When we go to the grocery store and select our items for purchase, one can't help noticing all the nutritional information placed on the label on the products that we buy, of which, some people pay very close attention to that specific information, and many, perhaps just a cursory glance. In any event, for most people, the fact that these products are sold in grocery stores in the first place, implicitly means that these foods can't be outright dangerous for our bodies, so typically people stress less about the nutrition and stress more about its price and value.
The government through the FDA and other general rules and regulations appears to have an abiding interest in the food items that Americans eat, in fact, based on charts such as food pyramid, the government provides to its citizens guidelines as to how much to eat from a given food group, so that through this and other means the government distinctly presents the impression that it cares what its citizens eat.
The FDA has a budget of about one billion dollars specifically earmarked for food items which is directed towards protecting and supporting the public heath of its citizens, but does the FDA do its job uncompromisingly? One way to answer that question is to understand that the most basic reason why anybody works is to earn an income, to which, people that have expertise in nutrition and food items would be in demand by both private as well as governmental agencies. Not too surprisingly, the FDA and multinational corporations, clearly have a revolving door type of policy, in which, the regulators migrate over to private enterprise, and private enterprise employees move over to the FDA. While there isn't anything wrong with this from the perspective that people should be entitled to work where they desire while utilizing best their skill-sets, there is a fundamental issue though, when there is either a quid pro quo or understanding that what is good for PepsiCo, with sales of $40 billion dollars is also good for American citizens as the prevailing viewpoint, supported by an acquiescent FDA.
The fact of the matter is, that the regulators are in fit and function not really independently regulating the food providers in a manner that places real science and real nutrition in the forefront, but more akin to rubber stamping the biggest players in the industry, because multinational companies such as Coca-Cola, Kraft foods, and the like, have billions of dollars invested into their infrastructure and products so that if the government would somehow rule that, for instance, refined carbohydrates or sugar and its equivalencies were a bane to the health of American citizens, their stock price would take a massive downward hit, which would eviscerate market capitalization and portfolios. If, on the other hand, the government merely allows bygones to be bygones, or gentle suggests that perhaps we should ingest a little less sugar or a little less refined carbohydrates than it will pretty much be business as usual.
What the FDA isn't going to do, is to actively take on the biggest players of the food industry, for first of all, that revolving door precludes such as action, and secondly the FDA seldom produces truly independent research that challenges prevailing wisdom so as to not come abreast of an inconvenient truth that would thereby force its hand.