San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu filed a lawsuit last week alleging that ultra-processed foods were deliberately engineered to be addictive and harmful, then aggressively marketed to maximize profit. Named in the suit were Oreo cookies, Kraft Lunchables, Cheetos, Hot Pockets, Pringles, and nearly every major soda manufacturer in America, among others.
“These products in our diets are deeply linked to serious health conditions,” Chiu stated. “Our case is about companies who designed food to be harmful and addictive and marketed their products to maximize profits.” Chiu named Oreo Cookies, Kraft Lunchables, Cheetos, Hot Pockets and Pringles, along with every major soda pop manufacturer, in the lawsuit. “Ultra-processed foods, or UPFs, contribute to overconsumption, which leads to adverse health conditions like Type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, cardiovascular disease, colorectal cancer and depression.
The lawsuit connects ultra-processed foods to a cascade of chronic illnesses, including Type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, cardiovascular disease, colorectal cancer, and depression.
At the center of the complaint is a familiar sweetness. The worst additive among the UPFs is arguably high fructose corn syrup. HFCS is now easily the most used sweetener in processed foods and beverages. Coke and Pepsi and Kellogg’s and other U.S. food manufacturers started substituting HFCS for natural sugar back in the 1970’s, because it was far cheaper and back then we hadn’t a clue as to its harsh effects on the human body.
HFCS didn’t just make food cheaper to produce—it made restraint harder, cravings louder, and nutritional transparency easier to obscure. The question now isn’t whether consumers were affected. It’s whether the industry knew exactly what it was doing all along. The issue of executive overcompensation had never been documented by the mainstream media back then, but it’s ultra-clear why these executives added HFCS:
Greed. Money. Jets. Seaside villas. Trophy side pieces (shhh…don’t tell their spouse).
Since they began in the 70’s, regular consumption of UPFs has now been undeniably linked to chronic health emergencies, most notably the obesity epidemic in America. The biggest danger, physiologically speaking?
Our bodies undergo a massive shift just trying to metabolize this crap.
Unlike glucose, which is absorbed throughout the body and used for energy, fructose is metabolized almost entirely in the liver and when consumed regularly, it leads to fat buildup (especially in the liver), insulin resistance, and whole-body inflammation. (Think of a once-saggy balloon being slowly blown up and you’ll see why Americans are at 40% obesity. FORTY PERCENT!
Don’t even think about waving the “fat shaming” card at us, because this isn’t about shaming anyone. This is about Americans wising up and realizing what severe, sometimes permanent damage, HFCS does to your body, because at some point, unless consumers begin truly considering and monitoring what goes into our daily meals, one or more of their organs is going to have a major crisis.
Over time, the metabolic stress of constant HFCS turns a normally fit body into a crenulated pile of goo. It also attacks your pancreas, literally throwing you into your doctor’s office with a Type 2 Diabetes diagnosis.
Another proven result of consumption of HFCS is appetite regulation. Because fructose does not stimulate normal insulin secretion or boost leptin production (two key hormones involved in satiety and hunger control), people who consume a more than a nominal amount of HFCS don’t feel full after eating or drinking.
What does that do? It makes you eat and drink more of this stuff!
How many people do you see walking around everyday who fit the above description? Answer: you can’t swing a bag of apples and NOT hit somebody who sports a BMI of 40 or more. So, what are the FDA guidelines on the daily consumption of high fructose corn syrup?
What the FDA / U.S. Dietary Guidelines say
- HFCS is considered an added sugar under regulation and labeling rules. U.S. Food and Drug Administration+2U.S. Food and Drug Administration+2
- The Dietary Guidelines for Americans (2020–2025) recommend that people age 2 and older limit added sugars to less than 10% of total daily calories. sugar.org+3Dietary Guidelines+3Dietary Guidelines+3
- For reference, on a 2,000-calorie diet, that 10% limit corresponds to about 200 calories from added sugars, which equals about 50 grams (roughly 12 teaspoons). sugar.org+3Dietary Guidelines+3Dietary Guidelines+3
- The FDA’s requirement for the Nutrition Facts label includes labeling “added sugars” (including HFCS) to help consumers track how much they consume. U.S. Food and Drug Administration
The problem is…who’s reading the labels? If you judge by what you see every day, the answer is no one. This is precisely why we’ve gone from being a relatively healthy nation to–in the past 30-35 years–we’re among the fattest and least healthy in the world.
Sugary beverages sweetened with HFCS are especially problematic, since liquid calories are less satisfying than solid foods, yet they contribute just as much (if not more) to daily sugar intake.
Guideline Translations
U.S. Dietary Guidelines (10% of calories from added sugars)
- On a 2,000 calorie/day diet:
- Limit = 200 calories from added sugars
- That equals 50 grams (≈ 12 teaspoons) of HFCS
American Heart Association (stricter limit: ~6% of calories)
- Women: ~100 calories/day from added sugars
- ≈ 25 grams (≈ 6 teaspoons) of HFCS
- Men: ~150 calories/day from added sugars
- ≈ 37.5 grams (≈ 9 teaspoons) of HFCS
Or, if you want to see it in chart form:
In addition to your liver and pancreas, HFCS also wrecks your heart. Diets high in added sugars, particularly those from HFCS-sweetened products, rocket your triglyceride levels, increasing blood pressure, and causing whole-body inflammation — all of which turn the knob on cardiovascular disease up to an ‘8’.
But beyond the physical health risks, there’s the practical issue: HFCS is cheap. That’s why the money that normally goes to using more natural sweeteners like beet or cane sugar, goes for the cheap stuff (leading to higher executive compensation).
Putting it in perspective
- A single 12-oz can of soda sweetened with HFCS usually contains 35–40 grams of added sugar — enough to max out a woman’s entire AHA daily limit in one serving.
- Two cans would exceed even the more lenient U.S. Dietary Guidelines (10% of calories).
Will this finally stop Big Food, or at least convince them to begin making healthier options? The scientific proof is already there. Perhaps it’s time for Big Food manufacturers to grow a conscience, rather than dollars?
The B.S. line you’d hear from Pepsi, Coke, etc, even if they dared to field the question, is that it’s “cost prohibitive” to go back to a healthier option, which is pure malarkey. They could do it and they know it. So, who’s going to hold them accountable – this same Food and Drug Administration who clearly identifies the danger in the product? They could if they wanted. That’s the key.
Ok, BigFood, show us your economic models. Show us a reasonable price breakdown of what it would take to do a top-down restructuring of putting natural cane sugar back in place of high fructose corn syrup on your production lines. Prove us wrong.
Most of all? QUIT MAKING THIS CRAP.
P.S. Here are some real beauties, courtesy of Chat A.I.
“Coke’s secret ingredient? A side of Type 2 diabetes, free of charge.”
“Is there a reason you have to bathe yourself with a rag on a stick?”
“UPFs: tricking your stomach into saying ‘feed me’ since the days of Disco.”
“Drink up! Nothing says ‘fun’ like a 48″ waistline in middle school.”
“High Fructose Corn Syrup: Mother Nature’s way of saying, ‘You didn’t need that pancreas anyway.’”
Sources: LinkedIn, Dr. Manish Motwani, SDX Training.com, Dementia Care Education, Nadrich Law Firm, U.K. Reddit and Thomas Williams’ book, “HFCS: The Leading Cause of Cancer”