Podcast
Freakonomics Radio
It was mentioned as a book about the history of sugar, including how sugar was once considered medicine and how it became an everyday commodity due to industrialization and the sugar trade.
Sugar started out as a minor commodity that was used for medicine and for spice up until, oh, I would say into the Middle Ages.
— Episode: 285. There’s a War on Sugar. Is It Justi...
Episode: 285. There’s a War on Sugar. Is It Justified?
It was mentioned as a book about the history of sugar, including how sugar was once considered medicine and how it became an everyday commodity due to industrialization and the sugar trade.
Sugar started out as a minor commodity that was used for medicine and for spice up until, oh, I would say into the Middle Ages.
She says the debate over what sugar is a food, a drug or something in between is not new.
Sir Thomas Aquinas, way back in the 13th century, and he pronounced sugar a medicine.
He said, though nutritious in themselves, sugared spices are nonetheless not eaten with the end in mind of nourishment, but rather for ease in digestion.
Accordingly, they do not break the fast any more than the taking of any other medicine.