages. In a reversal of hundreds of years of history, sugar became an ingredient that food advertisements boasted about not including rather than one they boasted about including.