tongodeon: Fructose

tongodeon: Fructose: "Children and Regulation
Kids are at greatest risk because so many kids' foods and drinks are loaded with sucrose and HFCS. It's not just that the more sugar you expose children to, the more they crave it later - the more sugar a pregnant woman consumes, the more gets across the placenta and causes developmental programming and adiposity (extra fat) before the baby is even born. Beer and soda are metabolically equivalent - 150 calories, 90 of which are metabolized by the liver. Giving your kid a can of coke is just like giving your kid a Budweiser - same dosing, same mechanism, same reason. 'Fructose is ethanol without the buzz.'

The FDA ought to control fructose, because fructose is a toxin. It has toxic effects in the liver, but not immediately - after 1000 meals, not just 1 meal. The FDA doesn't do this because of political and economic pressure - food is one of America's primary exports, corn especially, and we can't have the FDA saying that our food is toxic. The government is unlikely to do anything, so it's up to us to make ourselves aware of this."