Many of the world’s leading universities have in their possession, the evidence that a meat-dominated diet costs more to maintain.

The animals, whether they be cattle, sheep, goats or other species have to be fed, nurtured, raised and then slaughtered in order to be put on the market as food. However, it was previously thought that obesity was triggered by a meat-based diet.

Today, it has been determined that a preponderance of sugar has been the main culprit in the obesity stakes. In spite of this and with this knowledge firmly entrenched in their minds, the average citizen of the United States of America has proceeded merrily on his way and refused to change his diet and life-style. They are under the hypnotic spell of the major international giants of the soft-drinks industry which seems to exercise a pied-piper effect on their life-style.

It seems to be a multiple whammy of sugar, sugar, and more sugar, as all the international giants of the food industry introduce the most dangerous substance on earth in various forms to entrap the whole nation. And, strange enough, the entrapment has begun in a most vulnerable area. With children.

The international food giants have introduced children to the substance that has hooked them permanently – sugar. There is sugar in milk, sugar-coated cereals, sugar-coated this and sugar-coated that. There is a super-abundance of chocolate heavily laced with sugar, until at an early age, the addiction to the world’s most addictive substance has been permanently established as a part of every person’s psyche and consequently, the physical diet.

Today, the big debate is, how to reduce the intake of sugar and overcome the ubiquitous urge and thirst for this addiction. Mayor Bloomberg of New York, has taken an unprecedented step to attempt to curb the implacable rise of obesity in his constituency. He has banned the sale of 16-ounce cups of soft drinks and reduced the optimum size of such cups to 10 ounces.

In his view, this is the first small step in reducing the burgeoning obesity problem. The question is “ Will he succeed ?” On the personal level, our well-meaning mayor is a billionaire and is in a position to receive the best of legal advice on this or any matter. Our sympathies are with the bold mayor. But will it work?

Most of our readers are too young to have remembered Prohibition and all of its ramifications. Can any governing body legislate about taste and consumer prejudices ? We await with bated breath, the outcome of Mayor Bloomberg’s attempt. Will each person be permanently restricted to a single 10-ounce cup of soft drinks within a 24-hour period? All sorts of questions arise. What we await is the ensuing fight in which Coca-Cola, Pepsi Cola, Mc Donalds, KFC, General Foods and all the big hitters in the soft drinks industry may possibly be lined up against Mayor Bloomberg and/or New York City, or the State of New York.

When Colonel Tibbitts piloted that B29 over Hiroshima and unleashed Fat Boy to an unsuspecting world, nobody knew what the effect would be. If and when the expected/projected clash takes place, the fall-out and the mushroom clouds that will hang over New York and the United States will be humongous.

The soft drinks industry has billions with which to fight. We suspect that this action will eventually reach the United States Supreme Court, where new concepts and meanings of civil rights will be presented and explored, re the course that Mayor Bloomberg has adopted.