User:Kku/Sugar consumption

"Top Sugar Consuming Nations In The World". WorldAtlas. 2016-07-04. Retrieved 2018-03-05.
Organization, World Health (2015-02-05). "Where people around the world eat the most sugar and fat". Washington Post. ISBN 9789241549028. Retrieved 2018-03-05.

"Sugars intake for adults and children". World Health Organization. 2017-10-30. Retrieved 2018-03-05.

"Typical sugar consumption now vs 100 years ago". Kamila Sitwell. 1912-12-14. Retrieved 2018-03-05. It is no secret that people today ingest far too much sugar. According to the NHS, adults should not be consuming more than 30g of added sugars per day, and should ensure that less than 5 per cent of daily intake consists of these 'free' sugars. However, in reality, this is far from the case. At present, many populations see sugar accounting for over 20 per cent of calorie intake, a shocking four times more than the recommended limit.But how did we get here? Sugar consumption hasn't always been so high. It's time to go back to basics: asking, how much sugar did people eat 100 years ago? IFL Science reports that sugarcane is now the world's third most valuable crop after cereals and rice, occupying 26,942,686 hectares of land across the globe. However, it wasn't always so widespread. Several hundred years ago, sugar formed a very small part of the human diet, which was much more closely premised on pulses, fruits and vegetables that would be foraged plus local animals hunted.As IFL Science explains, DNA evidence from plant remains suggests that sugarcane first evolved in Southeast Asia, and remained an immensely elusive substance throughout the Middle Ages. Then, after the Portuguese discovered that the Brazilian climate was suitable for sugar growing, it was introduced to the Caribbean in around 1647, whereupon the Western European sugar industry took off.