Saturday, June 2, 2012

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Sunday, May 27th, 2012 On Sunday we had a gorgeously displayed lunch with the Cacique’s family and Dona Helena brought us to where the sugar cane grows.
While walking through the sugar cane we had to be careful of the leaves so that they didn’t cut us because they are razor sharp. We cut down one stalk and brought it back to feed the outer “bark” to the cattle and we sampled the raw sugar cane.
During this time we learned that the cultivation of sugarcane is a back-breaking process and that work conditions are very poor. We also learned that to have the snow-white sugar that we are used to in America, the sugarcane must go through a very long process that requires a lot of work. This makes me wonder how much sugar Americans would be consuming if we all knew how much work actually went into producing our obsession with sweets; if we all knew about the poor working conditions and back breaking labor. If an individual were to cut down and process just the sugar that they personally consumed, would they continue to use so much sugar? 25.8 million people in US probably would not have diabetes. (http://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/resources/publications/AAG/ddt.htm ) Beth

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