Date: May 3, 2025

We teach kids to stay away from alcohol. We tell them it’s harmful. That it damages the liver.

But every day — in juices, biscuits, and honeyed treats — we give them something that acts just like it.

Fructose.

It's in sucrose — our everyday table sugar — which is half glucose and half fructose. While glucose fuels the body, fructose heads straight to the liver, where it’s further processed.

Just like alcohol.

No buzz. No warnings. Just slow damage.

What Makes Fructose So Problematic?

• It’s addictive – triggers reward pathways in the brain
• It’s silent – no fullness, no sugar spike, just invisible damage
• It’s everywhere – fruit juices, mithai, ketchup, even "healthy" snacks
• It’s linked – to fatty liver, obesity, diabetes, and metabolic disease

UCSF researchers say fructose meets the same public health risk criteria as alcohol. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3649103/

And yet, we serve it in abundance in school lunches and hospital food.

An 8-year-old in Bengaluru with fatty liver disease isn’t a rare case anymore.

https://bangaloremirror.indiatimes.com/bangalore/others/fatty-liver-disease-cases-on-the-rise/articleshow/105364421.cms?utm_source=chatgpt.com

This isn’t about indulgence — it’s about everyday habits.

Juice instead of fruit. Biscuits instead of rotis. Sweets as rewards. Every day. Every home.

But juice strips out the fiber and delivers a straight shot of fructose — hitting the liver fast like alcohol.

We don’t need fear. We need facts.