Tag: History of sugar

It may come as a surprise, but the first crystalline sugar was likely a gritty, salt-like powder developed in ancient India over 2,500 years ago. This discovery set in motion a remarkable journey that transformed a rare luxury into a global commodity with a complex and often painful history.

Evidence suggests that the attraction to sweet foods is an innate human trait, rooted in our evolutionary history. But for the vast majority of human existence, our ancestors did not have access to the granulated, refined product we call processed sugar. So, what did people use before processed sugar?

The domestication of sugarcane dates back to around 8000 BCE in New Guinea, but when did humans start eating sugar in its refined form? The journey from chewing wild reeds to consuming processed sugar spans millennia and continents, fundamentally altering our diets and shaping world history.

For over 8,000 years, humans have been actively seeking sweet food sources, with early cave paintings in Spain depicting the harvesting of wild honey. The answer to **why did humans start eating sugar** is rooted deeply in our ancient survival instincts, which have been mismatched with modern, highly refined diets.