"Cosan had problems with a contractor three years ago and solved them immediately," [Agriculture Minister] Stephanes said. "It has good practices." The slavery blacklist is managed by the Labor Ministry. Stephanes suggested Cosan and Labor Ministry officials meet to discuss its removal from the blacklist. The Labor Ministry said 42 Cosan workers were found and "liberated" from conditions analogous to slavery. Another 163 employers are also on the ministry blacklist, which was created in 2004 and is updated every six months.

Petroleo Brasileiro SA's fuel distribution unit, which buys ethanol from Cosan, may consider "restrictions" on the company, a BR Distribuidora spokesman, who couldn't be named because of company policy, said yesterday. Petrobras is Brazil's state-controlled oil producer.

In a scientific statement issued Monday, the organization says most women should limit their sugar intake to 100 calories, or about six teaspoons, a day; for men, the recommendation is 150 calories, or nine teaspoons. The recommendations are likely to prove challenging for many consumers to meet. Just one 12-ounce can of cola has about 130 calories, or eight teaspoons of sugar.

Data gathered during a national nutrition survey between 2001 and 2004 suggest that Americans consume on average 355 calories, or more than 22 teaspoons, of sugar a day. "We're trying to make reasonable recommendations around the amount of sugar in a diet that enables people to achieve or maintain a healthy weight," said Rachel Johnson, associate provost and professor of nutrition at the University of Vermont in Burlington and lead author of the statement.

As the heart association's statement acknowledges, the science directly linking added sugar consumption to obesity is inconsistent. This in part reflects, the impact of such things as genetics, physical activity and diet have on weight. The heart association has encouraged consumers to moderate sugar consumption, but the new statement is the first time it has suggested specific limits. The recommendations apply only to what are known as added sugars—those that are added to foods during manufacturing, or by consumers. They don't include sugar that occurs naturally in fruits, vegetables, dairy products and other foods.

The only thing these diets have in common is that they're all based on whole foods with minimum processing. Nuts, berries, beans, raw milk, grass-fed meat. Whole, real, unprocessed food is almost always healthy, regardless of how many grams of carbs, protein or fat it contains.

All these healthy diets have in common the fact that they are absent foods with bar codes. They are also extremely low in sugar. In fact, the number of modern or ancient societies known for health and longevity that have consumed a diet high in sugar would be ... let's see ... zero.

Truth be told, what you eat probably matters less than how much processing it's undergone. Real food--whole food with minimal processing--contains a virtual pharmacy of nutrients, phytochemicals, enzymes, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, anti-inflammatories and healthful fats, and can easily keep you alive and thriving into your 10th decade.

• Berres
• Beans
• Nuts
• Wild Salmon
• Raw Milk
• Grass-Fed Meat
• Eggs
• Brassica Vegetables
• Apples
• Onions and Garlic
• Pomegranate Juice
• Green Tea

Sugar, the nutritional pariah that dentists and dietitians have long reviled, is enjoying a second act, dressed up as a natural, healthful ingredient. From the tomato sauce on a Pizza Hut pie called The Natural, to the just-released soda Pepsi Natural, some of the biggest players in the American food business have started, in the last few months, replacing high-fructose corn syrup with old-fashioned sugar.

ConAgra uses only sugar or honey in its new Healthy Choice All Natural frozen entrees. Kraft Foods recently removed the corn sweetener from its salad dressings, and is working on its Lunchables line of portable meals and snacks. The turnaround comes after three decades during which high-fructose corn syrup had been gaining on sugar in the American diet. Consumption of the two finally drew even in 2003, according to the Department of Agriculture. Recently, though, the trend has reversed. Per capita, American adults ate about 44 pounds of sugar in 2007, compared with about 40 pounds of high-fructose corn syrup. “Sugar was the old devil, and high-fructose corn syrup is the new devil,” said Marcia Mogelonsky, a senior analyst at Mintel International, a market-research company.

With sugar sales up, the Sugar Association last year ended its Sweet by Nature campaign, which pointed out that sugar is found in fruits and vegetables, said Andy Briscoe, president of the association. "Obviously, demand is moving in the right direction so we are taking a break," Mr. Briscoe said.

Science is verifying what many overeaters have suspected for a long time: sugar can be addictive. In fact, the sweetener seems to prompt the same chemical changes in the brain seen in people who abuse drugs such as cocaine and heroin.

The findings were to be presented Wednesday at the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology's annual meeting, in Nashville. "Our evidence from an animal model suggests that bingeing on sugar can act in the brain in ways very similar to drugs of abuse," lead researcher Bart Hoebel, a professor of psychology at Princeton University, said during a Dec. 4 teleconference.

"Drinking large amounts of sugar water when hungry can cause behavioral changes and even neurochemical changes in the brain which resemble changes that are produced when animals or people take substances of abuse. These animals show signs of withdrawal and even long-lasting effects that might resemble craving," he said. Dr. Louis Aronne, director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Program at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City, added: "The big question has been whether it's just a behavioral thing or is it a metabolic chemical thing, and evidence like this supports the idea that something chemical is going on." A "sugar addiction" may even act as a "gateway" to later abuse of drugs such as alcohol, Hoebel said.

*****

"Some say it's easy to lose weight -- you just have to shut your mouth, stop eating so much," Aronne said. "I tell them a good way to overcome global warming is if people made less carbon dioxide by breathing less. Obviously, that's absurd. You can't do it because you feel uncomfortable.

"The same thing is true of eating," he added. "Fattening food has an impact on the regulating mechanism that breaks down your sense of fullness, makes you feel an urge to go back and get that blast of sugar and this creates the vicious cycle of weight gain that we're going through."

• Just one quarter of Americans (23%) say they are extremely or very concerned about the amount of artificial sweeteners they and their family consume, with just one in ten (9%) extremely concerned;
• Over three-quarters (77%) are only somewhat or not at all concerned about the amount of artificial sweeteners consumed, with over one-third (36%) not at all concerned.

• The older generations are more likely to want to know what is sweetening their food. Three in five (59%) Matures (those aged 63 and older) say it is extremely or very important to know versus two-thirds (65%) of Echo Boomers (those aged 18-31) who say it is somewhat or not at all important to know what is sweetening their food;
• Matures are also most likely to believe artificial sweeteners are safe. Three in ten (29%) of the oldest generation believe they are extremely or very safe compared to one in five (22%) Baby Boomers (those aged 44-62), 20 percent of Generation X (those aged 32-43) and just 13 percent of Echo Boomers.