January 25, 2012, by Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz, Chicago Tribune

Confused about which carbohydrates you should be eating?
Welcome to the club.
“It’s the biggest lack-of-consensus issue in the U.S. diet today,” said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health. “We don’t have a standard method for assessing their quality.”
Carbohydrates, the most common of the three energy sources we get from food (the others are fat and protein), reside in the vast majority of our food, prominently in grains, vegetables, legumes and fruits. They are essential to good health — …

AP, Marilynn Marchione, December 1, 2011
It’s true — apple juice can pose a risk to your health. But not necessarily from the trace amounts of arsenic that people are arguing about.
Despite the government’s consideration of new limits on arsenic, nutrition experts say apple juice’s real danger is to waistlines and children’s teeth. Apple juice has few natural nutrients, lots of calories and, in some cases, more sugar than soda has. It trains a child to like very sweet things, displaces better beverages and foods, and adds to the obesity problem, …

HealthDay, November 1, 2011
A new report claims that the makers of sugar-laden drinks such as sodas, sports drinks, energy drinks and fruit drinks take direct aim at children, particularly black and Hispanic kids, in their marketing campaigns.
Read the report at: Report slams makers of sugary drinks for targeting kids – USATODAY.com.

Subway posters map how far you’d have to walk to burn off the calories from just one sugary drink
Oct. 24, 2011 – New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley today unveiled a new Health Department education campaign that describes how drinking just one 20 ounce soda a day translates to eating 50 pounds of sugar a year. The 30-second TV spot will air on major broadcast and cable TV stations over the next two months as a stark reminder to New Yorkers about how sugary drinks can lead to …

September 14, Philly.com, Karen Heller
The offer from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to fund an antiobesity program, financed by the soda industry, just fizzled like so many flat colas.
We have a monstrous obesity problem, and Philadelphia could use the money. But saying no was the obvious choice for the Nutter administration, waging a campaign for healthier diets.
The choice was also right.
“It seems to me that accepting money from the beverage industry to fight obesity would be like taking money from the NRA to fight gun violence or from the tobacco industry …

September 23, 2011, Vancouver Sun, Sara Schmidt
Coca-Cola Ltd. has reduced drastically the amount of Vitamin A in one of its fruit drinks after nutrition experts complained the elevated level could pose a health risk.
The cola giant confirmed Thursday that its Orange Mango FUZE Vitalize drink is now boosted with about onethird of the amount of vitamin A it contained just a few months ago. The company began producing the reformulated beverage in June. The product no longer contains what the government calls the “tolerable upper intake level” for adults, and …

September 12, 2011,  CMJ
Health organizations are comparing their battle with makers of sugary beverages to the war they once waged with big tobacco. Advocates for healthy living have run educational campaigns and called for marketing regulations and taxes on high-calorie drinks. The beverage industry, meanwhile, has accused some health departments of launching baseless attacks and has even responded in one jurisdiction with a lawsuit.
Health departments in a number of areas — including Chicago, Illinois; Seattle, Washington; and Chatham-Kent, Ontario — have launched public health campaigns that expose the high-calorie count …

September 6, 2011, Boston Globe, Kay Lazar
Hoping to blunt the pervasive reach of sugary drinks, Boston officials today unveiled a public awareness campaign that urges residents to reduce their consumption of the beverages , which public health specialists link to rising obesity rates and higher health care costs.
The campaign, which will include a media blitz of the city, comes a month before an executive order by Mayor Thomas M. Menino takes effect, phasing out the sale, advertising, and promotion of sugar-sweetened beverages in all municipal buildings.
“We are in the midst …

Vending Times, Emily Jed, September 2011.
New rules that dictate what beverages can be sold or served on Boston city property will go into effect on Oct. 1. They apply to vending machines, in addition to cafeterias, concession stands, meetings and events where food is purchased with city dollars.
Mayor Thomas Menino’s executive order establishes color-coded standards for determining what beverages can be allowed on city property. Beverages coded “red” — banned from city properties — include such sugar-sweetened beverages as presweetened teas and juices with added sugars, and refrigerated coffee, energy, …

Life’s Sweeter with Fewer Sugary Drinks
Start today. Take on the Life’s Sweeter Challenge to limit soda and other sugary drinks in your home, your workplace, and your community.
Help protect our children, our families, our co-workers, and ourselves from the harmful effects of soda consumption, one of the biggest contributors to obesity in America.
Support a realistic goal to reduce consumption of soda and other sugary drinks by more than half to a maximum of 3 per person per week by 2020, a healthy target proposed by the American Heart Association.
Take the …