Sugar: The Sweet Taste of an Empire

Fork U with Dr. Terry Simpson · Oct 22, 2026 · 29m

Think about the last time you put sugar in your coffee or tea, a teaspoon, maybe two. Perhaps you avoided it because someone on the internet told you sugar was poison.

Sugar helped build the British Empire, financed fortunes on both sides of the Atlantic, and contributed to the enslavement of millions of Africans. It made tea palatable to the British, encouraged the development of an extraordinary global trading network, and eventually gave British dentists plenty of work.

It was so valuable that Napoleon made the sugar beet famous, because he didn’t want to import from the UK. . Sugar…