Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1885-01-30
LIFE WITHOUT SUGAR.
one OF the Most Severe DeprIvations
that the Ancients Suffered.

Cornhin Magazine.
Besides the natural Teets we have
taken to producing artificial ones.
Has any housewife ever realized the
alarming condition OF cookery in the
benighted generations before the in
ventlon of sugar? It is really almost
too APPALLING to think about. So many
things that we now look upon as all
bat necesaries-cakes, buildings,
made dishes, confectionery, pre-
serves, sweet biscuits, iellies, cooked
fruits, etc, weres then practically i'm
possible. Fancy attempting nova
adays to live a single day without
sugar, no tea, no coffee, no jam, no
pudding, no cake, 10 sweets, no hot
teddy before one goes to bed; the
bare idea is too terrible And get
that was really the ahject condition
of all the civilized world up to the
middle of the middle ages. Horace's
punch was sugarLess and lemonIess :;
the gentle Virgil never tasted the
congenial cup of afternoon tea; and
Socrates went from his cradle to the
grave without ever knowing the
flavor of peppermint bulls eyes How
the children managed to spend their
Saturdays or their weekly obolus,
is profound mystery; TO be sure,
people had honey; but honey is rare,
dear, and scanty; it can never have
filed one-quarter the place that sugar
fills in our modern affections Try
for a moment to realize drinking
honey with ones whisky and water,
or doing the years preserving with a
pot of best Narborlne, and you get at
once common measure of the differ
ence between the two as practical
sweetners.
Nowadays we get sugar from cane
and beetroot in abundance, while
sugar naples and palm trees of yari-
to remoter countries. But the child
hood of the little Greeks and Romans
must have been absolutely unlghted
by single ray of joy frSm chocolate
crea ns or Everton coffee. The conse-
quence of this excessive production of
sweets in modern times is, of course,
that we have begun to disturb the in
dictlocs afforded Us by the sense of
taste IN this particular as to the whole
someness of various objects. We can
mix sugar with anything we like,
whether it had sugar in it to begin
with or otherwise, and by sweetenIng
and favoring we canglve false pala-
tableness to even the worst and most
iudIgestible rubbish, suck as plaster
of paris, largely sold under the name
of sugared almons to the ingenious
youth of two hemispheres. But in
untouched nature the test rarely or
never fails. As long as fruits are
unripe or unfit for human food they
are green and sour: as soon as they
ripen they become soft and sweet,
and usually acquire some brightcoler
as SORT of advertisement of their
edibility. In the main, bar the
accidents of civilization, whatever is
sweet is good to eat,-nay more, is
meant to be eaten, it is only
our own perverse folly that makes us
sometimes think all nice things bad
for US and all wholesome things nasty.
In state of nature the exact OPP
posite Is really the case. One may
observe, too, that children, who are
literally young savages in more senses
than one, stand nearer to the print
tive feeling In this respect than grown
up people. They unaffectedly ike
sweets; adults who have grown more
accustomed TO the artificial meat diet
don't, as rule, care much for pud-
dings, cakes, and made dishes.
May 7 venture Parenthetically to
add, any appearance TO the contrary
notwithstanding, that am not a
vegetarian, and that I am far from
desiring to bring down upon my de-
voted head the importation pro
nounced against the rash person who
would rob poor man of his beer. It
is qaite possible to believe that yege
tarianism was the starting point of
the race, without wishing 70 consider
it also as the goal; just as it is quite
possible to regard clothes as purely
artificial products of civilization,
without desiring personally to return
10 the charming simplicity of the Gar
den of Eden.)