Analysis Of Sugar Love By Richard Cohen

Is blood as sweet as sugar? In “Sugar Love,” Cohen delves within the history, demand, and the repercussions of sugar. He investigates the origin and the disclosed secrets of it by entailing the behind scenes of how sugar was collected, the location and the environment as well as the behaviors of others. He then ties in the popularity of sugar; how it spread like wildfire throughout the islands and how all social statuses craved it. Furthermore, Cohen embodies the kickback of sugar being blindsided by the blood of slaves and its sweet taste.

Cohen expresses the process of individuals changing their lives from bad habits to good habits. The poor health status of a school and its surrounding community is based off of the effects of sugar. A community

comes together to better each other’s lives by removing the temptations of bad habits. Sugar was not always a bad habit. Sugar was used for alternative practices such as medicine and religious ceremonies. It was a desired taste that was classified as a spice only the noble could afford. Unlike most products, the price declined and the demand was still high. Everyone was able to obtain it because of the declining price. Sugar became a booming industry where slavery became a necessity and corrupted man into narcissism. While having a continuous source of African American slaves, the mutilation or the loss of one slave could not have affected the production of sugar. Consuming numerous amounts of sugar will have its toll on the body. This lead to controlled experiments to learn how to diagnose, treat, and prevent chronic illnesses affiliated with sugar consumption. According to Cohen, 22 million years ago when apes freely roamed the earth, sugar was in its purest form. Mammals would consume the naturally sweetened fruit that grew on the trees. Through evolution, the apes developed a mutation of cells where they could store sugar and turn it into fat if famine were to occur. Through years of evolution, the gene of storing fat was passed to the human race. Not having the proper meal plan or exercise routine can determine the level of how much sugar gets store or burned off resulting in weight loss or weight gain (82-97).
Cohen reinforces his argument by incorporating knowledgeable information within his “Sugar Love” article.

For example, Cohen provided the time frame of which sugar was domesticated 10,000 years ago by the natives of New Guinea. He also explained how it rooted from island to island serving different purposes as well as how it was refined and industrialized (82-86). Additionally, he allowed the readers to connect on a personal level with Nick Scurlock by sharing some of his background, home life, and goals (82-97). As well as tying in the darker side of sugar, Cohen gave voice to the lives that were taken for sugar. He informed the readers of the 100,000 slaves harvesting sugar. African Americans replaced Native Americans when they all died out. Mutilation was a punishment and dying was a way to be free (86-87). Furthermore, Cohen obtained information regarding sugar from Dr. Richard Johnson, a Nephrologist, from Aurora, Colorado. The text states that more Americans are suffering from health issues than they were in the 20th century and 35 years ago. An increase of sugar relates to an increase risk of heart disease and diabetes. Limiting the amount of sugar can lead to a healthier status

(87-96).
Cohen states the Native and African Americans planted and harvested sugar but fails to go into detail about the life on and off the fields. For example, not thoroughly describing the lifestyle of slaves as he did with the punishment makes the horrific life style seem tedious (87). From what one has been taught over the years about slavery, one can entail that conditions were poor, unsanitary, and abusive. The owners of the land and slaves would misinterpret the form of discipline as punishment rather than abuse. Punishment is a scheme of acknowledgement of one’s wrong doing in a mild way. Whereas abuse is a form of mutilation such as when a slave would run away and “[land owners] would cut off a leg” (87).
Why didn’t the author go into detail about the bloody side of sugar?

The possibility of neglecting to give specific detail about the violent side of the sugar industry may have caused readers to feel misinformed. For instance, the Middle Passage sounds like a cruise from one location to another. When in actuality, the so called cruise was a slave ship harboring thousands of slaves when the ships were built for a few hundred. The demand for slaves made the owners more narcissistic because they were worried about their profit instead of the slaves’ wellbeing. Cohen fails to elaborate on slaves dying in the fields, pressing house, or escaping. He overlooked going into detail about whether slaves died on the field from natural causes or whether or not their owners killed them. As well as overlooking the pressing house and escaping, did slaves die naturally or was death conflicted upon them? One may never know due to the lack of evidence and detail with the

article.
Cohen notes the fraudulency of humanity and how sugar was abused, but was found lacking to incorporate a brief clarity that a limited amount of sugar is good for the human body’s functions as well. Working for someone is a sensitive phrase to state because it gets contorted into many forms well beyond its innocent meaning. Today in society there is an enormous amount of people who work for others for a living. Despite the similarity of working for others, no one is treated how they were during enslavement.