Sucrose, or natural sugar, is an organic chemical of the carbohydrate family.  It can be extracted from a great variety of plant sources, as it occurs in all green plants.  As a plant food manufactured photosynthetically from carbon dioxide(CO2) and water ( H2O), sugar is a fundamental part of the chemical architecture of all living things.  It is fundamental to what we are chemically.

 

Our taste for things sweet has only increased over the past 10,000 years.  Human beings have been processing sugar for consumption from around 8,000 b.c.e.  While sugar comes from all things naturally green, the two most important sources of processed sugar are produced through sugarcane and the sugar beet.  Beets were not economically important as a source of sugar until the middle of the nineteenth century, but sugarcane has been a prime source of sucrose for the consumption of some and misery of others for a very long time.

 

This website provides a short history on the global cultivation and consumption of history.  Like the other websites of this series, the history of how people have consumed sugar, and have been consumed by it, can be seen clearly by examining the historicity of sugar consumption.   Sugar has been consumed for millennia, but the ways it has been consumed have changed over time.  This website outlines the ways in which sugar has been infused with human power, desire, and taste for things sweet.