Sweetness and Power

As sugar became a ubiquitous ingredient in developed countries during the 20th century, “the diet of a whole species was gradually being remade” (187) in terms of the kinds of food we were eating and the new methods and meanings associated with eating.

The 20th century came with a sharp rise in consumption outside of the home (in restaurants, for example) and an increase in prepared foods (especially quick snack foods) eaten within the home. This kind of eating is associated with increases in both sugar and fat consumption in developed nations like England and the United States. Manufacturers of processed foods, aware of sugar’s extreme versatility, often add it to products for preservation and texture rather than taste: “[I]ndeed, many food manufacturers would dearly love a chemical having all of the qualities of sucrose without the calories and, in some cases, even without the sweetness” (206).

“Meals,” in the traditional sense of families eating together at set times to consume food prepared by a single cook inside the home, became increasingly rare in the 20th century. Mintz associates the trend toward “desocialized, aperiodic eating” (213) with the growth of free market