"Sugar Coated": Big Tobacco & Big Oil, Meet Big Sugar

I just watched the documentary Sugar Coated. Its parallels to the War On Science-style campaigns funded by cigarette makers and climate polluters were staggering:

• Product is cheap & easy in the short term but expensive & deadly in the long run
• A complex problem that's hard for people to understand or respond to individually
• Industry pays scientists to manufacture doubt and uncertainty about the harm caused by its highly-profitable product
• Science advocates not only hopelessly underfunded, but often outgunned with only a scientific background against a multidisciplinary campaign using marketing, political and emotional tactics

As Mother Jones has extensively reported, the sugar industry has worked hard to make sure government policy doesn't reflect the truth that added sugar is toxic. In just the last few months, the Obama administration has taken the important step of including added sugar on nutrition labels, but that barely scratches the surface of what could be done if progressive Democrats took on Big Sugar like they took on Big Tobacco and industrial climate polluters.

Sugar Coated is now available on Netflix. Here's the trailer:

Sugar Coated Trailer from The Cutting Factory on Vimeo.

Inspecting Your Child's Halloween Candy Scares Them For No Reason

There is no such thing as poisoned candy or razor-bladed apples - it's an urban legend that does not happen in real life.

But that hasn't stopped generations of parents from telling generations of kids (like me!) that Halloween candy must be inspected carefully before eating because while our neighbors may seem nice and generous, in fact TONIGHT ONE OF THEM MAY MAKE AN ATTEMPT ON YOUR LIFE.

The myth of booby-trapped candy seems plausible at first, but quickly falls apart. When I was a kid, I could've told you exactly who gave me what candy at which house. If someone wants to hurt the children in their neighborhood, poisoning candy is no more anonymous than trying to wring their necks right there on the porch. Repeating this myth and inspecting candy scares our children for no reason. After all, you don't inspect every piece of candy (or any other food) from the grocery store, and that would be much easier to taint anonymously - there's just no urban legend surrounding grocery store candy.

The other damaging part of the myth is that we teach our children that packaged candy is "safe," but fruit, nuts or anything else not packaged is not, so our children end up eating nothing but sugar on Halloween. As John Oliver explains, that's actually the real danger at the scale Americans eat it (read more in Mother Jones):

We Spend $280 Million Subsidizing the Sugar We Shouldn't Eat

The World Health Organization now says we should limit ourselves to 6 teaspoons of added sugar per day. Last year alone, U.S. taxpayers threw away $280 million on subsidies to sugar producers, and we're on pace to do it again this year.

The average American consumes 22 teaspoons of added sugar each day - nearly four times the new recommended amount. You can exceed the daily recommendation with just one can of soda, one serving of margarita mix, one Starbucks sweetened latte with whipped cream, or one cup of yogurt. We'd be OK if we thought of those things as dessert to have once a day, but many Americans have blown through their daily allowance by the end of breakfast.

How did we get to a place where we're subsidizing an industry that's killing us? Now's a good time to flash back to the Mother Jones report on how sugar lobbyists convinced the government to hide the dangers of added sugar.

Why Not Just Buy Real Maple Syrup?

Log Cabin Syrup's front label now blares "NO HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP." But on the back label, the first ingredient: Corn syrup.

Obviously there's a cost-difference - pure Vermont maple syrup costs about four times more than corn-based syrup, in part because Congress lavishes tax giveaways on (mostly corporate) U.S. corn production. I think there's another subtle factor in play: It tastes worse, so it must be better for you, right? Nope: Corn-based syrup has just as many calories as real maple syrup.

When you're shopping, there's an instinct to grab for the huge cheap jug. But for the average person, how much syrup do you really need? A bottle of Massachusetts maple syrup in my refrigerator has lasted me well over a year. And as for families, aren't you better off teaching your kids to use the good stuff judiciously rather than letting them drown their pancakes in the cheap (but still high calorie) stuff?

Occupy Grocery Store: Fake Blueberry Pancakes

I'm not usually a big basher of Big Food or Big Ag, but for some reason this drove me crazy.

Blueberries were on sale at Harris Teeter recently, so I was looking for some pancake mix to make blueberry pancakes - an excuse to have fresh blueberries AND feed my crippling maple addiction.

I almost bought this Hungry Jack "Blueberry" Wheat pancake mix, thinking between its blueberries & the fresh ones, I'd have some pretty good pancakes.

But then I looked closely at the box and in tiny letters it said "artificial blueberry bits." Number one ingredient: Dextrose, a sugar.

Where's the line between obviously fake and trying to pass something off as real? It's a hard one to figure. I mean, no one expects Cap'n Crunch's Crunch Berries to have actual berries (they have a trivial amount of strawberry juice concentrate and are an incredible 42% sugar according to the Environmental Working Group's Sugar in Children's Cereals report).

But you certainly expect potatoes in Hungry Jack Mashed Potato Mix, don't you?

It's stuff like "artificial blueberry bits" that makes me feel like every step through the grocery store, I have to watch out for corporate food trying to put one over on me - fake food, cheap fillers, surprise chemical additives. And I'm not even a parent.