It’s a step in the right direction but it’s far from being a dogmatic shift. There’s always the low fat dogma floating around the advice and the “heart healthy whole grains” being pushed as an alternative to the SAD. Why not just go right out and say that sugar is bad for us in any quantity no matter where it comes from? Because it doesn’t matter where sugar comes from, it does the same thing once it’s eaten and digested. Natural sugar? How is sugar made harmless just because it’s an integral part of the food? As soon as it’s broken down into its simple components through digestion, it does what sugar does.

How is added sugar made worse? Is it because it lacks the other things that makes whole foods healthy? Or is it because sugar is toxic in great quantity? What if I made a fruit that contained less sugar, would that fruit be better then one with more sugar? You see, it’s not because it’s added, rather it’s because it adds to the total sugar we eat and because sugar is toxic in pretty much any quantity above zero.

And how are grains both an alternative to added sugars and something to avoid, i.e. “grain-based foods”? HFCS is made from grains. How is it rendered harmless when the grains are eaten whole?

Either we admit that sugar is bad, at which point we realize that it’s not the fact that it’s added that makes it bad but the fact that we eat a boatload more when it’s added, or we just forget the whole thing and remain oblivious and happy with our current plight. I have the suspicion that the AHA would very much prefer to do the latter.

How much sugar (indiscriminately of the source whether added or “natural”) must we eat before it makes us sick, i.e. sick with heart disease? We know, we just don’t say it every day.