I have vague memories of reading many years ago (probably back in the 70's - might have been in Wm Dufty's Sugar Blues) that sugar is a drug, and that it does have it's purposes as a drug, and should be used for medicinal purposes only.

The implication in his book was that including sugar in so many foods was essentially causing an addiction to sugar. He was a real sugar addict even as a kid - I identified with that! I remember cleaning my plate as a kid just so I'd be allowed to have dessert.

That book was published in '75, and gave very clear warnings about sugar addiction, and yet nearly 50 years later we have more sugar than ever in almost everything in the grocery store, and more kinds of sugars (HFCS, corn syrup, agave, honey, etc) added to more kinds of foods that never had sugars added to them before. It's almost as if the food manufacturers used it as a manual for how to make their products more addictive.

I have to admit that I don't have a problem with artificial sweeteners, but there are only a few certain ones I'll use. My preferred sweetener is actually more natural than chemical - stevia with no extenders added.