Decrease in Soda Consumption

I saw an interesting article today that overall soda consumption was down last year in the United States. The story also talked about how 4 of the top ten selling sodas are now diet sodas for the first time ever.

I am wondering if anyone has performed a study tracking overall sugar intake in this country. Now I know that would be difficult but I would be very interested. I am sure we have all seen or heard of the studies that claim diet soda actually increases the craving for sweets and can lead to increased sugar consumption in other areas.

I am very curious if we are as a nation in fact decreasing overall sugar consumption or simply shifting where we consume our sugar. Are people drinking less soda but more juice? Or perhaps eating more candy. An interesting point about candy is that even when economic times are tough candy sales never really drop the way that other consumer goods do. We see people eating less expensive food when they have less money but you rarely see them eating less candy.

In a related note I have noticed that many major companies are now marketing their product as not containing High Fructose Corn Syrup. I must say I feel this is wonderful because HFCS is just scary stuff but remember they are replacing the HFCS with sugar. This doesn't mean you can eat more of the product because it still has sugar and too much sugar is not good. Of course too much of anything isn't good for you so do enjoy sugar and all these wonderful new HFCS free products just please do so in moderation.