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Can one use
a. Too many cookies are bad for you.
instead of
b. Having too many cookies is bad for you.
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Can one use
c. Many cookies are bad for you.
instead of
d. Having many cookies is bad for you.
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Can one use 'is' instead of 'are' in (a) and (c)?
One meaning of (c) is: There are many cookies that are bad for you. (Some aren't bad, but many are.)
I am not sure that (c) can be used instead of (d) though.
Many thanks.
b) Having too many cookies is bad for you.
This sentence is not clear: have could mean own (meaning 1 in the Oxford Dictionary) or consume (meaning 4.2).
a) Too many cookies are bad for you.
Although this doesn't state what you are doing with the cookies, this is actually clearer and more natural: the listener will assume that you are referring to eating too many cookies.
c) Many cookies are bad for you.
In my opinion, this can only have the meaning that you suggested: some (but not all) types of cookie are bad for you.
d) Having many cookies is bad for you.
This sentence suffers from the confusion over owning and consuming: also, we don't tend to use many in his context: it is too formal, and it carries overtones of a large proportion of those in a group as in sentence c. a lot of would work better. Sentence d would therefore be better written as
eating a lot of cookies is bad for you.
