By the mid 19th century, Europeans and Americans had come to regard refined sugar as a necessity. Sugar consumption in England increased by 1,500 percent between the 18th and 19th centuries. Christopher Columbus brought sugarcane to the New World in 1493 and in the 16th and 17th centuries European powers established sugarcane plantations in the West Indies and South America. From there sugar traveled with migrants and monks to China, Persia, northern Africa and eventually to Europe in the 11th century.įor more than 400 years, sugar remained a luxury in Europe-an exotic spice-until manufacturing became efficient enough to make 'white gold' much more affordable. Sugarcane cultivation spread to India, where by 500 BC people had learned to turn bowls of the tropical grass's juice into crude crystals. Around 6,000 BC, people in New Guinea began to grow sugarcane, chewing and sucking on the stalks to drink the sweet juice within. Before agriculture, our ancestors presumably did not have much control over the sugars in their diet, which must have come from whatever plants and animals were available in a given place and season. How much sugar we consume, however-as well as how it enters the body and where we get it from in the first place-has changed dramatically over time. When her brother Daniel brings the ice cream cone near her once more, she flaps her arms and arches her whole body to reach it.Ĭonsidering that our cells depend on sugar for energy, it makes sense that we evolved an innate love for sweetness. A YouTube video from February 2011 begins with baby Olivia staring at the camera, her face fixed in rapture and a trickle of vanilla ice cream on her cheek. Sometimes, however, the moment of original sweetness is preserved.

Our very first experience of exceptional sweetness-a dollop of buttercream frosting on a parent's finger a spoonful of strawberry ice cream instead of the usual puréed carrots-is a gustatory revelation that generally slips into the lacuna of early childhood.

Robert h lustig sugar