Free Republic

America’s self-anointed food police have a new punching bag in their obesity crusade: fruit juice. We’re not making this up. The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that a growing number of dietary do-gooders are now pointing their fingers at juice as a culprit for fattening waistlines:The inconvenient truth, many experts say, is that 100% fruit juice poses the same obesity-related health risks as Coke, Pepsi and other widely vilified beverages. … [I]t's time juice lost its wholesome image, these experts say."It's pretty much the same as sugar water," said Dr. Charles Billington, an appetite researcher at the University of Minnesota....

You drink diet soda, so you must be healthier. Right? That's what New York Gov. David Paterson is talking about with his proposal for an "obesity tax" — a 15 percent slap on non-diet sugary soft drinks. Think $1 for a Diet Coke, $1.15 for a Coke. There's just one problem: Studies have found links between drinking diet sodas and obesity and diabetes. A 2005 study at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, and separate studies released in 2007 at the University of Alberta in Canada and the University of Massachusetts found that diet soda drinkers were...