Sweet Poison

Sugar production in India debt bondage and child labor (New York Times)

Sugar production takes up 60 million acres of land worldwide – more than 150 times the area of greater London – https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/sugar-a-killer-crop.html

Brazil is the world’s largest producer of sugarcane, and in 2018 it grew over 630 million metric tons of the crop. Brazil will bare the brunt of the worlds demand for sugar and the ethanol derived from its leftover fibers and stalks.   

Indonesia plans to clear forests roughly the size of Belgium to produce sugarcane-derived bioethanol, rice and other food crops, potentially displacing Indigenous groups who rely on the land to survive.

Local communities say they are already experiencing harm from the government-backed project, which environmental watchdogs say is the largest current planned deforestation operation in the world.

Increases cancer

obesity

Notes and ideas

Further reading – Weston A Price referred to sugar as a displacing food of modern commerce because it is an empty food that displaces the nutrient-dense foods of native peoples. He noted that people’s health declined in every way when they began eating sugar. Sugar was introduced into the European diet in the 1500s.12 Feb 2024

“Imagine every piece of vegetation in that area being completely cleared … having all the trees and the wildlife erased from the landscape and replaced with a monoculture,” said Glenn Horowitz, chief executive of Mighty Earth. “It’s creating a zone of death in one of the most vibrant spots on Earth.”

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