Utterly revolting, a McDonald's radio spot I heard yesterday foreshadows an all-family dinner which Junior doesn't text, Billy doesn't play video games, and Dad doesn't watch sports. It's as home-homey-home as Laurie David and other sages of the dining room would want it, right? But then comes the punchline: "Wait, we're having it at McDonald's?"

The burgeoning fight around sugar toxicity has two sides: public-health advocates and the private industry.

For the former, the clients are you and me. Not only do individuals suffer from the flood of processed-sugar injected into every corner of the American diet, but there are significant and mounting collective costs as well: shared health costs, lost worker productivity, even national security. Every American, of every political and social persuasion, is affected by these things.

Just about every time I refer to the "Center for Consumer Freedom," I feel the need to acknowledge that yes, I'm doing it again — giving attention to the cynical, purchased slants of a collection of people who identify themselves as uncredible by their very name. They call themselves a consumer group — which is true and a lie. Yes — who isn't a consumer? But no, a group that is funded by industry but implies that it is made up customers should not be heeded.

From Australia comes a report that athletes often don't endorse the junk food they endorse, but do it for the money.

It's one of the reasons I'm glad I'm not sought as a product sponsor. I think it would  be tough to turn down lucre for principle, and the more they offer, the tougher it would be.

The question of whether high fructose corn syrup is a particularly noxious substance is being fought on many fronts, including currently in a Los Angeles courtroom. Corn refiners are fighting mightily not to be demonized, and regularly send out missives stating their case to anyone who will listen.

I’ve been wanting to get to this topic for a while, but it has languished in the in-box, as too many other things do:

The headline is, “The Food Industry Fights Back,” and it’s written by Dave Fusaro, editor in chief of foodprocessing.com (“Home Page for the Food & Beverage Industry”). The subhed is just as good: “On obesity, food safety, 'questionable' ingredients, the industry can do a better job of tactfully defending itself; the key is transparency.”

One of the patently dishonest threads of the healthy food/processed food debate has been Big Food’s complaint that they can put healthy options on their menus, but they can’t make people buy them.

It’s a variant of its explanation of why kids’ menus only have hot dogs, fries, and other crap. “It’s all they’ll eat,” they complain. One defect of this strain is that it’s just not true — and besides, “I’m the daddy.”.

Tweets the deserve a longer moment in the sun:

Surrendering just may save your life  [RT from @wtpicketfence]

Worst marketing practice of the week: Crayons functional kids’ drinks  [RT from @YaleRuddCenter]

Oh dear...!!! 8% of Brits think strawberry ice cream counts towards your "five a day" - Mirror Online  [RT from @NutritionRocks1]

Here’s a bold idea for you: Let’s invalidate all the laws that criminalize sexual contact with minors.

Dumb, right? Abhorrent! Who would dare suggest that we not protect young people, deemed too young to make informed choices about entreaties from adults who would exploit them?

Well, the entire consumer manufacturing sector, but especially junk-food manufacturers, and perhaps the courts, too.

I'm still struggling with GMOs, though not in the way most other strugglers are. I am pretty sure that the forces allied against Monsanto are right, in every sense of that word, but so far, I haven't been able to muster a passion to go with that near-certainty. (If you read here often, you'd probably agree that I don't lack for passion on issues I'm sure about, and yet...) Anyway, here's a Food Democracy Now video shot on the day at the end of January when arguments in the Monsanto/organic growers lawsuit were heard in Manhattan.