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It's a bitter legal fight between the sweetest of enemies.

On Wednesday, the sugar industry took to a Los Angeles federal courtroom and accused high fructose corn syrup producers of falsely claiming that their product is just as healthful as sugar.

Corn syrup producers hit back, arguing that the sugar industry has long engaged in an unsavory campaign of misinformation.

The FDA proposed including "added sugar" on the label last summer, and many food companies, such as General Mills, opposed it. The companies argued that, from a health point of view, it doesn't matter whether sugar is added or is already present naturally in ingredients such as fruit. The existing labels already show the amount of total sugars in packaged food, and food manufacturers argued that this already tells consumers what they need to know.

The Baltimore City Council’s Health Committee held a hearing Tuesday afternoon on a bill requiring warning labels for sugar-sweetened drinks on advertisements, restaurant menus and in any point of sale in the city where the products are sold. The health warning would say: "WARNING: DRINKING BEVERAGES WITH ADDED SUGAR(S) CONTRIBUTES TO TOOTH DECAY, OBESITY, AND DIABETES. THIS MESSAGE IS FROM THE BALTIMORE CITY HEALTH DEPARTMENT."

Supporters argue the sugary drinks are a key contributor to childhood obesity in the city.

"There is no nutrition whatsoever, they are empty calories and it's the one thing we can do to prevent our children from having a lifetime of disease and illness," said Wen.

The dose determines the poison. The data says that the dose on average that is safe is six to nine teaspoons of added sugar per day. Currently, Americans are at 22 teaspoons of added sugar per day. That excess is driving obesity, diabetes, lipid problems, heart disease, cancer, dementia, fatty liver disease — virtually every chronic metabolic disease that you can think of is being driven by this excess of sugar.
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Sugar meets all four criteria, hands down. One, it's ubiquitous — it's everywhere, and it's cheap. Two, as I mentioned, we have a dose threshold, and we are above it. Three, if it's addictive, it's abused. Four, how does your sugar consumption hurt me? Well, my employer has to pay $2,750 per employee for obesity management and medicine, whether I'm obese or not.
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Sugar is the alcohol of a child. You would never let a child drink a can of Budweiser, but you would never think twice about a can of Coke. Yet what it does to the liver, what it does to the arteries, what it does to the heart is all the same. And that's why we have adolescents with type 2 diabetes.
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One, fructose, the sweet molecule in sugar, is not metabolized like glucose. It's metabolized in the mitochondria, and it is metabolized in the liver to liver fat. That liver fat mucks up the workings of the liver and leads to a process called insulin resistance. That raises your insulin levels because your pancreas has to make more insulin. That drives all the chronic metabolic diseases we know about, plus it burns out the pancreas, leading to diabetes.
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The Wall Street Journal asked Americans what are the most dangerous of four substances in America: tobacco, 49 percent; alcohol, 24 percent; sugar, 15 percent; and then marijuana, 8 percent. Sugar was doubly worrisome to Americans than marijuana was. How about that?

Sugar is the alcohol of a child. You would never let a child drink a can of Budweiser, but you would never think twice about a can of Coke.

- Childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years.

- The percentage of children aged 6–11 years in the United States who were obese increased from 7% in 1980 to nearly 18% in 2012. Similarly, the percentage of adolescents aged 12–19 years who were obese increased from 5% to nearly 21% over the same period.

- In 2012, more than one third of children and adolescents were overweight or obese.

TPRJones wrote:I remember not being allowed sugar when I was a kid. It made it that much more desirable, and once I was free to make my own choices I went all sugar all the time for many many years.

As a parent there's no way to win that one. Let them have it and they might habituate. Keep it away and they might become obsessed with the forbidden fruit. It really just comes down to the kid's personality.

GORDON wrote:I think there's a way to win.... don't give it to them, and they won't become addicted... or at the very least, they won't become obese at 8 years old because of their sugar intake, not to mention whatever caffeine does to a young body.

TPRJones wrote:As a parent there's no way to win that one. Let them have it and they might habituate. Keep it away and they might become obsessed with the forbidden fruit. It really just comes down to the kid's personality.

GORDON wrote:Well I will not be giving him any meth in order to destroy the mystery and ensures he never starts using it.