Sugar
New Guinea first domesticated possibly "as early as 8000 BC and first mentioned in Indian literature, the Mahabhashya of Panajali, estimated around 400-350 BC" (Mintz 19). Sugar can be refined to different levels of purity and once white sugar represented the purest level of refinery. "Sucrose was practically unknown in Northern Europe before perhaps 1000 AD" (Mintz 23). One factor to sugar production is that slave labor has played a key role. "Millions of Africans were taken into slavery between 1701 and 1810; they had been bought, sold and traded" (Mintz 53). In many parts of the world people were eager to reap to benefits of producing sugar. "Europeans became the producers of sugar, as a result of the Crusades because they were controlling the sugar producers in conquered areas" (Mintz 28). The consumption continued to increase giving the sugar producing more influence. "By the end of the seventeenth century, the sugar industry was greater than the tobacco industry" (Mintz 36). For example, in "1660, England consumed approximately 1000 hogsheads of sugar and by 1730, 100,000 hogsheads were imported for consumption" (Mintz 39). The motivation was often both economical, as well as, political. "By 1750, the poorest English farm labourer's wife took sugar in her tea" (Mintz 45).
Today, I think the food industry as just as much control, if not more than in history. They spend a lot of money to lobby to keep their vending machines in schools, to advertise in high profile events and build their brand as best they can to keep us consuming!
Mintz, Sidney. 1986. "Sweetness and Power: the Place of Sugar in Modern History". p. 19-74.
