Sugar
[4] The English word jaggery, a coarse brown sugar made from date palm sap or sugarcane juice, has a similar etymological origin: Portuguese jágara from the Malayalam cakkarā, which is from the Sanskrit śarkarā.
Sugar remained relatively unimportant until the Indians discovered methods of turning sugarcane juice into granulated crystals that were easier to store and transport.
The Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides attested to the method in his 1st century CE medical treatise De Materia Medica: There is a kind of coalesced honey called sakcharon [i.e. sugar] found in reeds in India and Eudaimon Arabia similar in consistency to salt and brittle enough to be broken between the teeth like salt,In the local Indian language, these crystals were called khanda (Devanagari: खण्ड, Khaṇḍa), which is the source of the word candy.
"[25] Crusaders brought sugar back to Europe after their campaigns in the Holy Land, where they encountered caravans carrying "sweet salt".
Early in the 12th century, the Republic of Venice acquired some villages near Tyre and set up estates to produce sugar for export to Europe.
Sugar was considered to have "valuable medicinal properties" as a "warm" food under prevailing categories, being "helpful to the stomach, to cure cold diseases, and sooth lung complaints".
[32] A feast given in Tours in 1457 by Gaston de Foix, which is "probably the best and most complete account we have of a late medieval banquet" includes the first mention of sugar sculptures, as the final food brought in was "a heraldic menagerie sculpted in sugar: lions, stags, monkeys ... each holding in paw or beak the arms of the Hungarian king".
They continued to be used until at least the Coronation Banquet for Edward VII of the United Kingdom in 1903; among other sculptures every guest was given a sugar crown to take away.
[35] In August 1492, Christopher Columbus collected sugar cane samples in La Gomera in the Canary Islands, and introduced it to the New World.
[39] Marggraf's student, Franz Karl Achard, devised an economical industrial method to extract the sugar in its pure form in the late 18th century.
This evolution of taste and demand for sugar as an essential food ingredient resulted in major economic and social changes.
[45] Demand drove, in part, the colonization of tropical islands and areas where labor-intensive sugarcane plantations and sugar manufacturing facilities could be successful.
[46] After slavery was abolished, the demand for workers in European colonies in the Caribbean was filled by indentured laborers from the Indian subcontinent.
[47][48][49] Millions of enslaved or indentured laborers were brought to various European colonies in the Americas, Africa and Asia (as a result of demand in Europe for among other commodities, sugar), influencing the ethnic mixture of numerous nations around the globe.
[53][54] During the Napoleonic Wars, sugar-beet production increased in continental Europe because of the difficulty of importing sugar when shipping was subject to blockade.
Tate purchased a patent for sugar-cube manufacture from German Eugen Langen, who in 1872 had invented a different method of processing of sugar cubes.
[6] Sugar cane requires a frost-free climate with sufficient rainfall during the growing season to make full use of the plant's substantial growth potential.
It is a biennial plant,[91] a cultivated variety of Beta vulgaris in the family Amaranthaceae, the tuberous root of which contains a high proportion of sucrose.
The roots do not deteriorate rapidly and may be left in the field for some weeks before being transported to the processing plant where the crop is washed and sliced, and the sugar extracted by diffusion.
The first stage is known as affination and involves immersing the sugar crystals in a concentrated syrup that softens and removes the sticky brown coating without dissolving them.
[3] Sugar refiners and manufacturers of sugary foods and drinks have sought to influence medical research and public health recommendations,[114][115] with substantial and largely clandestine spending documented from the 1960s to 2016.
[120][121][122] A 2013 medical review concluded that "unhealthy commodity industries should have no role in the formation of national or international NCD [non-communicable disease] policy".
[128] Meta-analysis showed that excessive consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages increased the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome – including weight gain[129] and obesity – in adults and children.
[136][137] There is a popular misconception that cancer can be treated by reducing sugar and carbohydrate intake to supposedly "starve" tumours.
[138] Despite some studies suggesting that sugar consumption causes hyperactivity, the quality of evidence is low[139] and it is generally accepted within the scientific community that the notion of children's 'sugar rush' is a myth.
[144] A review of human studies showed that the incidence of caries is lower when sugar intake is less than 10% of total energy consumed.
[148] The "empty calories" argument states that a diet high in added (or 'free') sugars will reduce consumption of foods that contain essential nutrients.
[149] This nutrient displacement occurs if sugar makes up more than 25% of daily energy intake,[150] a proportion associated with poor diet quality and risk of obesity.
Manufacturers of sugary products, such as soft drinks and candy, and the Sugar Research Foundation have been accused of trying to influence consumers and medical associations in the 1960s and 1970s by creating doubt about the potential health hazards of sucrose overconsumption, while promoting saturated fat as the main dietary risk factor in cardiovascular diseases.
[116] In 2016, the criticism led to recommendations that diet policymakers emphasize the need for high-quality research that accounts for multiple biomarkers on development of cardiovascular diseases.
