'is sugar the next tobacco?'

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There's a lawsuit against CocaCola right now over their marketing of VitaminWater, which is basically water, sugar, and a few water-soluble vitamins. They're being charged with misleadingly marketing VitaminWater as a healthy food, when it's basically flat soda. Their response? 'No consumer could possibly think that VitaminWater is good for you, despite the fact that we market it that way.'

Many people are remarkably ignorant of basic health maintenance, in the same way that I'm ignorant of basic plumbing. I don't know the first thing about stopping a leaky faucet because I've never studied how to. I know more than average about health care, though. The conclusion I make is that I should help other people with their health care, and plumbers should help me with my plumbing (with remuneration for both of us, given that we live in a capitalist society).
Just because the plumber focuses on plumbing doesn't mean that he's a bad person or 'deserves' to suffer from ill health, any more than I 'deserve' to have my house flooded if a line breaks in the wall.

but to forces people is not cool. If a person wants to eat junk food and drink big slurpees then that is their rights to do so,
you can tell people how bad junk food is all you want, and I have nothing against the government warning the danger of junk food,
but for the government to ban junk food, I am against that.

but the plumber has the right to eat or drink whatever he wants. If he want to live unhealthy then that his decision.
that was so funny about liberals they want to give a woman a right to choose, right to smoke pot, the right to sleep with any
consent adult, but yet they want to ban ''big sodas'' like now they care about what a person does to themselves.
yeah,liberal it fine for people to have random sex with a bunch stranger, that cool but eating at mcdonalds and drinking 75 ounce sodas is bad.

There's a lawsuit against CocaCola right now over their marketing of VitaminWater, which is basically water, sugar, and a few water-soluble vitamins. They're being charged with misleadingly marketing VitaminWater as a healthy food, when it's basically flat soda. Their response? 'No consumer could possibly think that VitaminWater is good for you, despite the fact that we market it that way.(quote)

Coca cola never force any one to buy their product. Mcdonalds doesn't force anyone to buy their food.
Soda pop company does not force anyone to buy them. people who sue these company are stupid. Yes, the people are fat
and unhealthy because they choose to eat all these bad foods. They choose to drink all them sodas.
yet, instead of trying to lose weight and start to eat more healther (which is very easy to do, carrots,chicken,anyone)
they want to blame the company. same with tobacco. Tobacco have warning on their product, people still smoke,get sick
and want to sue the tobacco company when they choose to smoke. it pathetic.

you're missing my point. A lot of people don't know that it's bad, especially when the companies are advertising them as good. A lot of people started smoking back when tobacco companies were still advertising with fraudulent scientific claims - 'they couldn't say it if it's not true, right?'

People can still order 72 oz. of soda - they can order as many individual servings as they want - but it's no longer the default.

Wow, I find this reply quite alarming. It really doesn't sound like you have a clear understanding of what "junk food" really is. It's almost an out-of-style slogan: junk food is bad.. Without any real knowledge about the WHY.

I'm not sure that anyone can claim that there are people who doesn't know that "junk food" aka highly-processed convenience food, is bad for them. Yes, there's plenty of advertising for junk food, there's also a CONSTANT stream of articles and focus pieces and pictures of fat people with black bars across their eyes that tell us all about the dangers of soda and fast food and extol the virtues of broccoli.
Even the "food desert" thing is mostly nonsense. Unless you live way out in the country, even a lot of corner stores and bodegas are carrying more fresh stuff. Yes, it's a problem if you're not at least generally ambulatory, but that's a whole other issue.

Anyway, I suspect it's more likely that salt or at least salt quantities will be the new fight.

Where is the error? I've never seen a research paper from the NIH that suggests that sugar is harmless.

This is true, I think, of a lot of adults. But not all, and a lot of advertising, for instance of sugary cereals, is geared towards children. That's when we develop a lot our eating habits, likes and dislikes, as kids. Kids believe advertising, and they don't tend to read articles about the complexities of nutrition. It's easy for busy parents to be overindulgent, even if they know better. Have you ever heard a parent complain about what their kid liked to eat for breakfast, but then add, "At least he eats breakfast," or something to that effect? I have. The advertising is manipulative of kids, and gets them to beg their parents for the marketed item.

I recall back in the 80s when high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) began to be more common, it was touted as a healthier sugar, and a lot of that advertising was geared toward parents. Back then there was no world wide web, people didn't have PCs until later. People heard "high fructose corn syrup" and thought "corn syrup" (they're not the same thing). For many decades before that, corn syrup had been used to sweeten homemade baby formula. It was easy to fall for as "good for junior" or at least "okay for junior." After all, didn't the doctor used to tell you to put corn syrup in baby formula? Now HFCS is in everything. When I read labels it's difficult to find anything sweet (or even not normally considered sweet) that doesn't have the stuff in it.

HFCS has been linked to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (fructose is metabolized in the liver), and there are serious questions as to its part in the recent prevalence of diabetes and obesity. By the way, fructose is the main sugar in the health-food touted Agave Nectar/Agave Syrup. There's also a higher percentage of fructose in honey than in cane sugar, and HFCS is sweeter tasting than cane sugar.

What I experience in my eating is that if I'm eating more sweets, say around the holidays, it becomes a habit and it takes more sugar for something to taste sweet to me. I have to consciously wean myself off eating sweets once the holidays are over. Fortunately I'm not into foods that are overly sweet. I changed brands of yogurt when the fruit flavored brand I used to like started adding more sugar. Now I eat plain yogurt and add my own fruit if I want it. I never liked sweetened juices, or even unsweetened juice very much, and I drink soda pop maybe once a month.

But when HFCS is in everything, even packaged savory foods, it leads to people wanting more sweet taste without realizing it. Because very few people measure portions - especially when eating prepared foods - they eat more and more of it.

As I said earlier, I love cake, and I treat myself to it now and then. I love chocolate too. I don't want to give either up, or the freedom to have a treat now and then, and I don't use artificial sweeteners. Sucralose (Splenda) disagrees with me, gives me headaches and diarrhea, and I think asapartame (Nutrisweet) is bad for people. It causes brain lesions in rats, which is why it's not allowed in baby food.

I do think manufacturers need to be held to some kind of scrutiny and accountability for the amount of sugar and especially HFCS they put in foods. I mean, do we really need it in tomato soup?

I manage to cook food for myself without adding sugar to everything, and I enjoy eating it just the same. That way, when I do have something sweet, it's more of a treat. But if someone is too busy to cook and is eating foods packed with HFCS, they don't even notice the sweetness after a while. They think they're eating a healthy salad, even though they poured HFCS out of a salad dressing bottle onto their fresh greens.

I agree it's up to the consumer to read labels, but they don't. When I shop, I'm one of the few people I see stopping to read a label. Those of us who do are stuck searching and searching for foods without ingredients we think are unhealthy because so many people never question their choices.

I'm all for individual choices in eating. Consumers should be able to eat what we want. I don't want anyone telling me I can't eat sweets when I want. But I'm not for big corporations profiting off irresponsible nutritional choices they make for us, and I'm not for farm subsidies causing HFCS to be poured into the marketplace, because it's cheap and makes their brand seem "better" to the sweet addicted public, so that I can't find foods that don't contain it.

I want to be in control of my sugar intake and what form it takes, not dependent on manufacturers to do it for me. I don't trust them, they haven't earned my trust.

As long as their is no cost to some people for their health care why would they try to stay healthy?? We as a society we have helped our selves in to a lower standard of health not better. Case and point working stiff has a 50 dollar co-pay will try harder to stay healthy than some one who medical is free to them. You can ague it if you would like but I know what Ive seen in Dr.s offices and ERs. Stop helping people till they help them self first.

I see, you can't explain using your words. Maybe try drawing a picture, if that's easier.

I am astounded on a regular basis by how profoundly ignorant some people can be about basic health. Even the names of major organs sometimes go right over the heads of patients I interact with in the hospital... People don't know that diabettes has anything to do with eating sugar. People don't know that there are 2 forms of diabetes. People don't know that getting a good night's sleep helps to keep them healthy. It's alternately astonishing and depressing, but if all you ever watch is Honey Boo-Boo, and you go to the kitchen for a beer during commercial breaks, I guess you're pretty insulated from even basic health information.

Absolutely true. As hard as it may be to believe many people do not understand even the simplest things regarding maintaining good health. That's why posting nutritional info on fast food menus really does help some people eat better. Because until they saw the info on the menu, they really had no clue as to how bad some of the food was for them.

The government needs to mandate better nutrition info at the point of consumption, but they also need to start taxing the really bad foods to discourage consumption and HELP DEFRAY THE PUBLIC COSTS OF HEALTHCARE.

I know food is a source of comfort for a lot of people and I understand the impulse to argue this as a personal freedom issue, but this really is a public policy matter urgently important to the common good.

Consumption of "junk food" needs to be discouraged in the same manner we discourage the use of alcohol and cigarettes.

I attended a workshop, this week, that talked about Heart disease. Apparently, during the 1950's (I believe), heart disease was considered a rare condition. Today, children are being diagnosed with it. That's scary! We teach our children our eating habits, whether our habits are healthy or not. If fast food is a norm, we are unable to develop a clear understanding of why "junk food" is bad for us.. until, of course, our health becomes a problem (cancer, obesity, heart disease, etc)

Here's me, 12+ years ago:

Regular diet: pizza, calzones, pastas, breads, no breakfast, fast food lunches (if I had time)
Drank 6-8 cups of coffee/tea per day
3/4 of a pack of cigarettes per day
Smoked pot daily
Beer on the weekends
Weight: 89 lbs (5'4")

I was also fired from 2 jobs, in a span of 1.5 years, during my early 20's. I've been at both sides of the fence and have felt the negative effects from eating a poor diet. I know why I was fired, and it wasn't because I was tardy or irresponsible with my job. I worked really hard! It was simply because my health did not allow me to do my job well. I was constantly forgetting, making errors, and my brain fog was ridiculous! I have come a long way and it took my son's ASD diagnoses to get me to WAKE UP. It was then that I started to research more about food and chemicals and choices. He started his life living on a diet I was familiar with - lots of carbs, some sugars, and very little fruits and vegetables. That was my mistake.

Salt: Someone mentioned salt. Salt, in fact, is good for you. Our body is made up of salt and water. We have been taught to drink a lot of water and reduce our salt intake. When we do that, it affects our electrolytes - causing other health issues. I stopped buying standard table salt (highly processed) and now buy sea salt. I noticed the difference in flavour right away and love it! It's the healthy salt you can't overdo (unless you're not drinking enough water).

Anyway, I know I'm irritating some of you and I don't mean to. It just irks me when people post with such ignorance, promoting poor eating habits. Do as you will, with your own health, but truly, it does affect more than yourself.

THIS IS GOVERNMENTS IDEA OF HEALTHY FOOD YOU CAN EAT IT IF YOU WANT! click here

@ASDmom: you are correct that we need some amount of salt, and that it was unfairly demonized in past decades. However, what led to it being seen as bad is that some people really do have high blood pressure that is exacerbated by salt intake. We just didn't know that it was a few people, and not everyone. For people like me, who have low blood pressure, and for people whose blood pressure is controlled, salt probably won't do any harm and may do some good; for people with high blood pressure, they should keep the salt down and/or consult with their doctor before they put it in everything.

(mmmm sea salt on a fresh tomato....!)