Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland are among a group of U.S. food companies that have filed a lawsuit against a sugar industry trade group over what they claim are 'unfair' statements made about high fructose corn syrup.

Last week, the FDA finally denied a controversial 2010 petition filed by the corn industry agency, The Corn Refiners Association, which sought approval to allow the use of the alternative name 'corn sugar' to apply to the vilified processed sweetener, high fructose corn syrup.

More evidence shows that excessive sugar consumption leads to health problems as new research published in the Journal of Physiology shows a strong connection between sugar and the brain's ability to learn and remember.

According to a recent report published by the California Public Interest Research Group titled "Apples to Twinkies: Comparing Federal Subsidies of Fresh Produce and Junk Food," between 1995 and 2010 nearly $17 billion worth of federal subsidies supported the corn and soy industries—primarily the production of genetically modified high fructose corn syrup and soy oil—ingredients common in junk and fast food items instead of funding healthy fruits, vegetables or whole grains.

Despite urgings from the FDA to the corn industry to discontinue using the term "corn sugar" in place of "high fructose corn syrup," at least two corn industry websites (cornsugar.com and sweetsurprise.com) are still using the term.

The average American eats. A lot. As a new infographic points out, per year, food intake per person can amount to some 200 pounds of meat, 85 pounds of fat, 415 pounds of vegetables, 31 pounds of cheese, 53 gallons of soda and 42 pounds of high fructose corn syrup.

A proposal by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to decrease rising obesity rates through a ban on using food stamps to purchase soda and other sugar-laden drinks was rejected by the USDA.

Widespread efforts by the American corn industry to rebrand the controversial sweetener high fructose corn syrup as "corn sugar" has led outraged sugar farmers to file a lawsuit.

2011 has not been off to the most effervescent start for the soda industry. The latest fizzle comes by way of a recent study presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference, suggesting that daily diet soda drinkers have at least a 60 percent increased risk of having a stroke or heart attack compared with non-soda drinkers.

If you eat pancakes, you probably love drowning them in maple syrup, hopefully pure organic maple syrup and not the brand name stuff cut with water and high fructose corn syrup.

Here’s the problem, hotter temperatures are smothering sugar maple trees in the United States:

It is the 3˚ to 10˚ F warming predicted over the next century by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that may doom the sugar maple in the northeastern U.S.

Even the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency concedes that the sugar maple will not survive the century in New England. It’s Climate Action Report from 2002 notes "climate change is likely to cause long-term shifts in forest species, such as sugar maples moving north out of the country."

In other words, it is not a question of if the sugar maple will disappear, it is a question of when. Such shifts of species have taken place gradually in the past, over hundreds of years, allowing adaptation, but not in this case.

Sugar maples aren’t the only living things being edged out by climate change. Global warming could cause drought starving 3 billion people, wipe out 75% of Antarctic’s penguin colonies and a temperature increase of just 2 degrees will annihilate kangaroos.

Via The Daily Climate.