These portraits of Queen Elizabeth the First
by MY Charter School Class
came about
because one of my students was interested in history,
and another got to talking about what sugar does.
I had just read the following passage about the Queen.
I brought the book to class on our last day
and had them draw what they "saw" when I read the following passage to them:
It has been common knowledge for thousands of years
that sweet foods encourage tooth decay.
In the Greek book of PROBLEMS attributed to Aristotle, the question is asked,
"Why do figs, which are soft and sweet, destroy the teeth?"
Nearly 2,000 years later,
as Sugar Cane was being established in the West Indies,
a German visitor to the English court
named Paul Hentzner described Queen Elizabeth I as she appeared in 1598:
Next came the queen, in the Sixty-fifth Year of her age, as we were told, Very majestic,
her Face oblong, fair, but wrinkled;
her Eyes small, yet black and pleasant;
her Nose a little hooked;
her Lips narrow,
and her Teeth BLACK;
(a defect the English seem subject to, from their TOO great use of Sugar).
