Facts about Sugar

Sugar is a natural substance that is produced in plants and fruits. Plants with largest concentration of sugars are sugarcane and sugar beet.
Domestication of sugarcane happened around 10 thousand years ago in New Guinea.
Homeland of sugar production is India, where around 3000 years ago there were already large plantations of sugarcane. They managed to devise sugar crystallization process in 5th century AD, giving it the ability for easier transportation.
Trade of sugar from India introduced this fascinating food substance to the Asia and Middle East where it was instantly accepted.

Brown sugar can be used very effectively to clean skin and pores.
In 2011, manufactures managed to produce 168 million tons of sugar.
Average person consumers 24 kilograms of sugar each year. This number is larger in developed industrialized countries, around 33 kg.
Each day, average American consumes 22 teaspoons of sugar, children even 32 teaspoons. Average amount for Britons is 20 teaspoons.
First European contact with sugar happened in 327BC when Alexander the Great reached India with his army. “Honey powder” that was returned to Europe by his soldiers did not took hold.

Consumption of sugar is rising faster than the world population, and sugar production is rising even faster!
Sugar is today part of the many recipes that don’t even have sweet taste! Such products can be bread, peanut butter, condiments, sauces, French fries, mayonnaise, processed foods, etc.
For the long period of time, sugar was very expensive and was often called “white gold”. It became stock good only in 18th century with development of thousands sugarcane plantations in South, Central and North America.
Great demand for sugar and hard work conditions in the field are one of the primary causes in the rise of African slave trade between 16th and 19th century. Over 12 million of African slaves were shipped to various locations around the world, with less than million coming to United States.

Sugar can give you instant energy boost, but after that short period your body will go into withdrawal period and mood swing.
Sugar has no nutritious value, and because of that it can have harmful effect on endocrine system.
Sugar is one of the main culprits for tooth decay. Wash your mouth regularly!
Too much sugar in your system can create excess of fats in your body. Exercise more or your heart and liver can fail (but only if you are genetically predisposed to have diabetes).
Do you want to taste naturally made sugar? Find a banana and leave it alone for a few days until it starts to get dark spots. This means that natural starch inside of it has started to turn into sugar, making banana 10 times sweeter than before.
Sugars can me manufactured to be white or brown. Brown color represents presence of molasses in its structure.
20th century brought the rise of artificial sweeteners and high-fructose corn syrup.