Sugar-Free Lent: Day Thirty-Four

Sugar-Free Lent: Day Thirty-Four!

Sugar is an interesting substance in more than one way.

There is a bright side to sugar. It added a bit of sweetness to our lives, well quite a lot actually. It definitely makes my rhubarb eatable. A lot of people told me that they couldn't do without sugar.

The manufacturing and processing of sugar made the economy bloom because sugar mills had to be built which kept people employed. Whole fortunes were made out of sugar which supported art and architecture.

But there was a dark side of sugar as well. To obtain it millions of people have been dragged out of their homes and countries and forced to work in the sugar cane plantations, often to the cost of their lives. Who was the person who planted the sugar cane and who harvested it? Sugar didn't add to the sweetness of their lives.

And do you actually know that it was a guy named Markgraf who discovered that the humble beet contained reasonable amounts of sugar worth to be extracted?

There is so much to know about that small sweet soluble carbohydrate which never crossed my mind while I was eating a nice piece of cake.