Sugar's crucial role in industrializa- tion developed gradually as the plantation system expanded to. make sugar more available and as sugar proved to be an ideal. complement to the tropical foods such as tea, coffee and. chocolate, which began to reach England in the seventeenth. century. These are all bitter, calorie-free, stimulating drinks that. are sweetened by the addition of sugar (. Bodley, 2011 ). Sugar consumption by the English working poor grew in. stages. It was used first with tea and then in rich puddings,. which by the nineteenth century became a dessert course to an. end meal ( Mintz, in 1986 ). Sugar was combined with wheat and flour in sweetened baked goods; by the end of the 19th century. sugar became a relatively cheap source of calories and tended. to supplement and replace more expensive grains, fruits,. vegetables, meat and dairy products.