Public-health officials and policymakers across the United States have been talking a lot lately about tackling the epidemic of obesity through smaller nudges like a per-ounce tax on soda. Not surprisingly, as enthusiasm for this idea expands, so too has soda-tax scholarship. “Our take on this was basically that everybody is talking about a soda tax, so we stepped back and said, ‘Wait a minute, this is not very well targeted,’” said John Beghin, an economist at Iowa State University. “If you want to impose a tax and reduce calorie intake from sweeteners, there is a better way to ... Read More
Bee Healthy for Your Honey
February 13, 2010 • By • 5 Comments
High-fructose corn syrup is a hot topic in the national debate on diet, with opponents attacking it, as Daniel Engber has suggested, as unhealthy, unnatural and unappetizing, while corn refiners have volleyed back that it's safe, natural and tasty. Now the food additive has been implicated in the decline of another maker of sweeteners — honeybees. Although researcher Blaise W. LeBlanc agrees that colony collapse disorder in honeybees probably results from a variety of environmental stresses such as mites, pesticides and infections (like Nosema ceranae), his recent, published experiments ... Read More
