Lifestyle Sports: Latest from Food Politics: Industry-influenced study of the week: taste for sweets

By Marion Nestle

December 22 2025

Industry-influenced study of the week: taste for sweets

Alert to readers: Amazon.com displays listings for several more workbooks, study guides, and cookbooks purportedly based on my book, What to Eat Now (see previous post on this). I did not write any of them. Caveat emptor!

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Thanks to Erin Croom from Small Bites Adventure Club! for sending this one.

The Study: The Sweet Tooth Trial: A Parallel Randomized Controlled Trial Investigating the Effects of A 6-Month Low, Regular, or High Dietary Sweet Taste Exposure on Sweet Taste Liking, and Various Outcomes Related to Food Intake and Weight Status. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Available online 27 November 2025, 101073. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajcnut.2025.09.041
Methods: The investigators gave 180 healthy adults dietary advice plus about half their calories from meals containing 7%, 35%, or 80% food and beverages sweetened with sugars or artificial sweeteners.
Results: no differences in sweet taste liking or perception or sweet food choice.
Conclusions: “In the current trial, altering exposure to sweet-tasting foods did not change sweet taste liking, nor other outcomes. These results do not support public health advice to reduce exposure to sweet-tasting foods, independent of other relevant factors such as energy density and food form.“
Funding: “The sweet tooth project…also received private contributions from: American Beverage Association, Apura Ingredients, Arla Foods amba, Cargill R&D Centre Europe BVBA, Cosun Nutrition Center, DSM-Firmenich, International Sweeteners Association, SinoSweet Co., Ltd., and Unilever Foods Innovation Centre Wageningen.”
Conflict of interest: “MM has previously received research funding from Royal Cosun (sugar beet refinery) and Sensus (inulin producer) and has received expenses from ILSI Europe. MB has received research funding from Horizon 2020 SWEET…KMA has previously received research funding from the International Sweeteners Association, BE, and has current funding from The Coca Cola Company, US, and Ajinomoto Health and Nutrition North America Inc. US; KMA has received speaker’s expenses from EatWell Global and PepsiCo. KdG is a member of the Global Nutrition Advisory Board of Mars company. KdG has received travel, hotel, and speaker renumeration from the International Sweeteners Association, and received speaker expenses from ILSI North America.”

Comment: The point of all this was to demonstrate that public health recommendations to reduce sugar intake in order to reduce the taste for sugar won’t do any good, so why bother. To restate the obvious: sugars have calories but no nutrients, and taking in a lot of them at once—as in soft drinks—messes up metabolism and is best avoided. Eating less of sugary foods and drinks is always a good idea. But, as I am always pointing out, eating less is bad for business. Hence this study.

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