There's an easy fix for that: a shift from sugar to artificial sweeteners. Same as there's an easy fix for cigarettes: move to electronic cigarettes.
But i guess we're more afraid of the unknown chemicals(although limited tests have shown they are much safer) than the original poisons, And we're stuck on trying to teach ideals than implement practicalities.
There are other reasons for not switching as well. As an overweight smoker... I drink normal soft drinks rather than diet (sweetener) drinks partly because of vague things in the back of my head about them being carcinogens, but largely because I'm not a fan of their taste.
Regarding smoking - well I've cut down lately, I was smoking 20-30 a day and in November/December, with the exception of two trips abroad where I smoked fully, I cut down to about 20 cigarettes over the two months, due to a challenge from a friend's kid - I simply don't want to move to electronic cigarettes. I love smoking, if it wasn't unhealthy I'd do it forever. I don't love smoking an electronic cigarette, I don't even like it. I'd genuinely prefer to spend a day without nicotine than a day with electronic cigarettes, or nicotine gum/patches.
I switched to sweeteners due to too many trips to the dentist and loving sweet things. I started by changing my coffee from sugar. There are many types of sweetener to choose from , so i've experimented until i found something i liked.
But you do have to have a strong enough reason to switch, not something abstract that will happen in 20-40 years.
This works fine for e.g. sodas, but sadly all foods heavy in carbohydrates (pizza, pasta, bread, ...) will be broken down into sugars :(
That being said, there are tons of paleo/keto blogs out there offering alternatives (e.g. coliflower pizza http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2012/08/the-astonishing-...). The sad part is that things like lettuce wrapped burgers are still hard to find when not cooking at home.
Also: I'd love to see more stevia-sweetened things rather than aspartame sweetened ones
From the little i know(mostly from lustig's youtube video ,and from some googling) sugar is composed of glucose and fructose ,and fructose is the main culprit in metabolic syndrome(which causes/increases diabetes, heart disease, hypertension) and also increases cancer risk and creates liver inflammation and fatty liver disease. Glucose generally is much more harmless than fructose.
You seem to have confused sugar with sucrose, also known as table sugar. First off, a carbohydrate, also known as a saccharide, is a molecule composed of one or more monosaccharides. Sugar includes both monosaccharides (e.g glucose, fructose, galactose) and disaccharides (e.g sucrose, lactose, maltose). Sucrose is composed of glucose and fructose, lactose is composed of glucose and galactose, and maltose is composed of two glucose molecules.
Starch, composed of glucose, is the only polysaccharide digestible to humans.
Just to mention a test I did, sweeteners decreases your ketone levels. Your body is expecting sugar. That's why most people who drink (diet) cokes usually want chips and other carb food as well.
But i guess we're more afraid of the unknown chemicals(although limited tests have shown they are much safer) than the original poisons, And we're stuck on trying to teach ideals than implement practicalities.
Such a shame.