Long before the discovery of refined sugar, ancient peoples satisfied their craving for sweetness with what nature provided directly.

Honey was humanity’s first concentrated sweetener, used by Stone Age hunter-gatherers at least 8,000 years ago, as evidenced by cave paintings in Spain showing honey collection. Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans used honey not only in food but also in medicine and offerings to the gods.

At the same time, early civilizations discovered that certain plants — like dates, figs, and fruits — could be dried or boiled down into natural syrups, offering both sweetness and energy.

The sugarcane plant (Saccharum officinarum), native to New Guinea, began its global journey more than 10,000 years ago. Early peoples chewed the raw cane for its sweet juice, and by around 500 BCE, the technique of extracting and crystallizing sugar from cane juice had developed in India.

The Sanskrit word śarkarā (“gravel” or “sand”) gave us the word sugar. From India, sugar-making spread to Persia, and through Arab trade and expansion, it reached the Mediterranean and Europe by the Middle Ages. By the 15th–16th centuries, sugarcane cultivation became a major global industry — first in the Arab world, then in colonial plantations in the Caribbean and Americas.

In its purest, natural form, sugarcane is an extraordinarily vibrant and healthy plant. It’s a tall, tropical grass, rich in chlorophyll and natural plant compounds. Fresh cane juice — the sweet sap squeezed directly from the stalk — contains vitamins (like B-complex), minerals (iron, calcium, magnesium, potassium), and antioxidants such as polyphenols. In many tropical cultures today (including India, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia), fresh sugarcane juice is still consumed as a refreshing, nourishing drink that supports hydration and energy without the loss of nutrients caused by industrial refining.

When sugar is refined, however, nearly all of those natural minerals and beneficial plant compounds are stripped away, leaving pure sucrose crystals — high in calories but devoid of nutrients. Thus, while raw sugarcane is a wholesome, living source of sweetness, super-refined sugar represents its most concentrated and least nutritious form.