Sugar blues

I sit at my kitchen table in the morning, reading the newspaper, and wonder about monster toads caught in Darwin, Australia. Is this just another curious bit of frivolous information, or does it have some actual significance to this suburban grandmother? Google may help me, here, since the newspaper doesn't.

Cane toads, as they're called, were imported from South America during the 1930s in an attempt to control beetles on Australia's sugar cane plantations. The thought of plantations reminds me of our cotton plantations, slavery, and ruinous farming practices in the early days of our country.

My first stop on the Google express was here. Coke benefiting from Child Labor in Sugar Cane Fields in El Salvador. This was reported in 2004; children, some as young as eight years old, were laboring in dangerous and unhealthy conditions, and were forced to miss the first several months of school. In addition, they had to pay for their own medical care when they were injured by the machetes.

Ah, our friend Coca Cola, found on practically every street corner, either in a dispensing machine, a store shelf, or a can thrown onto the sidewalk.

Next, putting it into some historical context, I read that in the late 1800s Australian sugar producers kidnapped unsuspecting Kanakas to use as cheap labor so the producers could compete with overseas producers.

So slavery isn't just an American blotch, and of course we know it's not, given some very grim figures available today. What this says to me is we didn't invent greed, powerlust, ignorance, and self indulgence, but we sure haven't walked away from them, have we, as we toss our Coke cans and candy wrappers?

Unfortunately, the damage goes further than the atrocities of slavery and forced child labor. It seems we are damaging the earth itself.

Late last year, in Uganda, the owner of a sugar cane plantation attempted to gain permission to clear a rare rain forest in order to expand the plantation's operations. At this point, I don't know who the owners are, what country funds them, or whether they were successful.

All I know is we go through a lot of sugar consumption in this country, much to the delight, I'm sure, of some wealthy plantation owners and their stockholders. Of course, as disease attacks our bodies, in part due to our unhealthy eating habits, we can always get medical assistance, much to the delight of drug company owners and their stockholders.

I think it's time to ditch the Coca Cola again, among other things.