--- title: John Oliver Takes On Sugar Industry In Time For Halloween description: Right in time for your Halloween candy binge canonical: https://time.com/3541173/john-oliver-sugar-industry-takedown/ author: Laura Stampler article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-10-27T15:22:05.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:14:05.184Z og:title: Watch John Oliver's Brilliant Takedown of the Sugar Industry og:description: Right in time for your Halloween candy binge og:url: https://time.com/3541173/john-oliver-sugar-industry-takedown/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch John Oliver's Brilliant Takedown of the Sugar Industry twitter:description: Right in time for your Halloween candy binge twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Watch John Oliver's Brilliant Takedown of the Sugar Industry by [Laura Stampler](/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Oct 27, 2014 3:22 PM CUT by [Laura Stampler](/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Oct 27, 2014 3:22 PM CUT What’s more disturbing than [a sexy Louis CK Halloween costume](http://www.playboy.com/galleries/sexy-pics-louis-ck/slide-1 "undefined")? According to John Oliver, the epic amounts of sugar funneled into the mouths of American consumers not just on Halloween, but regularly throughout the year. Sunday’s episode of _Last Week Tonight_ addressed the fact that American children and adults typically eat 22 teaspoons of sugar a day, which translates to 75 pounds of sugar a year. “That’s like eating Michael Cera’s weight in sugar every single year,” Oliver said. And it comes in the strangest forms, like Clamato juice (a pleasant combination of tomato juice, clams and 11 grams of sugar to hide the fact that you’re _drinking clams_) and cranberries (Ocean Spray says it should be exempt from adding disclosure labels due to the “unpalatable” taste of cranberries sans sugar.) Oliver thinks the biggest problem is how much sugar Americans eat unknowingly, often due to vague regulation standards. Luckily he has a hilarious proposed solution to modifying labeling to let consumers know what they’re eating — and it’s just too good to ruin. _Read next:_ [_The 13 Most Influential Candy Bars of All Time_](http://time.com/8195/13-most-influential-candy-bars-of-all-time/?xid=time%5Freadnext "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3541173/john-oliver-sugar-industry-takedown/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3541173/john-oliver-sugar-industry-takedown/"},"headline":"Watch John Oliver's Brilliant Takedown of the Sugar Industry","datePublished":"2014-10-27T15:22:05.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:14:05.184Z","description":"Right in time for your Halloween candy binge","url":"https://time.com/3541173/john-oliver-sugar-industry-takedown/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Television","entertainment","celebrity","Culture","John Oliver","Food & Drinks"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Laura Stampler","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3541173/john-oliver-sugar-industry-takedown/","name":"Watch John Oliver's Brilliant Takedown of the Sugar Industry"}}]}] ```