In 2011 I revealed in a speech to the European Parliament how the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) was refusing to accept the laxative effects of prunes – and unsurprisingly, I won the argument.

I have now discovered another potentially more serious bad apple in EFSA’s larder.

EFSA has decided that the food industry should be allowed to make health claims about “lowering blood glucose rises” when they replace glucose or sucrose in food or drink with fructose (which comes from fruit, veg and honey).

But they are comparing apples and oranges. It is true that fructose does not trigger the same spike in blood glucose as – you’ll never guess – glucose.

More and more you see products that flaunt how they have been sweetened with fruit juice extracts. However the impression that the product is somehow healthy is false: fructose is highly fattening and leads to weight gain.

Sugar has received quite a battering over the last few months, and perhaps rightly so.

But to throw it out and replace it with something that is just as bad for you in a different way would be bananas.

Sir Graham Watson MEP, Liberal Democrat MEP for South West England and Gibraltar.