back to brown ale, then, Timmy
And the amount of aspartame has doubled
So? That’s way less bad
Aspartame can lead to overeating. Some research also point to liver cancer.
Ok, now do sugar, and compare the statistical quality of the evidence too please
But sugar sucks too? I’m not defending either.
With my ADHD just cutting on sugar seems to be the best diet change in my life period. I mean, of course there’s sugar in lots of things, but at least not putting it into tea and not eating Snickers improves everything.
I wish Germany would bring its sugar tax that we abolished in 1973 back. To be fair a lot of people are agreeing it has to come back by now, so chances are good that we’ll soon have one again.
Why was it abolished?
Not being German, I maintain I am still accurately guessing that it’s because corporations waved money under politicians’ noses and their brains turned to mush and they said, “yes, masters.”
I think with Lauterbach as minister we have quite good chances. I was honestly kind of surprised to read that they are attempting to ban supervised drinking. Didn’t think the CSU of all parties would support that
What is supervised drinking?
In Germany teenagers between the age of 14 and 16 (which is the legal drinking age) may drink beer, wine and pearl wine in public places such as restaurants as long as they’re supervised by their legal guardians. Obviously in a “reasonable” manner
Oh neat, a German AMA. What’s pearl wine?
They mean sparkling wine. It’s called Perlwein in German, hence the mistranslation.
Great, now all the undernourished kids with poor parents are going to drink water instead and lose weight to dangerously unhealthy levels.
According to The Guardian (same source as this article), the number of children in food poverty in the UK is 4 million. 15% of UK households went hungry in January. Now, soda isn’t the smartest source of calories in a kid’s diet. It’s expensive and low in other nutrients. But kids aren’t always smart. A poor kid thinks “I’m hungry, I have a few pounds, there’s a vending machine, problem solved”. If the soda is too expensive, that doesn’t mean the kid is going to go to Aldi, buy some potatoes, and roast them for a cheap and nutritious meal. They’re a kid! It means they’ll pay more or go without. Which means you’re making the poverty and malnutrition problem worse.
Food poverty is a problem in the UK but drinking Coke isn’t the solution. If you look at the nutrition information on the can of your average soda it’s basically either sugar or artificial sweeteners and nothing else. No calories in that there’s no proteins in that you can’t live off it so who cares if there’s less sugar in it?
Also food banks exist, they absolutely should not have to and it’s a disgrace that they do, blame Cameron and his big society nonsense, but they do exist and in large numbers. I don’t think there’s anywhere in the country that you couldn’t get free food if you needed it.
I think the stupidest thing about food banks is they give the same random bags of food to poor and homeless people, so I often see carrier bags with tins of beans or dry pasta just dumped by the roadside because what the fuck is a homeless person going to do with 600g Aldi penne pasta?
I work in a food bank and that is not what they do. We have a different food bags for different people, typically they are divided into people who have no way to cook food, people who only have access to a microwave, and people who have access to a proper kitchen.
Tin food gets given to people who have access to a microwave and if they need one they can even get a tin opener. Although we seem to give 10 openers to the same same 12 people again and again I have no idea what they’re doing with them but we have hundreds of the damn things.
Once they’ve picked up that bag they can then go to the tables and pick up extras that they like. The bags will contain things like tin soup and pasta, assuming they have access to cook it, and then they can put in fruit and vegetables as they like. There is no point giving vegetables to people who won’t eat them, it’s just a waste of food, so that’s why it’s done like that.
We have very few people who come to the food bank who literally have no way to cook food because the local church has a few microwaves that I believe they can come and use whenever they want. There’s always the odd person who’s just awkward though, so they get bread and peanut butter, crackers and a bit of cheese. It is rather hard to accommodate them but they are accommodated when they turn up.
The one near me either doesn’t do that, or maybe they only have the “access to kitchen” bags by the time the homeless get there.
Which food bank is this because they’re supposed to be registered on a list and they’re supposed to behave according to a set of rules. Now there are random churches who decide to “be Christian” but do it badly. Nothing can be done about them. But if they are on the list of approved food banks they’re supposed to operate according to approved rules.
This person said the same thing in news and they didn’t even look up how much the tax penalty was. It’s 18-24p per liter depending on the sugar content and there are a lot of exceptions. Poor people are not denying their kids (apparently necessary) sugary sodas because they can’t afford an extra 24p.
Thanks for your unbelievably ignorant view!
What source can you cite that shows that children in poverty primarily source their calories from soft drinks/soda and now will be at greater risk of nutritional deficit specifically as a result of this tax?
Food poverty is clearly related to cost of living issues and social inequity all greatly exacerbated by Brexit, not a tax on sugar.
This site provides data and resources for more information.
What do the kids drink instead?
Possibly water, or perhaps tea
or perhaps tea
With more sugar
Sweetened tea gets a big L from me, tastes like shit. Unsweetened all the way.
Who would have thought?
bruh just ban all sugary drinks, it’s not that hard
It’s people like you that we can’t have nice things. oh some Germans in Germany has started genociding Jews out of existence, so that must mean that all Germans are evil Nazis. you only consider moderation when their is a obvious utility. like oh you don’t need alcohol to survive, but because some people get addicted to alcohol. we must ban alcohol, so no one will get addicted ever again. we seriously need to learn moderation and nuance. we really need to collectively agree that I’m not your mom and neither is the government. Otherwise we will be asking ourselves, what is the point of enjoyment? People who are miserable breath just fine, and if you enjoy something too much you might get addicted.
I agree completely with your comment but I think you probably shouldn’t have brought the Holocaust into it really!
Yes, definitely.
and alcohol, weed, meat, and fast food.
then you’ll probably end up with a black market of sugary drinks, and people will go to great lengths to get it.
It’s almost as if this happened before with something else
Just ban the sale and don’t enforce it on the black market. That would cover like 90%. It’s not like soda would be banned entirely, so it’s not like any other example. Just drink Coke Zero (or your flavor preference)
I have no idea why, but I get horrible heartburn from Coke Zero and Pepsi Max. I don’t get that from almost nothing else.
They do have their place- just that place isn’t “something you can just drink every day without thinking about”
Unpopular opinion: The really bad ones, not talking about orange juice here, should be treated similarly to energy drinks. Banned for under 16 and taxed high.
The comments here are incredible. Are we being botted by Big Sugar?
No, people are just gullible and love to feel like they know something everyone else doesn’t
A billion dollar industry would never do such a thing.
That, and sugar is insanely addictive.
That’s not because the sugar tax was enough.
It’s because the drink manufacturers mostly just stopped selling the full sugar versions, which kind of sucks for anyone who hates the taste of artificial sweeteners. Even squash like Robinsons became undrinkable. It tastes like battery acid.
There’s only really Coca-Cola left that tastes the same as it did before. Lemon and lime drinks like 7-Up or Sprite almost cover the taste of it, so they’ll do in a pinch. Otherwise I just drink water and cider. Apparently alcoholic drinks don’t need to tell you how many calories are in them either, so I’ll assume it’s none and carry on looking confused when I get on the scales.
I said this in another comment, but trying to find drinks that don’t use sweeteners is painful nowadays. I can no longer drink most squashes, and my soft drink options are pretty much limited to coca cola (normal pepsi now has sweeteners), sainsbury’s high juice, or rose’s lime cordial…
In fact, the only ones that do tell you seem to be the ones aimed at calorie counters who still want to drink, mostly hard seltzers like WhiteClaw, Truly, etc.
White claw smaller can at 5% is 100-110 calories a can.
So now people are avoiding sweet drinks not because they cost too much in taxes, but…because they taste like battery acid.
That’s still achieving the overall goal.
It’s still the manufacturers decision to change the product
Imagine what would happen if we taxed capital gains properly 🐸
Or other externalities
Cough Cough… Now follow suit America. I am sick of seeing people being so unhealthy and addicted to this drug.
Great! Let’s do the States too!
Even starting with HFCS would be a major positive impact
Cook county tried it in Illinois a few years back, and it really made no sense.
It didn’t apply to juices (even though juices are loaded with sugar) and it taxed sugar free sodas the same as their sugar sweetened versions. They charged 1 cent per ounce for the tax. It was repealed 4 months after initiating it.
As someone with an intolerance to artificial sweeteners, I’ll never forgive Jamie Oliver for pushing the sugar tax, alongside his insistence on “improving” school meals that resulted in mass outsourcing of school food to the lowest bidder.
Kids aren’t drinking less soft drinks than before, the drinks themselves have just replaced sugar with chemicals and byproducts that aren’t particularly healthy themselves…
Have you considered drinking unsweetened stuff? Either plain water, or “flavoured” water. Basically soda without any sugar or sweeteners. It’s surprisingly tasty, and pretty much as healthy as pure water.
Alternatively there are tons of different sweeteners. Some like stevia should be fine even if you have issues with, say, aspartame.
Sadly, Stevia doesn’t agree with me either, although I don’t feel as ill as if I have drinks with aspartame, which is what most drinks in the UK use.
I recently bought a soda stream for just this, since I now mostly drink sparkling water. There aren’t many cordials here that don’t use a sweetener, and many of my previously favourite kombucha brands now use aspartame - but there’s enough to have some choice.
