The market of salt, which is also a condiment, was only $8.9 billion in 20 17, less than one tenth of that of sugar.
Rome was not built in a day, nor was the vast sugar market built overnight.
From the first taste of sweetness to the doubling of sugar consumption in the past hundred years, the brilliant sales of sugar have been piled up through the painstaking efforts of the sugar industry and the food industry.
0 1
Sweet nature
For the food industry, human love for sweetness has long been an open business opportunity.
Everyone's tongue, palate and upper esophagus have sweet receptors, which can capture the slightest sweetness. Even babies born in Lian Gang crave sweet sugar.
300 years ago, the British doctor Frederick Slare wrote in his book: "When babies are fed sugar water, they not only suck their hands, but also stare at the next bottle."
However, before the sugar refining technology was mature, the price of sugar was on the high side, so sugar has always been regarded as a rare and precious luxury.
About 1740, German chemists extracted sugar from sugar beet, but the cost was too high to be commercialized. 18 12 years, the French mastered the technology of extracting sucrose from sugar beet and successfully reduced the cost of sugar production. Since then, the refining sugar factory has flourished. 1860, new york alone opened 18 sugar factories.
Industrialized production has gradually reduced the price of sugar, and sugar has changed from an expensive condiment that only a few people eat to a condiment that everyone can eat in large quantities.
02
Illustration of high-sugar food
However, human thirst for sugar is not just as simple as eating white sugar.
Sharp tools can do a good job. Food manufacturers know that if they just give consumers bags of white sugar, they will not fall into the abyss of high-sugar food.
Therefore, sugar is added to various unexpected products.
Like cigarettes.
19 13 tobacco merchants found that soaking tobacco leaves with syrup not only made tobacco smell more fragrant, won the favor of consumers, but also reduced the cost of tobacco.
Take burley tobacco leaves rich in the United States as an example. The dried burley tobacco leaves can absorb 50% of syrup at most, which means that one kilogram of tobacco leaves gained 0.5 kilograms by directly soaking in sugar, which is enough to be sold to 1.5 times.
In addition, the sugar in tobacco will bring caramelization products when burning, adding a sweet and pleasant taste to the smoke. The strong combination of cigarettes and sugar has enabled more boys and girls to join the ranks of smoking and stimulated tobacco sales.
Another example is food.
1904, American Jiage Oats introduced sugar-coated cereal chips, which set off a craze for sugary cereal breakfast in the United States.
Well-known cereal food companies have developed sugary cereal products in succession: Bao's cereal introduced sweet potato chips on 1949, Kellogg introduced sugar-fried popcorn on 1950, and then introduced frosted corn chips and sweet potato chips. ...
Of course, there are the most common drinks:
The invention of high-sugar drinks made human beings fall into the abyss of "drinking sugar" from "eating sugar". At the end of 19, famous brands such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi were born.
From 65438 to 0929, after a world war, the American economy fell into the Great Depression. Even so, people's enthusiasm for cola has not diminished, and the sales of cola are still rising year by year.
The firm performance of Coca-Cola Company in the stock market reflects its amazing performance. If a person buys Coca-Cola shares (such as Buffett) at 1960, his assets will increase by 10 times after 10.
Besides cigarettes, drinks and cereal, sugar is also added to most foods you can think of. Chocolate, ice cream, biscuits ... 80% of the goods sold in the supermarket have traces of sugar.
So far, the food industry has successfully integrated sugar into all aspects of daily life.
03
Four axes of sugar industry
Sugar can reduce the production cost and provide a pleasant taste, but eating too much polysaccharide can also make people tired.
From 65438 to 0950, the food industry began to study how to add more sugar to products without boring consumers. After years of hard work, they finally summed up four unique tricks and successfully promoted a large number of high-sugar foods to thousands of households.
Stunt 1, bliss point of laboratory research and development
Humans are naturally fond of sugar, and sweets are naturally delicious to consumers. But how much sugar should I add?
In order to study this problem clearly, food manufacturers hired top scientists and conducted a lot of research.
In the 1970s, Joseph L.Balintfy, a mathematician in Boston, used a computer to estimate human eating behavior and found that the more sugar, the better.
Later, researcher Moscovitz discovered that people have a series of preferences for sweetness.
The sweetness interval that makes people's goodwill reach the highest point is called "the bliss point" by Moscovitz. Blissful point, as the name implies, is the right addition of sugar. The food in this range is addictive and can't stop.
Finally, Moscovitz used an inverted U-shaped curve to explain the relationship between taste and goodwill. Under his theory, food manufacturers began to constantly optimize the flavor of food and create sweet food that is most suitable for human nature.
Trick 2: Avalanche advertising campaign
With addictive delicious food, food manufacturers began to launch the next wave of marketing offensive.
In this wave of marketing advertisements, sugar is promoted as the purest energy source, which can improve willpower, attention, control appetite and reduce calories ... There are countless benefits!
For example, the following advertisement, fashion beauty licking ice cream, one of which reads:
A spoonful of sugar is only 18 calories, full of energy.
In this advertisement, sugar is described as the fastest and best energy source, and it can also enhance willpower.
In the same series of advertisements, sugar is also promoted as a weapon to overcome appetite.
The following propaganda clearly "explains" why sugar inhibits appetite:
1 spoon of sugar has only 18 calories, which can give you a sense of satisfaction. Eating sugar is equivalent to putting a brake on your appetite. ...
At that time, children were even encouraged to drink coke as soon as possible in beverage advertisements, and it was publicized that the sooner they drank coke, the sooner their lives would set sail.
In modern terms, it is "Do you want your children to win at the starting line? Give him a coke! " .
In this way, high-sugar food has become the "most perfect" food in the world in just a few years. Consumers' appetite has been raised step by step, and they are eating more and more high-sugar foods.
From 1960 to 2000, the global sucrose production increased from about 400 million tons to nearly16 billion tons.
Trick 3: Reduce the cost of sugar production.
After the food industry captured the hearts of consumers with sugar, a crisis hit the United States.
From 65438 to 0958, the relationship between Cuba and the United States deteriorated, leading to a sudden increase in the price of sucrose. However, the food industry turned the crisis into a turning point-they used the corn syrup (also known as fructose corn syrup) technology invented in Japan to successfully convert the overproduced corn into sweetness and replace the high-priced sucrose.
Compared with traditional sucrose, corn syrup has lower cost and more convenient processing. After the production cost is greatly reduced, high-sugar foods are more popular with consumers.
Trick 4: master public opinion and discredit fat people.
When the sugar business is in full swing, the health problems of Americans are gradually emerging.
In 1960s, nutritionists, doctors and researchers published studies one after another, pointing out that sugar may cause diseases such as diabetes and obesity.
1965, John Yudkin published a paper that excessive sugar intake will increase the risk of heart disease.
1972, he published the book Pure White Trap, which introduced the harm of sugar in detail.
In order to hide the truth about sugar from the public, sugar manufacturers began to bribe scientists. The scientists they are looking for are also very "powerful", such as scholars from Harvard University.
1967, three scholars from Harvard University accepted a bribe of $6,500 (about $50,000 now) from the sugar industry association, published a paper to clarify the relationship between sugar and heart disease, and blamed the fat head for heart disease.
It was not disclosed in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition until 20 16.
In addition to doing research that is beneficial to sugar, the sugar industry is also involved in preventing comments that are unfavorable to sugar.
From 65438 to 0976, Jean Meyer, a nutritionist at Harvard University, published an article in The new york Times Magazine, pointing out the harm of sugar. Four months later, the editor of Reader's Digest tried to reprint this article, but the result was blocked by the sugar industry, and finally it was not reprinted successfully.
For decades, the sugar industry has tried its best to control public opinion and let the public know nothing about the harm of sugar. Uninformed consumers were kept in the dark and foolishly ate a lot of sugar.
04
White paper on sugar break
From the discovery that human beings like sweets, to the food industry adding sugar to various foods, to the use of bliss spots, marketing posters and bribing scientists, sugar has gradually dominated human taste.
However, paper can't wrap fire after all. With the development of information, more and more people know the harm of sugar. Governments and world organizations have also begun to incorporate sugar restrictions into dietary guidelines.
Despite this, global sugar production is still rising year by year. Years of commercial marketing have trained consumers to be sugar-free and unhappy. If you want to get rid of sugar, you can only start with small things:
Buy one less glass of wine,
Eat less sweets,
Put less sugar ...