Is sugar toxic? A 90 minute YouTube video of pediatrics professor Robert Lustig trying to answer the question has counted 800,000 hits. The New York Times has an interesting piece in the magazine section that explains why sugar is on the minds of so many Americans. Marion Nestle is a professor of nutrition at New York University and the author of "What to Eat" and Barry Popkin is the distinguished professor of global nutrition at the University of North Carolina school of public health. Together they explain why sugar is a major public health risk, and what we should do to control it.

For this week's food segment, we take our inspiration from proposed sales taxes on sweets that are sweeping the nation — from California to Mississippi and New York. Legislators, government administrators, and others say such taxes like this may help to discourage us from consuming so many 'empty calories,' and to curb the rising problem of obesity throughout the country.

Our question: Are sweets really so bad? And should we be penalized for eating them?