The headline reads, “Don’t tax my soda! Study shows consumers put choice first,” but what do we learn from it?

I don’t have to come to every discussion I’m invited to, but sometimes, the invitation is just too juicy.

The case in point this morning is the Corn Refiners Association recent newsletter lead story, “Natural Options for Sweeteners.”

Yes, the refiners boasted that high fructose corn syrup “meets the Food and Drug Administration policy for use of the term ‘natural.’" ‘Course, that sham is on the FDA, and if I were the corn refiners, I’d use it too. But still, it is a sham:

Sorry, but I just don’t believe in them. Not penny-per-ounce soda taxes, not front-of-nutrition labeling, not vague industry pledges to make their food healthier ... at some specified time far enough into the future that everyone will have forgotten.

One of the tactics that Big Food's paid apologists deploy is class warfare. The pointy-headed, Ivy League liberals conspire with parentally support Berkeley students to take away gosh-darn good eatin' from simple folks like us.

Note to devious mouthpieces of Big Food ("Always with the negative waves, man."):

Something needn't the sole cause of a problem to be a cause of a problem. So when you fault any attempt to curb consumption of sugary sodas because soda isn't the sole cause of obesity, you're just obscuring the truth.

No, sugary soda is not solely responsible. The problem and its contributors are varied, confusing, and sometimes conflicting.

This is the Coke commercial you may have heard about, in which it "tackles" the obesity problem it helps to perpetuate with gauzy images and assertions that range from questionable to bullshit.

Well, actually, it's the commercial's video, but paired with a more honest audio track in which some of Coke's egregious statements and oversights are pointed out.

I've been taking a break from blogging, not to get away from it but to concentrate on a 9,000-word speech and accompanying slide show I'm giving in February. I don't know if you've noticed but Klout sure has, dropping me from 61 to 57, so far. I wish I knew what that meant.

I’d been saving Jon Entine’s post in Forbes on a back screen for a while, motivated by the headline, “Is 2013 a Watershed Year for the Anti-Obesity Movement?”/ and I finally got to it.

What a bunch of hooey!

If you haven't seen this, then you should. And then, you should share.

Here's the thing about Bloomberg's idea to ban sales of large sodas: He's actually acting!

Yes, the ban has holes in it, such as not covering every conceivable high-sugar beverage. And no, if it works to perfection, it will barely dent the obesity problem in only one part of the world. But any sort of success would endorse trying the same or similar measures elsewhere.

Bloomberg sees the same problem we all do, and he's *doing* something, which already has moved more focus to the problem, and to solutions.