Commentary: The story of sugar: Black suffering, white windfall

In an age when abundance is often taken for granted, some products have become so plentiful that they can scarcely be avoided, and perhaps none more so than sugar.

It is the scourge of both the prosperous and the poor. The former spend billions to work off its effects, by paying extra to eat foods with no sweeteners added and through expensive fitness habits. The poor, meanwhile, often live in so-called food deserts where they are harmed by sugars that saturate processed foods, even ones that don’t taste sweet.

Sugar’s omnipresence has become a major public health menace, driving up rates of diabetes to levels