Why is there no mention of sugar in the Bible?
Figure 5: Book cover of "Nobunaga's Chef" (Nobunaga no Chef).
How did sugar, once extremely rare and precious, become a seasoning we can easily get today? Since the Age of Discovery in the 16th century, Europeans began large-scale overseas conquest and economic plunder, including the production of sugar. In the 17th century AD, Dutch immigrants built large sugarcane plantations in northeastern South America one after another, and Britain also occupied the island of Jamaica and the island of Hispaniola (present-day Haiti), setting up large plantations to produce sugar. In the 18th century AD, Haiti and the island of Jamaica ranked together as the largest sugar-producing regions.
In the 18th century AD, as sugar production surged, sugar, which had originally been a luxury item, became a daily necessity for Europeans. It is said that in 1600 AD, the average sugar consumption of one British person was 400 grams to 500 grams; in the 17th century it was about 2 kilograms; and in the 18th century it increased to 7 kilograms. In other words, at least in Europe, sugar became a sweetness that ordinary people could also enjoy.
However, the price of sugar's popularization was the blood and sweat of black slaves. Growing sugarcane required an enormous workforce, and the Europeans' home countries could not provide it, so black slaves were brought in to fill the labor gap. Needless to say, the work these black slaves, plundered by Europeans from Africa, did on the sugarcane plantations was extremely heavy and harsh; merely transporting slaves from Africa to the Americas was itself an arduous voyage. William J. Bernstein's "A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World, from the Stone Age to the Digital Age, a trade journey spanning five thousand years of human history" describes the environment of slave ships as follows: "The space allocated to each slave on board was about 4 square feet (1 foot is about 30.48 cm), no better than a coffin. They could not possibly turn around or move, and were stacked in a spooning position in one puddle after another of their own feces and urine. In addition, there were foul-smelling gastrointestinal diseases, and festering wounds cut open by shackles. In such a disgusting and vile environment, they did not stay for just a few minutes or a few hours, but for several weeks."
Even today, without black slaves, the working environment on sugarcane plantations in Central and South America remains harsh. In March 2017, newspapers and magazines circulated a news report: Taiwan, China's diplomatic ally in Central America, Nicaragua, had been affected by kidney disease of unknown cause for nearly 20 years, and many young or middle-aged men died, with many villages even becoming "widow villages." Most of the dead were sugarcane field agricultural workers. Experts speculated that the main causes of the disease were a high-temperature working environment exceeding 40°C and insufficient protection against highly toxic pesticides used in the fields. Many children in sugarcane field worker families, even if their fathers and older brothers died of kidney disease, still had no choice but to work in the sugarcane fields when they grew up, continuing to be exposed to the scorching sun and highly toxic pesticides.
Just because sugar is now an easily available product, we should not take it for granted that it was equally ubiquitous in ancient times. Behind the popularization of sugar lies the exploitation of black slaves and the blood and sweat of agricultural workers. I believe that the loving and compassionate God would not want people to exploit races and classes they regard as inferior, and then enjoy that sweet taste with a clear conscience.
Bibliography
1. Online Recovery Version Bible, http://www.recoveryversion.com.tw/Style0A/026/bible_menu.php.
2. Miyazaki Masakatsu, translated by Chen Baiyao, "The World Food History You Must Know," New Taipei: Walkers Cultural, 2013.
3. Kajikawa Takuro, Nishimura Mitsuru, translated by Xu Renju, "Nobunaga's Chef," Taipei: Tong Li Publishing, 2017.
4. William J. Bernstein, translated by Pan Xun, "A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World, from the Stone Age to the Digital Age, a trade journey spanning five thousand years of human history," New Taipei: Broad Press, 2018.