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Annual sugar consumption
The average resident of Britain consumes 47 pounds of sugar a year. -
Sugar Beets
Cheaper sugar beets now replace sugar cane as the principal sugar source for Europeans. -
Annual Sugar Consumption
The average Briton now eats about 100 pounds of sugar annually; the average American consumes 40 pounds. -
Alzheimers
A German physician, Dr. Alzheimer, first identifies a form of dementia characterized by dramatic shrinkage Sugar’s Sordid Timeline History 21 in brain nerve cells. By the end of the 20th century, an estimated 5 million Americans a year will be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. -
Diabetes
1910—A medical explanation emerges in the U.S. for the rising rates of diabetes: the pancreas of a diabetes patient was unable to produce what {is} termed “insulin,” a chemical the body uses to break down sugar. Thus, excess sugar ended up in the urine. -
Obesity
An estimated 13% of American adults meet the criteria for obesity. -
High Fructose Corn Syrup
A Japanese scientist invents a cost-effective industrial process for using enzymes to convert glucose in cornstarch to fructose. High Fructose Corn Syrup derived from corn becomes a cheap alternative sweetener to sugar. -
Soft Drinks
Soft drink manufacturers such as Pepsi and Coca-Cola switch from sugar to the cheaper high-fructose corn syrup in U.S. production facilities -
Cancer
Cancer rates have climbed to 510 new cases for every 100,000 people in the U.S. -
Obesity
Obesity now affects 24.5% of U.S. adults. -
Pounds of Sugar
Each U.S. citizen eats about 100 pounds of added sugars each year, up from about 40 pounds in 1900. -
Sugar Consumption in America
An ordinary American now consumes 37.8 pounds of high-fructose corn syrup every year, mostly unknowingly because it is laced in thousands of processed food and drink products. It is considered one of the ‘hidden’ sweeteners because, like many sugars and artificial sweeteners, it uses numerous chemical aliases making it difficult to identify on food label ingredient lists. -
Obesity
The obesity rate for adult Americans reaches 32.2% of men and 35.5% of women. Obesity is considered a contributing factor to the deaths of nearly 400,000 Americans annually. -
Recommendations
The American Heart Association issues health recommendations that women consume no more than six teaspoons per day of sugars and men consume no more than nine teaspoons a day. Generally both men and women consume three times that amount daily. -
Sugar Consumption
The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, which meets every five years to issue dietary recommendations to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, advises for the first time that American consumers dramatically cut back on the amount of added sugars to 12 teaspoons a day, half of what Americans currently consume. Much of these added sugars are derived from consumption of juices, sodas and a wide range of sugary drinks.
