Sugar seems to have been around for a long time. The Persian emperor Darius appears to have brought sugar out of India in 510 BC. In Britain it seems to date from 1099 and between those two dates the crusaders were involved in it reaching Europe.
But sweetening, which sugar does very effectively, goes back beyond sugar into the evolutionary past because it is in fruit and honey which means big numbers of millions of years ago.
However sugar, really a 'Johnny come lately', seems to have been first cultivated in New Guinea some 10,000 years ago spreading to South East Asia, China and thence India. It's history involving slavery is a sad one .
I think it's present and future are worrying because it is so tied up in the health of all the world with the expectation almost everywhere that it should be freely available.
Sugar in the UK is cheap, so cheap that is not just used to sweeten but that it forms the backbone of the item as candy bars etc.
Sugar is everywhere, even used with salt, in canned vegetables and of course by itself in canned fruit.
That sugar has the elements of an addictive substance is hard to refute but much of this is due to constant exposure where in some manner or other it encroaches on the fabric of almost everything we eat.
The glycemic index of sugar being what it is, high, ensures that we feel energised after having it in one form or another. Its presence, in high order, in the dessert that gives us the kick we get that keeps us awake after a heavy main meal.
What is needed is to change peoples tastes - to get people to get used to no sugar or a sweetness that is just detectable - a new value in sweetness called 'barely sweet' - the minimum sugar content to actually realise that the eaten object is actually sweet.
This means new standards which will be generated out of surveys.
What will pick up the tab in terms of acceptance is texture and appearance.
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