The History of Sugar and How It Has Shaped Western Culture - Assignment Example

Sugar in America Introduction Although once considered an extreme luxury, sugar’s popularity since its discovery has grown in exponential proportions. It is difficult anymore to find a snack or meal that has not been touched in some way by this confectionary seasoning, although new uses for the product have been continuously developed throughout history in drinks, snacks, pure form and as seasoning. Throughout the developed world, astronomical amounts of sugar are consumed every day. “In the financial year 2001/2002, 134.1 million tons of sugar were produced worldwide” (“Sugar”, 2006). Another report indicates “Americans now eat an average of about 150 pounds of sugar per year, up 25 pounds (20 percent) since 1970. In terms of caloric content, sugar makes up more than 25 percent of the average American’s diet and up to 50 percent of some children’s diets” (Francis, 1998). How did sugar, a food once thought of as a luxury item reserved for the wealthy, become so prevalent in the world? How did this insignificant grass that was most often used for thatching in its native New Guinea home come to dominate global cuisine, create great wealth for a few and cause millions of people to be transported across the world under one of the most cruel and brutal regimes ever devised? (de Groot, 2005). To begin to answer these questions, as well as understand the world-changing events brought about by the discovery and production of sugar for the masses, it is necessary to examine the history of sugar as well as its current place in the world market. Sugar’s Beginnings The idea that human beings are predisposed to prefer foodstuffs that are inherently sweet has been argued to have begun during the evolution process. “Several scholars have suggested that sweetness might have been a signal or flag of edibility for members of the primate family, with our human ancestors emphatically included. The crux of the theory is that the sweet taste helped them to find and identify the more edible and nutrient-rich plant foods. All small primates (under 250 grams) and most apes and monkeys are fruit-eaters (and also meat-eaters)” (Mintz, 1999). According to de Groot (2005), the survival of hunter-gatherers approximately two million years ago actually depended upon finding high-calorie foods, which included sugar-rich fruits. “Through the millennia our tastes did not change, so when the New Guinea thatchers found that the stems of their roofing material tasted good, they planted the sweetest ones to chew on at their leisure (de Groot, 2005). Sugar was discovered by traders in New Guinea somewhere around 500 BC. “After it was domesticated in New Guinea, it diffused to the Asian mainland in several successive waves. Then, around the start of the Christian Era – give or take two or three centuries, more likely earlier than later – a crystalline sugar was produced from cane juice. … This solid sugar … seems to have been little known at first, outside South Asia. But Alexander’s generals described sugar cane in western India in 325 BC; and Indian texts, which may (and probably do) refer to sugar, date from the same time” (Mintz, 1999). De Groot (2005) indicates the Arabs then improved the sugar production process and introduced it to North Africa and the Mediterranean, but it was the crusaders that introduced it to England. “The Portuguese took sugar to Brazil. Hans Staden, published in 1555, writes that by 1540, there were 800 sugar mills on Santa Catalina Island and another 2000 up the north coast of Brazil, Demarara and Surinam. Approximately 3000 small mills built before 1550 in the New World created an unprecedented demand for cast iron gears, levers, axles and other implements,” creating the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution (“Sugar”, 2006). The introduction of sugar cane to the rest of the world engendered a global search for appropriate climates. “Sugar cane grew well on Madeira, in the Canaries, and on Sao Tome, among the Atlantic islands, during the third quarter of the fifteenth century. From the Canary Islands, the cane was carried to the Caribbean island of Spanish Santo Domingo (today’s Dominican Republic and Haiti), by Columbus, on his second voyage” (Mintz, 1999). From Santo Domingo, the plant was taken to the islands of Puerto Rico, Jamaica and Cuba that had been settled by Spain. From there it went to Brazil and several other places located in the New World. With such a high demand and the inability to grow the plant at home, sugar plantations in the new world began to expand and multiply. Slavery and its connection to the European sweet tooth The production of sugar from sugar cane is a complicated process that required a great deal of detail and attention in order to extract the highest possible yield. The cane has to be cut just as it becomes ripe in order to take advantage of the highest possible sugar content and then must be quickly ground up before it begins to sour. “Hence, sugar production from cane demands precise coordination of field and mill, exacting managers, and an industrious – or driven – labor force” (Mintz, 1999). The high demand for sugar created a need for an increased labor force to process the sugar cane on plantations, a labor force that wasn’t readily available in the newly settled lands. “The ideal ratio of labor to cultivatable land was one slave to every two acres” (Payne 1994). In most cases, the use of slaves referred to the use of African slaves as they proved to be more resistant to malaria and yellow fever than the Europeans. Indentured servants from the mother countries remained in short supply, often fell victim to the native diseases and proved to be a less economically feasible investment. “Barbadian planters were more inclined to pay for a lifetime of servitude than for only three or four years of labor. By 1680, the total servant population had dropped from over 13,000 in the early 1650s to less than 3,000 while the slave population rose from 6,000 in the mid 1640s to 37,551” (Payne 1994). Local populations proved to be insufficient to supply the necessary manpower as “local Native Americans had been reduced by European diseases like smallpox” (“Sugar”, 2006). Although slaves were a present force on the plantations in the early 1500s, British involvement with slavery can be traced to the first slaving voyage undertaken by John Hawkins of Plymouth in 1562 (Payne, 1994). On most of the plantations, owners did not spare any regard for the damage being done to the land or the human damage being condoned in the form of slavery. “From New England to Virginia to Jamaica, the English planters in seventeenth-century America developed the habit of murdering the soil for a few quick crops and then moving along. On the sugar plantations, unhappily, they also murdered the slaves” (Dunn in Nash, 2000). In Barbados, planters opted to clear all forests and unnecessary vegetation in favor of planting the entire surface with sugar cane. “Thus Barbados quickly became dependent upon outside supplies for even the basic necessities for food and clothing” (Payne 1994). With at least two million black slaves transported to the plantations between 1680 and 1786 by Britain alone, the mortality rate of slaves was appalling, providing only a suggestion of the harshness of life as a plantation slave. “Of 100 blacks enslaved in Africa, only 84 reached the West Indies. One third of these remaining slaves died within the next three years. Therefore, only fifty-six of the original one hundred slaves were still alive after three years” (Payne, 1994). Following the American Revolution and resulting trade embargoes between British colonies and the new American states, “over fifteen thousand Jamaican slaves died between 1780 and 1787 due to starvation from food shortages” as a result of the extreme deforestation and specialization of crops grown on the island (Payne, 1994). “In the main, enslaved Africans lived unspeakably difficult lives, dying prematurely, struggling futilely to resist brutalization, and in the end awaiting deliverance at the hands of their oppressors (Nash, 2000). Although no verifiable figures exist and estimates have been made time and time again, Mintz (1999) suggests the total number of African slaves transported to the New World was probably well over ten million during the four century history of slavery in the Americas. Increasing demand for sugar in Western culture The introduction of sugar in Europe was one of wonder and decadence. Because of the difficulty in obtaining it, sugar was considered a sign of the rich and well-connected. Temperance concerns breaking out across Europe in the late eighteenth century led to a further demand for more sugar. “Sugared tea became the respectable alternative to beer or wine long before water was safe to drink without boiling. These changes in social habits significantly increased the demand for sugar and were probably responsible for about half of the increased trade” (Hobhouse, 1986). People were ready for the introduction of a non-alcoholic alternative to boiled water. Coffee, tea and cocoa, obvious alternatives to us now, were then considered to be medicinal beverages and were thus highly priced items, which helped to drive the growing market for sugar and slaves (Wagner, 2002). This, in turn, drove the economies back home as well. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, sugar production brought in a great deal of wealth to Britain, contributing significantly to the development of several of Britain’s larger city growth and providing the foundation for the first British empire (Payne, 1994). Although an alternative to sugar cane that could be grown in the more temperate climates of Europe had been discovered in the sugar beet, it wasn’t until the outbreak of the Napoleanic wars early in the nineteenth century that sugar from sugar beets began to be produced in large scale. “Advents in technology brought forth the first sugar refineries during the Napoleonic period. At that time sugar was expensive, and average consumption was about seven pounds per year. By the end of the nineteenth century, sugar was affordable, and available to almost everyone” (Francis, 1998). Between 1663 and 1775, sugar consumption in England and Wales is estimated to have increased twentyfold as the decreasing cost of sugar made it available to the general household. “Lord Boyd Orr’s 1937 report on the nutrition of the United Kingdom concluded that the single most remarkable datum on the food habits of the British, Welsh, and Scottish peoples during the nineteenth century had been the fivefold increase in sugar consumption in that hundred years. Not until well into the twentieth century did the increase slow to a virtual standstill” (Mintz, 1999). As the price of sugar began to decline, making it available to more and more consumers, the uses for the product also increased, leading to a further increase in consumption. “From medicine, spice and condiment to decorative substance, to preservative, to sweetener, and eventually to food rather than mere sweetener – each use of sugar proliferated upon other earlier uses. … Because of its caloric importance, it became a true food, beginning to compete even against the complex carbohydrates in its takeover of the structure of meals” (Mintz, 1999). Since 1909, Francis (1998) reports sugar consumption has increased by 70 percent worldwide and continues to increase in less developed countries as they become more exposed to more industrialized nations. Current world sugar situation Since its discovery into modern times, sugar has had relatively little competition from outside markets. The only time sugar supply to European nations was ever threatened was during times of war, in which the production and distribution of the sugar from sugar beets was developed, allowing much of Europe to produce their own sugar supply. “Sugar’s extraordinary properties have dramatically changed our cuisine, but our addiction to the sweet stuff is a major cause of obesity and ill health. The race is on to find alternatives that give us the sweet hit without the calories, and, more bizarrely, to develop additives that make sugar tasteless” (de Groot, 2005). Despite this work to replace sugar in the marketplace, sugar consumption is still seeing rising numbers. “In 1800, the world sugar output stood at about 250,000 tons; in 1900, about eight million tons; in 1950, about thirty million tons; in 1993, about 110 million tons; and though its immediate future seems bleak to many folks in the sugar business, it is still rising” (Mintz, 1999). Also spurring an industrial endeavor to replace sugar as the sweetener of choice for the world is a series of trade tariffs and other restrictions that have made it increasingly difficult for smaller countries to gain any kind of leverage on the world market. “Today, the West perpetuates injustice and poverty through insane tariffs and subsidies for sugar beet farmers in Europe and the US that prevent much sugar from developing countries reaching its protected market” (Mintz, 1999). Despite this, the greatest quantity of sugar produced in the world is produced in Latin America, the United States and the Caribbean nations (“Sugar”, 2006). Subsidies and high import tariffs established by the EU have made it difficult for other countries to export to the EU states, or to compete with them on the world markets. In addition, the US sets high sugar prices to support its producers, encouraging many large-scale sugar consumers to switch to the use of corn syrup instead (“Sugar”, 2006). For this reason, reports coming out in 1997 have indicated that corn sweeteners have “decisively outstripped cane and beet sugar combined” (Mintz, 1999). “Sugar – both cane sugar and beet sugar – may have nowhere to go in the North American market; but global sugar use is still growing. While the highest average consumption continues to be found in the wealthy countries of Europe and the New World, sugar use is increasing in Africa and Latin America, and – though much less dramatically – in Asia as well. In many of these areas, the traditional, less refined sugars – the gur and jaggery of India, the panela of Colombia, the raspadura of the Dominican Republic – are being supplanted by granular white refined. On the face of it, there is absolutely no reason to expect global sweetener consumption to decline in the foreseeable future, nor to expect local crude sugars to hold out against refined products. Yet it seems likely that high fructose corn syrup will gain at the expense of sucrose as standards of living rise, and packaged foods further supplant fresh ingredients” (Mintz, 1999). Works Cited de Groot, Peter. “Just a Spoonful…” New Scientist. Vol. 185, I. 2481, p. 50, (January 8, 2005). Francis, Raymond. “Sugar – A Poor Choice.” Beyond Health News. Hobhouse, H. Seeds of Change: Five Plants that Transformed Mankind. New York: Harper & Row, 1986. Mintz, Sidney W. “Sweet Polychrest.” Social Research. Vol. 66, I. 1, pp. 85-101, (Spring 1999). Nash, Gary. Forward to Sugar and Slaves by Dunn, Richard. North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. Payne, Jennifer M. “Influences of British Imperialist Economic Forces on Slavery, Sugar and Abolition.” Caribbean History. Austin, TX: University of Texas – Austin, (December 12, 1994). "Sugar." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. (March 23, 2006) March 22, 2006 < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar> Wagner, Phillip. “Sugar and Blood: African Slavery.” Rhythm of Hope in Brazil. (April 2002). March 22, 2006 Read More