In Brazil in particular coffee cultivation came to dominate agriculture and commerce. Huge areas of land that had already been established as sugar plantations switched to growing coffee trees in the expectation of huge profits to be reaped from the bean. In Brazil the abolition of slavery was delayed through the political power of coffee growers, who needed cheap labor. Not until 1850 was the importation of new slaves into Brazil banned. From 1871 all children born to slaves were considered legally free, ensuring the country’s eventual, although gradual, abolition of slavery. In 1888, years after other Western nations, slavery in Brazil was finally completely outlawed.
Coffee cultivation fueled economic growth for Brazil as railways were built from coffee-growing regions to major ports. When slave labor vanished, thousands of new immigrants, mainly poor Italians, arrived to work on the coffee plantations, thus changing the ethnic and cultural face of the country.
Continued coffee growing has radically changed Brazil’s environment. Huge swaths of land have been cleared, natural forest cut down or burned, and native animals destroyed for the vast coffee plantations that cover the countryside. Grown as a monoculture, the coffee tree quickly exhausts soil fertility, requiring new land to be developed as the old becomes less and less productive. Tropical rain forests can take centuries to regenerate; without suitable plant covering erosion can remove what little soil is present, effectively destroying any hope of forest renewal. Overreliance on one crop generally means local populations forgo planting more traditional necessities, making them even more vulnerable to the vagaries of world markets. Monoculture is also highly susceptible to devastating pest infestations, like coffee leaf rust, that can wipe out a plantation in a matter of days.
A similar pattern of exploitation of people and the environment occurred in most of the coffee-growing countries of Central America. Starting in the last decades of the nineteenth century, the indigenous Mayan people in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Mexico were systematically forced from their lands as coffee monoculture spread up the hillsides, which offered perfect conditions for cultivation of the coffee shrub. Labor was provided through coercion of the displaced population; men, women, and children worked long hours for a pittance and, as forced laborers, had few rights. The elite—the coffee plantation owners—controlled the wealth of the state and directed government policies in the pursuit of profit, fomenting decades of bitterness over social inequality. The history of political unrest and violent revolution in these countries is partly a legacy of people’s desire for coffee.
From its beginning as a valuable medicinal herb of the eastern Mediterranean, the opium poppy spread throughout Europe and Asia. Today profit from illegal trafficking in opium continues to finance organized crime and international terrorism. The health and happiness of millions have been destroyed, directly or indirectly, by alkaloids from the opium poppy, yet at the same time many millions more have benefited from the judicious medical application of their amazing pain-relieving properties.
Just as opium has been alternately sanctioned and prohibited, so has nicotine been both encouraged and forbidden. Tobacco was once considered to have advantageous health effects and was employed as a cure for numerous maladies, but at other times and places the use of tobacco was outlawed as a dangerous and depraved habit. For the first half of the twentieth century tobacco use was more than tolerated—it was promoted in many societies. Smoking was upheld as a symbol of the emancipated woman and the sophisticated man. At the beginning of the twenty-first century the pendulum has swung the other way, and in many places nicotine is being treated more like the alkaloids from opium: controlled, taxed, proscribed, and banned.
In contrast, caffeine—although once subject to edicts and religious injunctions—is now readily available. There are no laws or regulations to keep children or teenagers from consuming this alkaloid. In fact, parents in many cultures routinely provide their children with caffeinated drinks. Governments now restrict opium alkaloid use to regulated medical purposes, but they reap large tax benefits from the sale of caffeine and nicotine, making it unlikely that they will give up such a lucrative and reliable source of income and ban either of these two alkaloids.
It was the human desire for three molecules—morphine, nicotine, and caffeine—that initiated the events leading to the Opium Wars of the mid-1800s. The results of these conflicts are now seen as the beginning of the transformation of a social system that had been the basis of Chinese life for centuries. But the role these compounds have played in history has been even greater. Grown in lands far from their origins, opium, tobacco, tea, and coffee have had a dramatic effect on local populations and on those people who have cultivated these plants. In many cases the ecology of these regions changed dramatically as native flora were destroyed to make way for acres of poppies, fields of tobacco, and verdant hillsides covered with tea bushes or coffee trees. The alkaloid molecules in these plants have spurred trade, generated fortunes, fueled wars, propped up governments, funded coups, and enslaved millions—all because of our eternal craving for a quick chemical fix.
14. OLEIC ACID
A CHEMICAL EXPLANATION of the prime condition for the trading of goods is “highly desired molecules unevenly distributed throughout the world.” Many of the compounds we have considered—those in spices, tea, coffee, opium, tobacco, rubber, and dyes—fit this definition, as does oleic acid, a molecule found in abundance in the oil pressed from the small green fruit of the olive tree. Olive oil, a valued trade item for thousands of years, has been called the lifeblood of the societies that developed around the Mediterranean Sea. Even as civilizations rose and fell in the region, the olive tree and its golden oil were always at the base of their prosperity and at the heart of their culture.
THE LORE OF THE OLIVE
Myths and legends about the olive tree and its origin abound. Isis, goddess of the ancient Egyptians, allegedly introduced the olive and its bountiful harvest to humanity. Roman mythology credits Hercules with bringing the olive tree from North Africa; the Roman goddess Minerva supposedly taught the art of cultivation of the olive tree and extraction of its oil. Another legend claims the olive goes back to the first man; the first olive tree is said to have grown out of the ground on Adam’s tomb.
The ancient Greeks told of a contest between Poseidon, the god of the sea, and Athena, goddess of peace and wisdom. The victor would be the one who produced the most useful gift for the people of the newly built city in the region known as Attica. Poseidon struck a rock with his trident and a spring appeared. Water began to flow, and from the spring the horse appeared—a symbol of strength and power and an invaluable aid in war. When Athena’s turn came, she threw her spear into the ground, and it turned into the olive tree—a symbol of peace and a provider of food and fuel. Athena’s gift was considered the greater, and the new city, Athens, was named in her honor. The olive is still considered a divine gift. An olive tree still grows atop the Acropolis in Athens.
The geographic origin of the olive tree is debatable. Fossil evidence of what is believed to be an ancestor of the modern olive tree has been found in both Italy and Greece. The first cultivation of olive trees is usually ascribed to lands around the eastern Mediterranean—to various regions in the present-day countries of Turkey, Greece, Syria, Iran, and Iraq. The olive tree, Olea europaea, the only species of the Olea family grown for its fruit, has been cultivated for at least five thousand and probably as long as seven thousand years.
From the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, olive cultivation spread to Palestine and on to Egypt. Some authorities believe this cultivation started in Crete, where by 2000 B.C. a flourishing industry exported the oil to Greece, to North Africa, and to Asia Minor. As their colonies grew, the Greeks took the olive tree to Italy, France, Spain and Tunisia. When the Roman Empire expanded, the olive culture also expanded throughout the whole Mediterranean basin. For centuries, olive oil was the most important trading commodity of the region.
Olive tree at
op the Acropolis in Athens. (Photo by Peter Le Couteur)
As well as its obvious role supplying valuable calories as a food, olive oil was used in many other aspects of everyday life by the people living around the Mediterranean. Lamps filled with olive oil lit the dark evenings. The oil was used for cosmetic purposes; both the Greeks and Romans rubbed it into their skin after bathing. Athletes considered olive oil massages essential to keep muscles supple. Wrestlers added a coating of sand or dust to their layer of oil to allow their opponent a grip. Rituals after athletic events involved bathing and more olive oil, massaged into the skin to soothe and heal abrasions. Women used olive oil to keep their skin looking young and their hair shiny. It was thought to help prevent baldness and promote strength. Compounds responsible for fragrance and flavor in herbs are very often soluble in oils, so bay, sesame, rose, fennel, mint, juniper, sage, and other leaves and flowers were used to infuse olive oil, producing exotic and highly prized scented mixtures. Physicians in Greece prescribed olive oil or some of these blends for numerous ailments, including nausea, cholera, ulcers, and insomnia. Numerous references to olive oil, taken internally or applied externally, appear in early Egyptian medical texts. Even the leaves of the olive tree were used to reduce fevers and provide relief from malaria. These leaves, we now know, contain salicylic acid, the same molecule as in the willow tree and meadowsweet plant from which Felix Hofmann developed aspirin in 1893.
The importance of olive oil to the people of the Mediterranean is reflected in their writings and even their laws. The Greek poet Homer called it “liquid gold.” The Greek philosopher Democritus believed a diet of honey and olive oil could allow a man to live to be a hundred, an extremely old age in a time where life expectancy hovered around forty years. In the sixth century B.C. the Athenian legislator Solon—whose other deeds included establishing a humane code of laws, popular courts, the right of assembly, and a senate—introduced laws protecting olive trees. In a grove only two trees could be removed each year. Breaking this law incurred severe penalties, including execution.
There are more than a hundred references in the Bible to olives and olive oil. For example: the dove brings an olive sprig back to Noah after the flood, Moses is instructed to prepare an anointing mixture of spices and olive oil, the Good Samaritan pours wine and olive oil into the wounds of the robbers’ victim, and the wise virgins keep their lamps filled with olive oil. We have the Mount of Olives at Jerusalem. The Hebrew king David appointed guards to protect his olive groves and warehouses. The Roman historian Pliny, in the first century A.D., referred to Italy having the best olive oil in the Mediterranean. Virgil praised the olive—“Thus you shall cultivate the rich olive, beloved of Peace.”
With this integration of lore of olives into religion, mythology, and poetry as well as everyday life, it is not surprising that the olive tree came to be a symbol for many cultures. In ancient Greece, presumably because a plentiful supply of olive oil for food and lamps implied prosperity that was absent during times of war, the olive became synonymous with times of peace. We still talk about extending the olive branch when we mean an attempt to make peace. The olive was also considered a symbol of victory, and winners at the original Olympic Games were awarded a wreath made of olive leaves as well as a supply of its oil. Olive groves were often targeted during war, as destruction of an enemy’s olive groves not only eliminated a major food source but also inflicted a devastating psychological blow. The olive tree represented wisdom and renewal as well; olive trees that appeared to have been destroyed by fire or felling often sprouted new shoots and eventually bore fruit again.
Finally, the olive represented strength (an olive trunk was the staff of Hercules) and sacrifice (the cross to which Christ was nailed was supposedly made of olive wood). At various times and in various cultures the olive has symbolized power and wealth, virginity, and fertility. Olive oil has been used for centuries to anoint kings, emperors, and bishops at their coronations or ordinations. Saul, the first king of Israel, had olive oil rubbed onto his forehead at his crowning. Hundreds of years later, on the other side of the Mediterranean, the first king of the Franks, Clovis, was anointed with olive oil at his coronation, becoming Louis the First. Thirty-four more French monarchs were anointed with oil from the same pear-shaped vial, until it was destroyed during the French Revolution.
The olive tree is remarkably hardy. It needs a climate with a short cold winter to set the fruit and no blossom-killing spring frosts. A long, hot summer and a mellow fall allow the fruit to ripen. The Mediterranean Sea cools its African coast and warms its northern shores, making the region ideally suited for the cultivation of the olive. Inland, away from the moderating effect of a large body of water, the olive does not grow. Olive trees can survive where there is very little rainfall. Their long taproot penetrates deeply to find water, and the leaves are narrow and leathery with a slightly fuzzy, silvery underside—adaptations that prevent loss of water through evaporation. The olive can survive periods of drought and can grow in rocky soil and on stony terraces. Extreme frost and ice storms may snap branches and crack trunks, but the tenacious olive, even if it appears to be destroyed by the cold, will regenerate and send out fresh green suckers the following spring. Little wonder that the people who were dependent on the olive tree for thousands of years came to venerate it.
THE CHEMISTRY OF OLIVE OIL
Oils have been extracted from many plants: walnuts and almonds, corn, sesame seeds, flax seeds, sunflower seeds, coconuts, soybeans, and peanuts, to name a few. Oils—and fats, their chemically very close cousins usually from animal sources—have long been valued for food, for lighting, and for cosmetic and medicinal purposes. But no other oil or fat has ever become so much part of the culture and economy, so intertwined in the hearts and minds of the people, or so important to the growth of Western civilization as has the oil from the fruit of the olive tree.
The chemical difference between olive oil and any other oil or fat is very small. But once again a very small difference accounts for a large part of the course of human history. We do not think it too speculative to assert that without oleic acid—named after the olive and the molecule that differentiates olive oil from other oils or fats—the development of Western civilization and democracy might have followed a very different path.
Fats and oils are known as triglycerides. They are all compounds formed from a glycerol (also called glycerin) molecule and three molecules of fatty acid.
The glycerol molecule
Fatty acids are long chains of carbon atoms with an acid group, COOH (or HOOC), at one end:
A twelve-carbon-atom fatty-acid molecule. The acid group, on the left, is circled.
Although they are simple molecules, fatty acids have a number of carbon atoms, so it is often clearer to represent them in zigzag format, where every intersection and each end of a line represents a carbon atom and most of the hydrogen atoms are not shown at all.
This fatty acid still has twelve carbon atoms.
When three molecules of water (H2O) are eliminated between the H from each of the three OH groups on glycerol and OH from the HOOC of three different fatty-acid molecules, a triglyceride molecule is formed. This condensation process—the joining of molecules through the loss of H2O—is similar to the formation of polysaccharides (discussed in Chapter 4).
The triglyceride molecule shown above has all three fatty-acid molecules the same. But it is also possible for only two of the fatty-acid molecules to be the same. Or they can all be different. Fats and oils have the same glycerol portion; it is the fatty acids that vary. In the previous example we used what is known as a saturated fatty acid. Saturated in this case means saturated with hydrogen; no more hydrogen can be added to the fatty-acid portion of the molecule, as there are no carbon-to-carbon double bonds that can be broken to allow the attachment of more hydrogen atoms. If such bonds are present in the fatty acid, it is termed unsaturated. Some common saturated fatty acids are:
From their names it i
s not hard to guess that the main source of stearic acid is beef tallow and that palmitic acid is a component of palm oil.
Almost all fatty acids have an even number of carbon atoms. The examples above are the most common fatty acids, although others do exist. Butter contains butyric acid (named from butter), with only four carbon atoms, and caproic acid, also present in butter and in fat from goat’s milk—caper is Latin for goat—has six carbon atoms.
Unsaturated fatty acids contain at least one carbon-to-carbon double bond. If there is only one of these double bonds, the acid is referred to as monounsaturated; with more than one double bond it is polyunsaturated. The triglyceride shown below is formed from two monounsaturated fatty acids and one saturated fatty acid. The double bonds are cis in arrangement, as the carbon atoms of the long chain are on the same side of the double bond.
Triglyceride from two monounsaturated and one saturated fatty acid
This puts a kink in the chain, so such triglycerides cannot pack together as closely as triglycerides composed of saturated fatty acids (below).
Triglyceride from three saturated fatty acids
The more double bonds in a fatty acid, the more bent it is and the less efficient its packing. Less efficient packing requires less energy to overcome the attractions holding the molecules together, and they can therefore be separated at lower temperatures. Triglycerides with a higher proportion of unsaturated fatty acids tend to be liquids at room temperature rather than solids. We call them oils; they are most often of plant origin. Saturated fatty acids that can pack closely together require more energy to separate individual molecules and so melt at higher temperatures. Triglycerides from animal sources, with a higher proportion of saturated fatty acids than oils, are solid at room temperature. We call them fats.
Penny le Couteur & Jay Burreson Page 24