Perhaps it's a sign of immaturity, but I'm still enjoying the internecine squabbles among sugar producers. According to foodnavigator-usa.com, five more sugar companies have joined the opposition to the corn refiners' association effort to rename high fructose corn syrup to "corn sugar."

I don't get the battle at all. As I've said before, I'm fine with the name change, since, to me, sugar is sugar. We call beet sugar sugar, and we call cane sugar sugar, so why even halt the change at corn sugar? Why can't we call all the sugars sugar?

To me, of course, all refined sugars are suspect, so I have no problem lumping them together. But my conjecture is that Old Sugar doesn't want to catch corn's cooties: Though they're still totally down with cane and beet, consumers have come to question whether HFCS is bad for them.

I feel free to conjecture because Old Sugar won't say what its beef is. Here's as close as it gets from John Sheptor, president and CEO of Imperial Sugar, a complainant:

“The attempted name change is an intentional effort to deceive consumers and, most disingenuously, it's being done under the guise of consumer clarity. We are taking a stand to challenge this marketing ploy for what it is."

That is so rich! A marketer takes a stand in defense of consumers, against a marketing ploy.