Please note that while Professor Lustig's claims about the wholly toxic nature of fructose are not accepted as fact (see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20047139 and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3411192/ for a couple of examples), I think you're still miscategorizing his claims. Please see:

http://www.crsociety.org/index.php?/topic/291-dr-lustig-on-f...

"I think that fruit is so much better a choice than virtually anything else in the store -- particularly any processed food -- that I don't want to come down on it. But I would say, fruit is one of those things where I would say, everything in moderation."

This sort of falls into the "duh" category. Just as a sensible person wouldn't consume a ton of saturated fats in the name of eating a high protein diet, a sensible person is not going to be eating 20 bananas and five pounds of strawberries a day in the name of getting enough fruit.

As for the professor's claim that exercise isn't effective for weight loss, I think laypeople should be aware of the tendency for academics to speak in macro terms. The vast majority of people I have met who are overweight and have tried unsuccessfully to lose weight a) do not have as healthy a diet as they believe they do (far too many processed foods) and b) if they exercise and exercise consistently (a big if), do not exercise long enough and intensely enough to burn fat and become conditioned.

Anecdotal? Yes, but instead of blaming specific foods and claiming that exercise isn't effective, let's just be honest: most people won't lose weight because they can't commit to major changes in their lifestyle.

I think it's funny that you're citing all of these studies and generally being evidence-based and rational and then you casually mention that "processed food" makes people fat.

I didn't write that. I wrote that in my own experience, most of the people who are overweight who try unsuccessfully to lose weight a) don't have as healthy a diet as they'd like to believe and b) don't exercise long enough and intensely enough if they work out at all.

What is a "healthy diet"? I don't believe there's a one-size-fits-all answer, but I mentioned processed foods because at the highest level, there is plenty of evidence that processed foods are problematic when consumed in the quantities they are being consumed in:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2897733/ http://news.yale.edu/2013/03/06/yale-researchers-identify-sa... http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/11/63 http://www.diabetes.org/news-research/research/access-diabet... http://jn.nutrition.org/content/139/10/1950 http://wholegrainscouncil.org/whole-grains-101/health-studie... http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120210110038.ht...

Well this whole discussion, especially debunking citations with citations, pretty much is a big evidence in favour of the original thesis - we don't know for sure pretty much anything about nutrition.