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Home , History of sugar

FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK

The Grim History of

Lawrence I. Bonchek, MD, FACC, FACS Editor in Chief

Once considered a “fat-free” source of energy, who suffered from rampant caries and tooth decay. sugar is now seen as a threat to health,1,2 but that is In 1597 the French ambassador described Queen only one part of its grim history, as recently re-told by Elizabeth I as missing so many teeth that “one cannot historian James Walvin.3 understand her easily when she speaks quickly.”3 In contrast, excavations of human remains in volcanic residue from Mount Vesuvius’s eruption in 79 A.D., is a universally pleasurable taste, and reveal few cavities and intact dentition. Examinations honey – the main natural source of concentrated car- of teeth in British burial sites confirm the scarcity of bohydrate calories – is a dietary staple in primitive dental problems before the 17th century, and poor societies. Honey may have played a role in human dentition after the 19th. evolution because a metabolically demanding brain By the 15th century, the system for producing required a concentrated source of calories.4 Honey sugar was well-developed. The Europeans only needed can comprise 80 percent of calories consumed by the a colony in a warm climate where could Efe pygmy people of the Congo, and up to 1,100 calo- grow, and a labor force. Bankers were eager to finance ries/day for the Ache, forest dwellers in Paraguay.4 these lucrative enterprises, and by the end of the 15th Indigenous peoples use elaborate measures to get century, the Spanish and Portuguese were planting honey, including smoking bees out of hives with a sugarcane on every Atlantic island where they could brush fire (Tanzania), and climbing rope ladders on overcome the local population. proved ideal, the face of cliffs (Nepal). Rock art as long as 26,000 and by 1500 it was the largest sugar producer in the years ago depicted honeycombs, bees, and honey West, with almost 3,000 tons annually. collecting. In the pre-industrial era, sugar production was maximally efficient when men worked in gangs doing SUGARCANE back-breaking labor that men have never done will- Sugar was transformed from a luxury item to an ingly. The tragic solutions – depending upon the affordable commodity during the 17th to the 19th geographic area and economic system – were inden- centuries. As trade and the global economy expanded, tured servitude, prison labor, or . the demand for sugar grew. Many of these islands were a short distance from Historians agree that use of sugarcane as a com- the coast of , and it was inevitable that slave mercial crop originated in South Asia before Christ, labor would become the mainstay of sugar produc- and spread to the and to . After tion in that region. sugar entered Islamic cuisine from , sugarcane In 1493, sugarcane crossed the Atlantic with spread around the Mediterranean with Islam – from Columbus on his second voyage. became the Egypt in the 8th century, to the North African coast major sugar producer in the Americas, and when and Spain by the 11th. indigenous Indian workers proved unwilling or The crusaders brought sugar back to England inadequate to fill the industry’s burgeoning needs, and Northern Europe in the 11th century. When the African slaves were imported. But Brazil never devel- Islamic invaders were expelled in 1492, the European oped sophisticated refining methods that produced appetite for sugar was satisfied by Venetian and fine , and shipped much of their product Genoese merchants, who got sugar from producers to Holland for refining, which left an opening for the around the Mediterranean. French and British. Though latecomers to the New Sugar was eaten mostly by the nobility and royalty, World, they quickly made the Caribbean the most

The Journal of Lancaster General Hospital • Fall 2018 • Vol. 13 – No. 3 65 The Grim History of Sugar

important sugar-producing region in the world. By THE TARIFF SYSTEM and AMERICA’S high SUGAR PRICES 1770, British and French (then called Many countries regulate the prices of basic com- St. Domingue) accounted for half of all Caribbean modities to keep them affordable, but America sugar production (36,000 and 60,000 tons respec- professes to favor “free markets.” Yet, “temporary” tively). The small farmers and indentured workers restrictions on imported sugar first imposed in 1920 (those who worked in return for free passage to the (and still in place), and protective tariffs first enacted ) were displaced, and sugarcane was grown in 1934, force Americans to pay about 50% more for on large where the evil system of slavery sugar than the average world price.5 (In the past the was exploited with maximum efficiency. premium has been far greater.) Only in the late 19th century did the cultivation The process for making high- corn of sugar beets in the colder, more Northern climates (HFCS) was developed in 1957, and in 1984, Coca-Cola of Europe and North America allow sugar produc- and , tired of paying inflated sugar prices, switched tion to expand beyond the supply obtainable from to HFCS. Consumers yawned, and the rest of the bever- sugarcane. age industry soon followed. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) took effect in 1994, but THE ENVIRONMENT restrictions on Mexican sugar weren’t eliminated until In addition to sugar’s links to slavery and obe- 2008. Thanks to a political environment now more sity, its evils include damage to the environment. receptive to tariffs, U.S. sugar producers are asking for The expansion of sugarcane cultivation required the tariffs on Mexican sugar again. destruction of huge swathes of native terrain – mostly Although sugar represents just 2% of the total value rainforest. The favored slash and burn methods of U.S. crop production, the accounts destroyed native plants and animals, and irreparably for 40% of the crop industries’ total lobbying expendi- harmed the ecosystem that the indigenous peoples tures, and their money has been well spent; U.S. farm depended upon. The introduction of foreign plant bills regularly renew protections for the sugar industry. and animal species further upset the delicate balance The inflated price of sugar is all but invisible to of this ecologically unique region. American consumers, since most of the sugar we con- It is estimated that when the Europeans arrived sume is in processed foods. Few Americans realize that the in the Caribbean at the end of the 15th century, the table sugar in the local supermarket costs far more here region had about 2 million indigenous inhabitants. than in Paris. The European Union abolished limits on Within less than a hundred years they had disappeared, production at the end of September 2017, dra- replaced entirely by peoples from Africa and Europe. matically boosting output. European prices for sugar are When slavery ended in the Western Hemisphere plummeting, but American consumers will not benefit. towards the end of the 19th century, the plantations When one commodity gains such a market advan- solved their labor shortage with indentured workers tage, it has the pernicious effect of encouraging other from India. Just a small step above slaves, they soon producers to seek similar treatment, thus distorting comprised the third largest group of immigrants to free markets more widely. the region. Walvin3 notes that the system was FINAL THOUGHTS “pioneered and perfected” in the cane fields, but it set Thankfully, the sugar we consume is no longer pro- an example that was then transposed to many other duced with inhumane methods, and more than half of regions and crops: cotton in the American South, America’s supply comes from sugar beets. Still, as we pineapple in , tea in India, palm oil and cocoa physicians contemplate sugar’s harm to our health, it in West Africa, and rubber in Malaya. Always, it was behooves us to also be aware of the other costs of sugar associated with the destruction of native terrain, and throughout history: slavery, environmental destruction, laborers trapped in some variety of servitude. and distortion of free markets.

References 1. Deron S. What is the biochemical answer to the riddle of ? J 4. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ Lanc Gen Hosp 2012; 7(3):75-77. humans-the-honey-hunters-9760262/ 2. Wenger C. Does a spoonful of sugar help [more] medicine go down? 5. Riley B. U.S. trade policy gouges American consumers. The J Lanc Gen Hosp 2018; 13:68-72. Heritage Foundation. 2014. https://www.heritage.org/trade/report/ 3. Walvin J. Sugar: The World Corrupted – from Slavery to Obesity.2018. us-trade-policy-gouges-american-sugar-consumers Pegasus Books. New York.

66 The Journal of Lancaster General Hospital • Fall 2018 • Vol. 13 – No. 3