Kimberly Mier

Sugar Rush

The pervasiveness of some substances in society has reached a point where to cut them

out is a nearly impossible feat. Chief amongst those is sugar. Not just in our food, it has found its

way into products such as body scrubs, plant food, and even stain removers. Do-it-yourself sites

have endless recipes for creative new ways to use that one pound bag of sugar you have sitting in

your cupboard. The exotic uses stretch on, but the typical use, as food, is so ingrained that only

the healthy conscious few can be bothered to stop every time and spare it a thought. How did

what used to be an additive for the select few wealthy become a staple in almost everything we

consume today? The story is not a new one in terms of trajectory when examining other

addictive substances that have risen to such high levels of mass consumption such as tobacco and

alcohol.

Refined sugar as we have come to know it had been around since the first century, but

production and shipping kept costs relatively high until the 1800’s. It was then that the ease of

access revealed its popularity in society, as people began to buy it literally by the pound. With

consumption levels rising so rapidly, it’s induction into mass market consumerism in the 1900’s

was inevitable. It was this induction into routine daily life that eventually led to such levels of

overconsumption and a shortage that produced the need for the invention of high fructose corn

syrup. It was at this point that decades of over consumption and genetic modification began to

spark concerns about health risks, and it was revealed that sugar and high fructose corn syrup

were linked to heart disease and obesity. Once the topic of health was finally broached, it open

the channels for discussions of addiction, a topic that had been alluded to throughout the past

hundred years through language and comparisons with other addictive substances. At that point it
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was too late, society was already hooked. Sugar had become part of the daily routine. It had

taken the route of alcohol and tobacco before it, ingraining itself so thoroughly in society that its

presence had become something that was so expected that it wasn’t even noticed anymore. We

had once again let history repeat itself. Society’s addiction to sugar was able to become such an

extensive condition because of its availability and the ignorance of its health consequences.

It was the ease of access that originally revealed the addictive nature sugar in the mid-

1800’s. In The Consumption of Wealth Patten discusses the effects that refining the sugar

production process had on society, specifically how it made sugar as cheap as flour and

accessible now to all instead of to a select wealthy few who could afford such frivolities (1889,

p. 20). He remarks on how it had already been observed the society as a whole seemed to have a

general sweet tooth so it was not unsurprising to see the consumption of sugar going up now that

it was affordable on the laborer’s salary. It was the language he was using to discuss it that

hinted already at the future problematic nature. He was likening it to alcohol consumption during

meals, referencing it as the “pleasuring-giving portion of the meal” (Patten, 1889, p. 20). He

closely tied its use in meals as a replacement for the use of alcohol, discussing the temperance

movement and their push for a sugar heavy diet in absence of liquor (Patten, 1889).

Even during this time when mass sugar consumption was first starting out, Patten

noticed this connection with potential worrying themes and made mention of it. He theorized that

not all effects of sugar consumption might be positive. Much of the language he uses is similar to

that used when discussing liquor consumption during this time. He talks of sugar and its power

to “weaken and destroy”(Patten, 1889, p. 21) those who consume it. He suggests that eventually

the moral outrage will grow to the point of that against tobacco or liquor consumption. He keeps

coming back to this comparison between liquor and sugar, the negative and positive aspects of it
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(Patten, 1889). It is an allude to the discussion of the possible addictive tendencies the substance

possesses. At this time trying to blatantly bring them up would be difficult as it is starting to

become an ingrained part of society. Laborers are working back breaking shifts all day and now

they have just been gifted another way to escape from their lives in the form of sugar. Their

meals were coarse and unfulfilling, utilitarian in design to keep them alive. Now they have the

chance to actually enjoy themselves at dinner after work. Much like the resistance to the

temperance movement and alcohol, they are not going to let that little freedom be taken from

them easily.

At this point sugar was still an additive, an extra that was put in during cooking or

sprinkled on at the end. It wasn’t long until companies began to catch on to this new sugar craze

and suddenly everyone was trying to find a way to capitalize off of the new cheapness of the

product. One of the biggest pushes from the consumer world was the notion of linking candy and

sugar consumption with certain special events, holidays. In 1916 the National Confectioners’

Association went so far as to try and create a holiday for the sugary goods themselves called

Candy Day. The NCA’s director of publicity blatantly remarked that their purpose of creating

Candy Day, and promoting other commercialization of popular holidays like Mother’s Day and

Valentine’s Day, was because they wanted “a ways and means of increasing the consumption of

candy” (Schmidt, 1991, p. 913). They were trying to ingrain their products so deeply into

everyday life that consumers would stop really thinking about the fact that they were consuming

them. Valentine’s Day would come around and you would buy a box of chocolates for your

sweetheart because that’s just what you did. On that endeavor they happened to be wildly

successful, but Candy Day never quite caught on and they moved on to better prospects

(Schmidt, 1991).
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Halloween is known most popularly as the candy related holiday, but it wasn’t really

until the 1950’s that it took off. In an interview with The Smithsonian’s Amanda Fiegl, Samira

Kawash, author of blog Candy Professor, explained the history behind that (2010). Halloween

actually used to be more of a party oriented holiday where you would invite the trick-or-treaters

in for a glass of punch and a homemade treat. When asked what she thinks changed in the 50’s,

Kawash attributed it to “marketing… big candy manufacturers started putting out a lot more

Halloween promotions” (Fiegl, 2010). Again we see this push of consumerism into society

norms, dictating what is expected and acceptable to the majority. Trick or treaters want candy

and not homemade treats, because the candy manufacturers have told them to expect candy when

they show up at houses. Suddenly there is now this day of year where children are consuming

mountains of sugar and no one bats an eye because it has just become the regular routine on

Halloween.

It’s not just on special occasions when one gets to consume sugar though. That idea went

away when the price of sugar dropped so low that the common man could afford it by the pound.

It wasn’t just buying it for special someone’s on holidays, it was getting up every morning and

eating it for breakfast. There is an irony looking back now to 1939 and the invention of the first

sugary breakfast cereal, an invention which was actually intended to reduce the amount of sugar

children consumed for breakfast. Cerealizing America recounts the story of Jim Rex and his

hopes of finding a way to stop his children from shoveling spoonfuls of sugar on top of their

morning cereal by adding a thin coating of honey and corn-syrup to the puffed wheat (1995, p.

103). Thus began the trend of pre-sweetened cereals as competitors such as Kellogg’s and

General Mills raced to play catch-up. This era produced famously familiar products such as

Sugar Crisps, today called Golden Crisps, and Frosted Flakes (Bruce & Crawford, 1995). The
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public, unsurprisingly, ate up the idea of a pre-sweetened breakfast cereal and the products flew

off the shelves. Even 80 years later, our shelves are still stocked with sugary cereals, some kinds

of which have persisted across all those decades. These products became staples in the cupboards

of many American homes, ingraining themselves into their daily lives and routines. It became a

mindless action in the morning to grab a box and pour yourself what was essentially a bowl of

sugar, which is exactly what the companies were going for.

As pre-sweetened products and candy gift giving became the norms in society, sugar

consumption continued to rise. The price of sugar however, for reasons such as trade restrictions,

also began to rise around the 1970’s (Reshanov, 2012). For a society thorough hooked on their

sugar dependent routines, this threatened their very way of life. Enter the solution: high fructose

corn syrup. During this time farm subsidies were also being given out, encouraging farmers to

produce a surplus of corn and causes prices to drop (Reshanov, 2012). This cheap new

alternative sweetener seemed like the perfect answer to the sugar crisis. In 1980 Coca-Cola was

the first soft drink brand to make the switch and began sweetening their beverages with high

fructose corn syrup instead of a natural sugar. By the mid 80’s, almost every of soft drink brand

had made the switch as well (Reshanov, 2012).

It started with the soft drink industry, but slowly the idea of switching the the new

cheaper sweetener made it ways into other fields. High fructose corn syrup now represents over

40% of caloric sweeteners added to foods and beverages in the United States (Bray, Nielsen, &

Popkin, 2004, p .537). Which on its own wouldn’t be that worrisome, except that in the same 30

years since the United States has started using high fructose corn syrup as its major sweetener,

there has been a significant rise in the rates of obesity (Bray et al., 2004). While obesity is a

complicated disease with many potential factors, no one can ignore that significant temporal
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pattern. A study done by Bray, Nielsen, and Popkin examined food consumption patterns from

1967 to 2000 and showed links between the enhanced consumption of high fructose corn syrup

and the obesity epidemic (2004). One of the issues that they revealed between the switch from

natural sugar to high fructose corn syrup was the way that the two get metabolized in our bodies.

When sugar is broken down, it is transported to the brain and provides satiety signals.

Essentially, it helps lets us know when we are full. High fructose corn syrup has a different

molecular structure than sugar, and it is broken down by different transporters that are absent

from the brain. Therefor, they can not help send satiety signals and let us know when we are

feeling full, potentially aiding in overeating (Bray et al., 2004, p. 538).

By the time the research on the possible dangers of high fructose corn syrup were

published, it was too late. The market was already saturated with it, and companies like soft

drinks weren’t willing to go back to the more expensive “real sugar” decades later just because

of a supposed temporal pattern. Sugar was a necessity ingrained into daily life and a lot of people

were finding they couldn’t seem to go without it. The subject of addiction had been touched on

and hinted to over the past hundred years but the health community seemed to shy away from

officially labeling the substance as addictive. That didn’t stop researchers from studying if it had

similarities to other addictive substances in the way they interacted in our brain in recent years.

One study found excessive sugar intake causes endogenous opioid dependence, likening sugar to

heroin and oxycontin usage (Colantuoni, Rada, Mccarthy, Patten, Avena, Chadeayne, & Hoebel,

2002). It had already been shown previous to this study that palatable foods could release

endogenous opioids in the brain and trigger releases of dopamine in areas associated in with

wanting and liking. They then set out to see if they could induce a state of withdrawal, indicating

tolerance and therefor implied addiction, in rats by feeding them high sugar foods and then
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treating them with an opioid antagonist (blocker). There study showed that repeated, excessive

intake of sugar did create a state where an opioid antagonist created a state of withdrawal. This

study implied that sugar in fact did have a biological basis for addiction, and that consuming

excessive amounts of it would produce withdrawal effects if you attempted to stop (Colantuoni,

2002, p. 486). In a society where so much of our food contains high levels of sugar and sugar

substitutes such as high fructose corn syrup this has major implications. It implies that it may not

be as easy as one may think to cut back on the levels of sugar you are consuming. It also sheds

light on why sugar has been so well liked throughout history. It was self-reinforcing its use as we

gained more accessibility to it.

As recent studies have begun to shed light on the possible concerns about the over

consumptions of sugar, many people have tried different ways to limit their intake of sugar. A

popular method is cutting themselves off from high sugar products like soda or candy for a few

weeks at a time to “cleanse”. Recent studies have actually shown that those methods may be

even worse for sugar consumption rates in the long run however. A study done by Avena, Long,

and Hoebel showed that allowing rats access to sugar, then denying them sugar all together for

two weeks, increased sugar consumption substantially (2005). The repeated, intermittent access

actually sensitized the neural pathways in the brain that cue wanting and make the addict hyper-

sensitive to cues associated with the substance, leading to heightened chances of relapse (Avena,

2005, p. 361). Much of the language surrounding the discussion of sugar addiction in the

research field now mimics that of other drugs of abuse, words like addict and relapse and

wanting. It runs into the same kind of problems that caffeine does with actually being labeled an

addiction with the fact that its use is so prevalent in today's society, but if you listen to the way it

is discussed you will hear similarities to substances like alcohol and tobacco.
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One such author asks the question in his article, Will Sugar be the Cigarette of the 21st

Century? A blog by columnist Playdevilsadvocate discusses how easy it was to ignore the

dangers of smoking because “everyone did it, even doctors” (2014). Even after the Surgeon

General’s report was published, still people continued to smoke like nothing had changed. The

story is much the same today with sugar and heart disease. Study after study has shown the sugar

consumption is bad for heart health, and yet still people continue on consuming it. They urge

readers to listen before it is too late, “if we listened to research when it was first established,

millions of lives could have been saved” (playdevilsadvocate, 2014). These lessons are not new

ones for us to learn, they are the same repeated over again, played out with different substances

throughout history.

History has shown a sugar dependent society. One that relies on it through daily routines,

special occasions, and biological basis’. Studies have shown that sugar is self-reinforcing in its

use and addicting. Trying to cut yourself off from it will produce withdrawal and relapse.

Overconsumption will produce obesity and heart disease. So what is the sugar conscious

consumer of the modern day to do? Low-sugar, no-sugar, no artificial additives, all-natural diet.

Society is clamoring for a solution to the perils of the eating world, and nutritionist doctors are

more than happy to sell them the solution. Dr. Mark Hyman outlines his 10-step detox program

on his website, telling readers “to break the addictive cycle of carb and sugar cravings” (2017).

He, and many other doctors like him out on the internet, encourage readers to try their

“guaranteed” steps to success if they want to live a healthy, sugar free life. Many of these

programs include some kind of multi-step process, supposed to help you make it through the

transition. It is hard not to note the parallels to steps used by AA groups and another addiction

treatment programs, trying to helps addicts transitions off of substances. A group leader offering
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words of wisdom, having gone through it themselves and knowing how you feel during the

transition. Hyman and other internet sensations like him have also found a way to profit off of

their plans, by selling books and plans and recipes.

Society’s addiction to sugar as a whole was able to become so extensive because of the

ignorance of its health consequences and its ease of accessibility. It followed the path taken by

many other addictive substances before it. Society had something that it enjoyed, consumerism

took advantage of that and mass produced it to the point where it was so normalized in our daily

lives that it became invisible, and too late we realized the negative consequences. The language

surrounding sugar consumption has mirrored that of alcohol and tobacco usage from the

beginnings of over consumption. The pleasures that it provided warned of the pain that might

lurk in the future should it be abused at high levels. Patten talked about moral outrage and we’ve

come full circle now to angry mothers yelling about high fructose corn syrup in their children’s

apple juice, reminiscent of temperance women yelling about alcohol. Jim Rex had good

intentions when he was trying to stop his children from dumping spoonfuls of sugar on their

breakfast cereals, but he could never have predicted the chain reaction he was going to set off.

Sugar is a drug. People take it to feel good, they have for hundreds of years. Studies have shown

that it lights up the same pleasure centers in the brain as heroin. You can be addicted, you can

experience withdrawals. There’s evidence for its role in heart disease and obesity, in diabetes and

even dementia. Yet, still so much of what we consume is laden with sugar and high fructose corn

syrup. It is the same problem as tobacco and alcohol and even caffeine. It’s levels of use are so

high, to cut off the entire population would result is chaos. By the time we realized the problems,

it had already become too ingrained into society.

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Bibliography

Primary Sources

Fiegl, A. (2010, October 29). A Cultural History of Candy. Retrieved from

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/a-cultural-history-of-candy-

103534197/

Hyman, M. (2017, June 09). Top 10 Big Ideas: How to Detox from Sugar. Retrieved from

https://drhyman.com/blog/2014/03/06/top-10-big-ideas-detox-sugar/

Playdevilsadvocate. (2014, October 03). Will Sugar be the Cigarette of the 21st Century?

Retrieved from https://playdevilsadvocate.wordpress.com/2014/09/30/will-sugar-be-the-

cigarette-of-the-21st-century/

Secondary Sources

Avena, N. M., Long, K. A., & Hoebel, B. G. (2005). Sugar-dependent rats show enhanced

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& Behavior,84(3), 359-362. doi:10.1016/j.physbeh.2004.12.016

Bray, G. A., Nielsen, S. J., & Popkin, B. M. (2004). Consumption of high-fructose corn syrup in

beverages may play a role in the epidemic of obesity. The American Journal of Clinical

Nutrition,79(4), 537-543. doi:10.1093/ajcn/79.4.537

Bruce, S., & Crawford, B. (1995). Cerealizing America: The unsweetened story of American

Breakfast cereal. Boston: Faber and Faber.

Colantuoni, C., Rada, P., Mccarthy, J., Patten, C., Avena, N. M., Chadeayne, A., & Hoebel, B.

G. (2002). Evidence That Intermittent, Excessive Sugar Intake Causes Endogenous

Opioid Dependence. Obesity Research,10(6), 478-488. doi:10.1038/oby.2002.66

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Patten, S. N., Ph. D. (1889). The Consumption of Wealth. Philadelphia, PA: T. & J. W. Johnson

& Co.

Reshanov, A. (2012, June 7). A brief history of high-fructose corn syrup. Retrieved from

https://earthsky.org/human-world/a-brief-history-of-high-fructose-corn-syrup

Schmidt, L. E. (1991). The Commercialization of the Calendar: American Holidays and the

Culture of Consumption, 1870-1930. The Journal of American History,78(3), 887-916.

doi:10.2307/2078795