Sugar Coated

Investigating PR Tactics Implemented by the Food Industry

Sugar Coated examines the various public relations tactics that the food industry has employed over the years to beat back accelerating concerns about the toxicity of sugar. Its starting point is a secret PR campaign the industry devised in the 1970s to deflect attention away from developing health concerns about sugar. It then traces how in the years since the industry has honed its PR tactics to counter mounting scientific evidence about the dangers of sugar.

In the end, Sugar Coated leaves us with two crucial questions: Will the PR specialists of the multibillion-dollar food industry continue their amazing run of success and allow Big Sugar to keep sweetening the world's food supply? Or will today's heightened level of public awareness about the relationship between sugar consumption and skyrocketing rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and fatty liver disease in children prove to be too much for industry spin to handle -- ultimately forcing the same kind of reckoning we saw with Big Tobacco?