Sugar

HISTORY

Sugarcane cane (saccharum officinarum) was a native of South Asia and Southeast Asia. Different species seem to have originated from different locations with Saccharum barberi originating in India and S. officinarum coming from New Guinea.

The earliest known cultivation of sugar was in New Guinea around 10,000 years ago.

Sugar cane harvest Pixiebay

Sugar has been produced in the Indian subcontinent since ancient times and originally, people chewed raw sugarcane to extract its sweetness.

Sugar's name comes from the Sanskrit word ‘sharkara', meaning material in a gritty form.

Persian Emperor Darius came across sugar when he invaded India in 510 BC, calling it “the reed which gives honey without bees”.

According to legend, it was Alexander the Great's ancient Greek troops who first brought sugar cane – or at least stories of them – back to Europe after reaching India.

By the 10th century Moslems living in the Holy Land were growing sugar cane, which they milled and boiled in large open vats. Leaving the pulp to cool and to harden, the resulting products were flat cakes. Breaking off bits, they described them in their Arab tongue as "sukkar qandi, meaning "sugar pieces" which they either chewed like candy or used to sweeten their meals.

Crusaders brought sugar home with them to Europe after their campaigns in the Holy Land. The first sugar seen in England was brought back in 1099 from the Crusades.

Early in the 12th century, Venice acquired some villages near Tyre and set up estates to produce sugar for export to Europe, where it supplemented honey, which had previously been the only available sweetener.

During the medieval ages, sugar was extremely expensive and was considered a "fine spice." In the early 14th century it was available in London at the exorbitant price of "two shillings a pound".

By the 15th century, the area centered on Venice was the chief sugar refining and distribution centre in Europe.

Until the late 16th century, sugar was an expensive treat for the nobility. British settlers in America often called it “white gold."

Sugar was once the chosen medicine for ailments of the eye. Sugary sweets would be ground up and blown into the patients eye.

In the early 18th century, sugar beet was mainly grown as a garden vegetable and as animal fodder. In 1747 Andreas Marggraf, a chemist in Berlin, discovered the presence of a white substance with a sweet taste in the root of sugar beets which could be extracted in crystalline form. Marggraf believed the amount of sugar in beets was inadequate to provide an incentive for further development of the techniques needed to extract sugar.

Closeup of raw crystals of unrefined, unbleached sugar. By Editor at Large 

By the beginning of the 19th century, Franz Achard, a Prussian Chemist and former student of Andreas Marggraf had perfected an industrial process for the extraction of sugar from beet and had established the first sugar factory, in Kunern, Silesia, Germany with the encouragement of Frederick William III of Prussia.

Before granulated sugar and sugar cubes were introduced, sharp pincers called “sugar nips” were used to snip off pieces from sugar loaves.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, sugar tongs were first referred to in 1708.

Moravian Jakub Kryštof Rad, director of a sugar company in Dačice first patented a method of cutting sugar into small cubes on January 23, 1843.

Fourteen years later, Eugen Langen, who worked in his father's sugar factory, JJ Langen & Söhne, patented a different method to Rad's for producing sugar cubes.

Pixiebay

In 1872, Henry Tate, an English sugar merchant, purchased the patent from Eugen Langen for making sugar cubes, and in the same year built a new refinery in Liverpool. Five years later, he opened a refinery at Silvertown, London, which remains in production.

Until the Henry Tate mass produced sugar in cube form, it was most often sold to the general public in tall, solid cones with rounded tops called “sugar loaves”. The term "sugar-loaf" subsequently became used for anything of similar shape including types of hills  and pineapples.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, sugar lumps were first referred to in 1901.

Between 1700 and 1900, the average person in England went from eating 4 pounds of sugar a year to nearly 100 pounds annually.

Hacienda La Fortuna. A sugar mill complex in Puerto Rico, painted by Francisco Oller in 1885

At the start of World War II in 1939, the United Kingdom was importing about 70% of its sugar. On January 8. 1940 sugar was rationed to between 8 oz (227 g) and, 16 oz (454 g) per week. Sugar for cakes for birthday parties was partially or completely unavailable. The Sugar rationing in the UK finally  ended on September 26, 1953.

FUN SUGAR FACTS

Ralf Schröder of Lower Saxony claims to have the world’s largest sugar packet collection. As of May 14, 2013, Ralf Schröder he had a whopping 14,502 different sugar packets, with the oldest dating to the 1950s. 

The average person consumes about 24 kilograms (53 pounds) of sugar each year, with North and South Americans consuming up to 50 kg (110 lb) and Africans consuming under 20 kg (44 lb).

The US eats most sugar. The average American consumes 59 kilograms (130 pounds) of sugar every year. 

Pixiebay

Brazil is the world's largest producer of sugar cane with almost 40 per cent of the world total.

The World Health Organization says a healthy amount of sugar a day should be 25 grams, or one Snickers bar.

Brown sugar is just white sugar with molasses added to it; it is no healthier than white sugar or sugar in the raw.

Fructose, commonly found in soda and candy, is converted to fat more quickly than any other type of sugar.

Dogs enjoy sweet foods but cats have no sweetness receptors in their brains.

Sources Daily Express, Food For Thought by Ed Pearce