The Story of Sugar: Taste the Sweet – Ignore the Bitter

 Thursday, October 15th from 2-3 pm

Free for members only 

Guest Speaker – Gary Evans

Back by popular demand for his stimulating narratives of his travels and explorations, Westmount resident and retired Ottawa University professor Gary Evans will share memorable collections he has garnered as a historian, author and journalist. He has devoted recent years to being a special interest guest lecturer aboard cruise ships. This Fall Contactivity is happy to have Mr. Evans present two lectures.

This talk by Prof. Evans provides historical snapshots of sugar, its origins, its production, its social costs, its generation of huge profits, and its permanent impact on the human diet. African slaves in the Caribbean became the workers who generated this product and its offspring, rum. Today the Caribbean languishes  because sugar comes from other sources. Yet the legacy of sugar reminds us of ever-changing human  tastes and the need to understand how a simple natural product, sugar cane, left a permanent impact on millions of lives.