Sugar Essay

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This increase in production caused a change at the consumption end. When sugar was first being produced it was seen as a luxury product only accessible to the rich, but then as its production increased and there was a surge amount in the market place its uses changed. It went from being a specialized product used for medicinal, ritual, or for display purposes to a common everyday food substitute. Now the working class people began more than ever to consume large quantities of sugar as a substitute to their calorie lacking diet. The production of sugar in the British West Indies was not able to keep pace with the demands from the mother country. When the supply from the British West Indies increased so did England’s demand for the crop. It seemed like from the middle of the eighteen century onward the islands were never able to produce more sugar than what was consumed by the people in the mother country. “English sugar consumption increased about four-fold in the last four decades of the eighteenth century, 1700-40, and more than doubled again from 1741-45 to 1771-75 (Mintz 1985) . As the English began to incorporate more amounts of sugar into their daily diets they began to find multiple uses of the commodity. Sugar soon developed into a stable product in the lives of people. With the increased use of sugar in multiple forms of consumption it changed from its previous classification as a spice to its own separate category. The use of this newly popular commodity did not lose any popularity as the years passed. Britain became a leading exporter of sugar crops into the world market, with majority of the supply going to feed their own peoples ravenous appetite. In 1800 British consumption of sugar had increased some 2,500 percent in... ... middle of paper ... ...k out of their home (Center n.d.). Modernization and development has left our working class people scrapping by to provide food for their families. To “solve” this, and increase their profits, corporations are now controlling the people’s nutritional needs. Since the development of the first sugar plantation businesses have been pumping sugar into our veins. We graciously accept this form of cheap nutrition because industrialization has left us inadequately prepared for survival in the fast paced consumer world. Simon Capewell, a professor of clinical epidemiology at the University of Liverpool sums up the issue with sugar in modern time by saying, “Sugar is the new tobacco. Everywhere, sugary drinks and junk foods are now pressed on unsuspecting parents and children by a cynical industry focused on profit not health.” (NHS Choices: Your Health, Your Choices 2014).

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