John Oliver Sugar Industry - John Oliver has gone over Halloween, but not exactly in an orthodox way. Rather, he's tackled directly on the sugar industry and how much we truly consume.
In "Last Week Tonight," last night's episode, John Oliver has started out presenting some Halloween costume ideas. They were pretty imaginative and one of them, actually included a John Oliver costume.
Then, he went to the "serious" bits and addressed the FDA and the sugar industry. First, he introduced the sugar industry.
The host mentioned that all of us consume 22 sugar teaspoons per day. That quantity in a year would equal "Michael Cera's weight," as he so mildly put it.
John Oliver also mentioned that we should consume a third of that quantity to be in a healthy state and not overdo.
After that, he addressed directly the FDA's idea to label products with a new "added sugar" classification. Turns out that this classification would state how much sugar has been added to the original food or beverage, Reuters noted at the time.
John Oliver also mentioned that the idea wasn't welcomed by the Beverages Association, and Ocean Spray (cranberries maker), to name a few.
For instance, the cranberries have a very sour taste that without sugar would stand a very different position as to being consumed at all.
"Cranberries are, I think we can all agree, nature's most disgusting berry. Cranberries taste like cherries who hate you," the host joked. The fact, though, is that a lot of sugar is added to cranberries for them to be tasty.
And Ocean Spray is one of the associations that don't want to label how much sugar they actually add. With beverages, it's the same deal.
Last, but not least, John Oliver addresses the grams division. The added sugars and all the labeling of food appears in grams. He specifically states that people don't really understand grams as a physical concept.
So, a better way for people to grasp on the actual sugar that is added should be measured in a way that they can understand.
Due to this, John Oliver proposes a new method for the sugar industry and the FDA that would be successful in no time.
