“Sugar gave rise to the slave trade; now sugar has enslaved us.”
– Jeff O’Connell, Sugar.
In the interest of full disclosure, let me confess right up front that I just love cheesecake, which I also love to bake, which makes avoiding it rather difficult! But apart from that, I’m not too big on sugar-saturated foods. My thoughts on sugar were wonderfully concentrated by “The Long Read” selection in last week’s Guardian’s: “Is sugar the world’s most popular drug?”
The bottom line, to get to the nub of the question, is there’s no definitive answer provided by science at this time to the question above. Sugar was investigated mostly as a nutrient, which it is. Because the deleterious effect of sugar consumption is cumulative over the long-term, and not almost instantaneous like the well-known psychotropic drugs, such as heroin or cocaine, until the recent public health concerns raised about those effects such as diabetes and obesity, there was not much research conducted on it as an addiction. All of that is now changing.
I’d known that during the historical colonial empire-building phase in the tropics, sugar was cultivated along with substances known for their psychotropic effects. Most notoriously was poppy for producing opium that was shipped by the British from India to China. Yep – the British were the first drug dealers! Tobacco, of course, was shipped all over the world and even though it’s package must now announce “Dangerous to your Health”, it’s still one of the largest psychotropic drug sold legally. Then rum and other alcoholic products were produced from molasses – a by-product of sugar production. Coffee provided a rush from its caffeine.
What I didn’t know was that sugar from the same colonial period onwards was mixed with tobacco to give it its “mild” effect – as opposed to cigars – which makes it possible for the tobacco smoke to be drawn into and absorbed into the lungs to “do its thing” – deliver the temporary high and its longer term lung cancer.
While research hasn’t shown that sugar is addictive, it’s shown to have a calming effect on babies, and not surprisingly is added to most babies’ formula. And we all become weaned on it. What’s known is sugar triggers the same responses – albeit in a milder form – in the region of the brain known as the “reward centre” as nicotine, cocaine, heroin and alcohol. The effect of sugars and the other “accepted drugs” work by stimulating the release of some neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, and the more we use these substances the less dopamine is produced naturally.
From being a rarity in at the time of the discovery of the “New World”: and the introduction of sugar plantations, sugar is now consumed in every meal throughout the day. Check the foods you purchase in the grocery stores and supermarkets – almost every one of them contains sugar. When from the 1980’s concerns were raised about the relationship between the consumption of fats and heart disease, fats were removed and sugars added to foods, such as yogurt to make them “healthy’ yet “tasty”.
With the dawning recognition by public health authorities on the deleterious effects of sugar, they are beginning to legislate or recommend “moderation” in the consumption of sugars. Nowadays you can’t “supersize” your sugar saturated sodas at many of the fast food chains in the US and sodas are now banned in many schools.
But the problem with cutting down on sugar intake is almost all processed foods – such as bread – contain sugars and we consume these worrying, for instance, about its gluten content without thinking about the sugar. What to do. The ideal would be to avoid processed foods, but we know this is unrealistic. The alternative is to cut back on them and use natural foods – which are in abundance in Guyana – as much as possible.
