Some 67 years ago, at the beginning of February 1954, 52-year-old Dr Henry Bohn Hass, a specialist in organic chemistry who would in 1969 be awarded the gold medal of the American Institute of Chemists, attended the eighth general meeting of the American Society of Sugar Beet Technologists, in Denver, Colorado. At the time, he was president of the US’s Sugar Research Foundation (SRF), a position he had held since 1952. At that meeting he gave a speech titled “What’s new in sugar research?”, laying out some of the challenges faced by the US sugar industry. “The Roper survey showed that there are three tangible reasons why people do not use sugar: fear of obesity, fear of caries [dental cavities] and fear of diabetes. Every doctor now knows that sugar does not cause diabetes; this fact is slowly diffusing to the laymen. If the anti-enzymes perform as expected against caries, it will enable us to concentrate on other problems of the sugar industry. Fear of obesity is undoubtedly the greatest single deterrent to sugar consumption. This is understandable; the principal nutritional function of sugar is to furnish calories and calories are what the obese person is trying to minimise,” said Hass.