The history of added sugar in our food.

The History of Added Sugar in our Food

Experts recommend that an adult should consume no more than 30 grams of added sugar every day. However, these 30 grams might just be the amount of added sugar in your favourite soft drink or chocolate that you casually consume after a meal. Sugar consumption today is pretty different from what it was years ago. There weren't any commercial soft drinks loaded with added sugar or chocolate that were part of a regular diet. This food item has quickly become more of a craving than a necessity. After each meal, most of us have that sweet tooth craving from kids to adults. However, this wasn't always the case with our diet and sugar. Let's discuss how sugar became a prominent part of today's diet and its history.

Sugar is made from sugarcane. However, it wasn't always a regular condiment in the human diet. Refined sugar wasn't even a part of food some hundred years ago. They relied on pulses, crops, and fruits and hunted animals for their food. Sugarcane was primarily a fodder crop for pigs and not a prominent part of our diets. Plant remnants indicate that sugarcane was first found in South East Asia. After that, it spread to the Eastern Pacific and Indian Oceans around 3,500 years ago.

Afterwards, chemically refined sugar, which we usually use, appeared in India 2,500 years ago. It then reached China, Persia, the early Islamic worlds, and the Mediterranean in the late 15th century. However, it was still an expensive condiment and not a part of everyone's diet. It became readily available and became a part of our diets once commercial production and industries took off. The Western European sugar industry was among the pioneers of this mass-produced crop, which now covers approximately 26,942,686 hectares of land for production.

The modern-day diet of an average adult has 20% sugar for the daily caloric content. It means that 20% of what we eat is sugars or sugar-based carbohydrates every day. It is four times more than the recommended 4%. The ready availability and presence of added sugar in our diets have their roots in its profitable industry. Once mass production began, it was available for everyone to use. Food processing companies started using it for their products like beverages, fast food items, and daily consumables. On the other hand, it quickly became a household condiment. Let's look at some facts over the years which indicate the massive increase in sugar consumption post-industrialization and its mass production:

In 1700, a person consumed 4.9 grams of sugar each day.
In 1800, this consumption rose to 22.4 grams every day.
By 1900, sugar consumption rose to 112 grams every day for an average person.
And in 2009, this figure was 227 grams for 50% of Americans.

These figures show an explosive rise in sugar consumption over the years. Today, you can find it in almost every snack or food item. Biscuits, chocolates, soft drinks, and energy drinks are all food items with a high sugar concentration. Moreover, our taste buds already develop a taste or craving for sugar from a young age. The highly-advertised drinks for children or even baby formulas have high sugar levels. These quickly become a part of kids' diets and lead to a preference for sugary food.

Now, researchers, scientists, and doctors constantly communicate about the effects of a high sugar diet. It is a significant contributor to obesity in the population and is even linked to several diseases such as diabetes and heart attacks. Everything in access can be harmful, and it goes the same for sugar. It has almost no need or nutritional value in our diets but still forms a major part of what we eat. We should try to limit its consumption and focus on unprocessed, natural sugars and carbohydrates instead of refined sugary food items. It would help us remain fit, avoid cravings, and fill our bodies with more nutrients. So, we should take a step for our health today and choose nutrition over our cravings.