John Oliver, in the week leading up the candy craze of Halloween, called out food makers of food items that are less associated with sugar than candy due to misleading labeling.

John Oliver Tackles Sugar

"We have no idea how prevalent sugar is in almost everything we eat," said Oliver on Last Week Tonight. He then went on to attack, among other industries, the cranberry industry. The industry has been fighting to not add labels that reveal the added sugars in its products. Oliver reasons it's because cranberries require an incredible amount of sugar just to be edible.

“Cranberries are, I think we can all agree, nature's most disgusting berry. Cranberries taste like cherries who hate you," Oliver said. "Cranberries taste like what a raspberry drinks before its colonoscopy — and the industry knows it."

Oliver went on to argue that “grams” is a unit of measurement that the average consumer can’t grasp as quickly as tablespoons. Instead of putting the amount of grams of added sugar, Oliver quipped that companies should put how many Circus Peanuts worth of sugar (5 grams) is in a given product. He notes that Clamato juice contains 16 Circus Peanuts worth of sugar and Campbell’s tomato soup contains 5.5 Circus Peanuts.

"We are proposing, in the spirit of Halloween, that product manufacturers express their sugar content in the form of candy," Oliver said. "Specifically, Circus Peanuts, the most disgusting of all the candies. They taste like an elephant ejaculated into a packet of Splenda."

"Do it, food makers. Expose your peanuts to the world,” Oliver continued. “Because if you're going to shove your peanuts in our mouths, the very least you can do is tell us what we're swallowing."

Oliver concluded his segment on sugar by asking fans to tweet at food manufacturers #ShowUsYourPeanuts.

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Article by Chelsea Regan

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