In the sixteenth century, when sugar had become a staple of British royalty, a German traveler to London famously commented that Queen Elizabeth’s teeth were black and that this was “a defect the English seem subject to, from their too great use of sugar.” He added that the poor in England then seemed healthier than the rich, because sugar was a luxury the poor couldn’t afford. Sugar “rotteth the teeth, making them look blacke, and withal, causeth many times
