The Right Chemistry: Sugar production's not-so-sweet history
Slavery, war and science play key roles in the refining of the process.
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“That tastes really sweet,” the native must have thought to himself as he chewed on the stalk of a plant he had just pulled out of the ground.
The place? New Guinea. When? Some 8,000 years ago.
And thus began the human love affair with sugar. It didn’t take long to discover that sugar cane could easily be propagated by planting cuttings, and domestication of the plant was under way. When Indian traders began to explore the Pacific islands, they learned about sugar cane and introduced it to India from where it spread to China. Somewhere along the way it was discovered that squeezing the sugar cane expressed a juice that if allowed to stand formed sweet crystals. By the first century, sugar cane mills were introduced in India and knowledge of sugar spread westward.
The Greeks and Romans learned about sugar by the fourth century and used it mostly as medicine. In the Middle East, Arab farmers learned to cultivate sugar cane and became proficient at extracting its sugar content. They were also the first to combine sugar with other commodities such as almonds to make marzipan. The first Europeans to learn of sugar were the Crusaders who brought the sweet substance back from Jerusalem in the 11th century.
Sugar cane cannot be grown in the cooler European countries, but when the Spanish colonized the Canary Islands they found it to be an ideal place to grow the plant. Sugar mills were set up and Indigenous people were enslaved to run them.
The Portuguese did the same on the island of Madeira. On his second voyage to America, Columbus took sugar cane cuttings from the Canaries to the island that is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic and thus planted the seed for the sugar industry in the Caribbean. The Portuguese followed suit and established sugar plantations in Brazil. They came not only with seedlings, but with muskets that outmatched the bows and arrows of the natives who were enslaved. Sugar production increased and Europe now had sugar from America as well as from the Canaries and Madeira. Curiously, it was regarded not only as a sweetener but as a medicine as well.
In the 16th century, German physician and botanist Jacobus Theodorus Tabernaemontanus wrote that “nice white sugar from Madeira or the Canaries, when taken moderately, cleans the blood, strengthens body and mind, especially chest, lungs and throat, but it is bad for hot and bilious people, for it easily turns into bile, also makes the teeth blunt and makes them decay. As a powder it is good for the eyes, as a smoke it is good for the common cold, as flour sprinkled on wounds it heals them. With milk and alum it serves to clear wine. Sugar water alone, also with cinnamon, pomegranate and quince juice, is good for a cough and a fever. Sugar wine with cinnamon gives vigour to old people. Sugar candy has all these powers to higher degree.” At least he got the bit about blunting the teeth and making them decay right.
With the introduction of coffee and chocolate to Europe, sugar as a sweetener became even more desirable. As demand increased, so did the need for manpower on plantations and the mills. This was filled by African slaves, some half a million of whom were shipped to the New World in the 17th century. By the 18th century, movements to abolish slavery were growing and American abolitionists promoted the use of maple syrup instead of sugar from the Caribbean. But slavery continued until 1866 in the U.S. and 1888 in Brazil.
Sugar cane is not the only source of sugar. The high sugar content of beets was apparently first noticed in 1747 by Andreas Margraaf, a German apothecary, who had been using white beets as a laxative and was struck by the sweet taste. One of his students, Franz Karl Achard, became interested and planted some beets to see which variety produced the most sugar. By 1802, a pilot sugar beet refinery had been built in Prussia but the sugar it produced could not compete in price with that produced from sugar cane.
Then along came the Napoleonic Wars and the British blockade of French ports. That is when Benjamin Delessert came to the fore and developed an efficient method of producing pure sugar by clarifying the juice squeezed from beets. The secret was to pass the juice through charcoal, a material with an amazing property to filter impurities. For this he was awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honour by Napoleon who reportedly took the cross from around his own neck and gave it to Delessert. Soon 40 beet refineries were supplying France with sugar and the number expanded to 250 by the mid 1920s. Sugar went from being a luxury item to a widely available commodity. Today, about 20 per cent of the world’s sugar is produced from beets.
After cereals and rice, sugar cane is the world’s most valuable crop. It has yielded commercial profits galore, but it has also plied the world with empty calories that have contributed significantly to the epidemic of obesity and its companion ailments, namely heart disease, cancer and diabetes. Critics have made the point that no other crop occupies as much land and uses as many resources for so little benefit to humanity as sugar cane.
That isn’t totally correct. In Brazil, sugar is fermented into ethanol and cars are designed to run either on ethanol, gasoline, or a mix. The residue left after sugar cane has been crushed, known as “bagasse,” can be burned for energy to power the sugar mill, with excess being transferred to the electrical grid. As far as carbon dioxide production goes, sugar cane absorbs more when it grows than it releases when burned. Bagasse can also be converted into pulp to make paper and boxes as well as particle board for furniture. It can even be processed into soluble fibre that can be added to food to boost fibre intake.
Undoubtedly excess sugar consumption is a problem, but there is one sugar myth that can be put to rest. There is no “sugar high,” and sugar does not cause children to be hyperactive. Still, cutting back is good advice. Do we really need to pump children with Cap’n Crunch, half the weight of which is sugar? Let them eat Fiber One.
Joe Schwarcz is director of McGill University’s Office for Science & Society (mcgill.ca/oss). He hosts The Dr. Joe Show on CJAD Radio 800 AM every Sunday from 3 to 4 p.m.
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