I LOVE this example. My husband is a family physician, and of course soda consumption is a big problem in his practice. I think I'll do this for his clinic lobby. My gym had a 20 oz bottle filled with the equivalent sugar, but this is a bigger impact (and is a whole lot harder to miss!).

you know what? I don't really care that I'm consuming 5 gallons of sugar a year. i'd prefer that my sodas all contained cane sugar as opposed to HFCS, but unfortunately Coca-Cola doesn't sell it in the U.S.
You could easily do a more shocking article and show how much sugar and/or salt is contained in your average American's diet based on the amounts found in convenience foods.
About 80-90% of my diet comes from fresh produce and meals made from scratch, so I'm almost positive that my 5-14 gallons of sugar from sodas is merely a fraction of what most people consume.
Sugar, however, is in just about everything, so we can't avoid it, and as such, our bodies CAN handle large amounts-if we have proper nutrition and hydration and sufficient exercise to keep it functioning properly.

Great illustration, Ken! My patients are always shocked when we discuss how the calories/sugar they drink affects not only their weight but also their blood glucose levels and cholesterol. Most shocking is usually when I tell them to avoid fruit juice! BTW, Brooks is so stinkin' cute!

There's a tremendous amount of confusion about high fructose corn syrup. HFCS is not the demon, sugar is. Don't be "tricked" by believing cane sugar is better than HFCS. HFCS is 55% fructose and cane sugar is 50% fructose -- not much difference.

The only difference is that HFCS is less expensive and is in much of our food. So, no matter what type of sugar it is, consume less of it.