Sugar High: The Dark History and Nasty Methods Used to Feed Our Sweet Tooth
AlterNet / By Jill Richardson
Sugar High: The Dark History and Nasty Methods Used to Feed Our Sweet Tooth
Sugar is now 20 percent of the American diet, but it's not just our health that suffers from its pervasiveness.
January 20, 2012 |
Americans think an awful lot about sucrose -- table sugar -- but only in certain ways. We crave it and dream up novel ways to combine it with other ingredients to produce delectable foods; and we worry that we eat too much of it and that it is making us unhealthy or fat. But how often do Americans think about where sugar actually comes from or the people who produce it? As a tropical crop, sugarcane cannot grow in most U.S. states. Most of us do not smell the foul odors coming from sugar refineries, look out over vast expanses of nothing but sugarcane, or speak to those who perform the hard labor required to grow and harvest sugarcane.
Of course, sugar can be made from beets, a temperate crop, and more than half of sugar produced in the United States is. But globally, most of the story of sugar, past and present, centers around sugarcane, not beets, and as biofuels become more common, it is sugarcane that is cultivated for ethanol. What's more, some conscious eaters avoid beet sugar as most of it is now made from genetically modified sugar beets.
While I do not fool myself that sugar is "healthy," if I am going to satisfy my sweet tooth, I prefer cane sugar, maple syrup, agave nectar, or honey over the other choices: beet sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and artificial sweeteners. Of the bunch, most Americans can find only honey and perhaps maple syrup sustainably and locally produced, but cane sugar is often the most versatile product for baking.
As a major consumer of cane sugar, I was disturbed to learn the realities of cane sugar production when I visited a sugarcane-producing area in Bolivia. ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/food/153831/sugar_high%3A_the_dark_history_and_nasty_methods_used_to_feed_our_sweet_tooth/
= new reply since forum marked as read
this is a very good article about the harm sugar, and the sugar industry, does to our country and its citizens...
I have cut processed sugar from my diet and the effects are tremendous! I used Xylitol in the interim to wean myself and I recommend using it in the place of sugar... http://www.xylitolcanada.com/ (disclaimer- I still drink alcohol occasionally 
)
also...
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/1998/11/16/sweet.deal.html
"...In this case the beneficiaries are the Fanjul family of Palm Beach, Fla. The name means nothing to most Americans, but the Fanjuls might be considered the First Family of Corporate Welfare. They own Flo-Sun Inc., one of the nation's largest producers of raw sugar. As such, they benefit from federal policies that compel American consumers to pay artificially high prices for sugar.
Since the Fanjuls control about one-third of Florida's sugar-cane production, that means they collect at least $60 million a year in subsidies, according to an analysis of General Accounting Office calculations. It's the sweetest of deals, and it's made the family, the proprietors of Casa de Campo, one of America's richest..."
