Tale on sugar not all that sweet
Sugar’s bad rap is ingrained through the ages, writes
Former history professor James Walvin’s latest book aims to untangle the social, political, and economic history of sugar, a commodity that began as the preserve of the elite, but which now saturates cultures the world over, despite its increasingly bad reputation for contributing to problems like obesity and type-2 diabetes.
In terms of public health enemies, sugar now arguably rivals tobacco, and companies such as Coca-Cola, which has traditionally relied on selling sweetness, have started to promote sugar-free varieties of their products, presumably aware the game must be ‘‘all but up’’ for sugar. Yet the instant gratification sugar promises continues to make it hard to resist.
Not only is it cheap, accessible, addictive, and added to much we consume, sugar is so deeply ingrained in society it even permeates the vernacular; if something is good, it’s ‘‘sweet as’’ and, of course, lovers often call each other ‘‘sweetheart’’ and ‘‘honey’’.
As the book’s title might suggest, Walvin’s central proposition is that sugar has been bad news from the outset, not only harmful to health, but a corrupting influence since its association with the slave trade from around the 15th century when new trade routes meant millions of Africans could be shipped across the Atlantic to produce sugar under harsh conditions in places such as Brazil and the Caribbean.
Although he presents a thorough historical record of sugar and its intractable, depressing connection to slavery, Walvin can be a little histrionic about his subject at times: ‘‘Sugar was produced by an unforgiving system of brutal enforcement. Yet who ever gave this a moment’s thought, or heard the sound of the lash, when spooning sugar into their tea or coffee in London or Paris?’’
In the second half of the book, he takes a rather didactic tone, making some quite simplistic connections between sugar and weight, and blaming a lack of individual selfcontrol and poor parenting for the socalled ‘‘obesity epidemic’’.
As London School of Economics academic Padraic Scanlan points out in his analysis of the book, Walvin’s argument about modern-day obesity is a narrow one, since ‘‘obesity is a multidimensional social phenomenon, not just a case of unchecked appetite’’.
‘‘Walvin… ignores the way racism and capitalism overlap and reinforce one another.
‘‘He points out that African Americans are more likely to be obese – but not that they are more likely to be incarcerated, denied the franchise, denied health coverage or murdered by police,’’ Scanlan says.
Perhaps the history of a product can never be quite as engaging as the history of a person.
While Walvin should be applauded for encouraging us to think more deeply about the origins and implications of the products we consume, I found his book a bit too thesis-like, and a bit too officious, to be truly enjoyable.