This 'sugar tax' crap is doing my head in!

[crinkleshoes]

Sheesh, who stole the sugar out of your drink this morning?

Monday morning blues?



I wasn't professing that a single example is a trend of the larger population.

Aspartame depression, obv.

 

[crinkleshoes]

You don't have a first clue how to read studies do you. Stop copying and pasting lists. Before even reading.

Oh shove it where the sun doesn't shine... you obviously didn't read them

 

[Glaucus]

Oh shove it where the sun doesn't shine... you obviously didn't read them

nice try, but try again.

Aspartame depression, obv.

From your own study you didn't read

But an expert who reviewed the findings says it failed to convince him that drinking sweetened beverages raises depression risk.

“There is much more evidence that people who are depressed crave sweet things than there is to suggest that sweetened beverages cause depression,” says neurologist Kenneth M. Heilman, MD.

let's think what else could cause the marginal increase in depression.
Could it be that slightly more obese people drink diet soda, and the depression is caused by that and not the drink.

 

[Shocky-FM]

As we see from alcohol, it doesn't. It just makes them poorer and creates more problems.

If anything they haven't gone far enough with tax on alcohol, if you ignore the popular brands it's actually got cheaper.

 

[V F]

It's hilarious how the government think the answer to everything is slap a tax on it.

Well you know what I am sick of the retards in power being total numbskulls so I would like to propose an MP tax of which 90% of their wages goes to the normal person on the street.

If it makes people think about what they're drinking then I don't see the problem

The easy way for Governments. Ban it or tax it.

I’m glad I got out ahead of the curve 3 years ago.

 

[rubberduck]

Could drink manufactures start selling add your own dextrose drinks? Much like salt 'n' shake crisps?

 

[Avenged7Fold]

If anything they haven't gone far enough with tax on alcohol, if you ignore the popular brands it's actually got cheaper.

The low end of the scale it has actually shot up in the last decade.

The thing is with alcohol is it tends to make people switch to cheaper brands. Taxing people till they cant afford it is a stupid way to solve a problem. It also hits small pubs hard where margins are small enough.

I am not saying alcohol should be cheap, just questioning the effectiveness and the 'health benefit intent' behind heavy alcohol taxation.

Could drink manufactures start selling add your own dextrose drinks? Much like salt 'n' shake crisps?

They could but people will find out how crap these drinks are without being sweetened.

 

[dirtybeatfreak]

WTF... you guys are obviously trying to wind me up...

Links to Tyre 2 Diabetes:
https://www.easd.org/virtualmeeting...teners-on-glycaemic-control-in-healthy-humans

Weight gain, metabolic issues, diabetes & CV disease:
http://www.cell.com/trends/endocrinology-metabolism/fulltext/S1043-2760(13)00087-8?_returnURL=http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1043276013000878?showall=true

Interesting comments from a Yale study co-funded by Pepsi:
https://news.yale.edu/2017/08/10/sweet-taste-not-just-calories-dictates-metabolic-response

3000 person study indicating links to stroke & dementia:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28428346

3000 person study indicating links to infant obesity:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abstract/2521471

264,000 person study showing link to depression:
https://www.webmd.com/depression/news/20130104/sweetened-drinks-depression?src=RSS_PUBLIC#1

Cancer:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8939194

Dietary issues:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.co...ange-braine28099s-pleasure-response-to-sweet/

Diabetes / obesity:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23850261


Sweeteners cause the very thing they're publicised to help you avoid... enjoy your poison...

None of these links backup your earlier statements in this thread. In fact, several of them contradict you. Been said a few times by several of us now, read stuff before you link it.

I'm out of this convo' as I can just see it going in circles.

 

[Shocky-FM]

The low end of the scale it has actually shot up in the last decade.

Perhaps we never paid much attention to the lower end prices, maybe we never needed too, hard to say but alcohol prices still seem stupidly cheap to me.

Should it be more expensive? In supermarkets and off-licences, definitely, yes.

 

[jpaul]

If it makes people think about what they're drinking then I don't see the problem

agree, although there does appear some shortsighted omissions from this policy, as commented here

It’s badly targeted: Because fruit juices and milk-based drinks are excluded, it means some of the most-sugary drinks escape the levy. For example, a standard Starbucks extra-large hot chocolate contains 15 teaspoons of sugar – double the recommended daily maximum for an adult. But because it’s a milk-based drink, it is exempt from the levy. The same can be said for other milkshakes, coffee and yoghurt-based drinks.
People will switch to other sugary products: The IFS has also suggested that consumers may switch to other products with high sugar contents to get their fix of sugar. Only 17% of added sugar consumption comes from sugary drinks. The tax does nothing to change these underling behaviours which lead people to seek out sugar in their diet. It appears bizarre that yoghurt, cereal, confectionary or chocolate won’t be affected at all by the new levy, despite often containing higher sugar contents than soft drinks.

(seen the breakfast cereals thread recently ?)

To what extent should the association of the likes of CocaCola and sport sponsorship be deprecated ? (albeit they are not a major sponsor of PyeongChang unlike McDo)
the upstanding olympics commitee, do not like association with drugs, if the excess consumption is a consequence of the powerful healthy lifestyle advertising message, then let's cut that off.
Alternatively, the carrot strategy, state subsidising healthy foods (vegetables, ....)

 

[Avenged7Fold]

Perhaps we never paid much attention to the lower end prices, maybe we never needed too, hard to say but alcohol prices still seem stupidly cheap to me.

Should it be more expensive? In supermarkets and off-licences, definitely, yes.

I don't think it helps the wider issue of health though.

I worked in alcohol sales at one point and the main changes we see when prices become too much for consumers to digest is that cheaper alcohol brands drop in quality, shops tend to have a lot of very poor quality booze hit the shelf (often spirits which are topped up with something else) and theft shoots up.

Is alcohol too cheap? Maybe but upping tax does not seem to help those who have the worst problems with alcohol. Your target is not the average consumer but the heavy, weekend binge drinker or the every day alcoholic. These people are not put off by a price change of a few quid.

Alcohol is a very apt comparison to sugary drinks. The problem people are those that drink it all the time, those who can't say no because it is part of their lifestyle. Introducing sugar tax has led to recipe changes and price point changes (as it did with alcohol). I would be very surprised if we did not see some as bad for your health alternatives enter the market as replacements. It may put some of the occasional sugary drinkers off buying them but they are not really your target.


As much as people think it is stupid, patronizing and boring, good old fashion scaremongering campaigns genuinely work for changing public attitude. It takes a while and it is hard to measure due to the time span but it does work!

Depressing and disgusting anti-smoke adverts and anti-drink drive adverts that peppered 90's and early 00's TV made a difference. It never was that bad to drink and drive, no people take a disgusted attitude with other if they suggest driving on a few pints. Smoking is definitely not as fashionable as before. No one learns anything new from these adverts, they just act as that constant nagging reminder.

 

[Nasher]

Could drink manufactures start selling add your own dextrose drinks? Much like salt 'n' shake crisps?

That would be a way round it. Sell the "diet" drinks at a lower price without the sweeteners and you just add your own sugar

 

[Avenged7Fold]

Quite a bit of sugar goes into these drinks. I imagine most just taste like soda-water and cheap, crap squash without sweetner/sugar

 

[Shocky-FM]

agree, although there does appear some shortsighted omissions from this policy, as commented here


(seen the breakfast cereals thread recently ?)

To what extent should the association of the likes of CocaCola and sport sponsorship be deprecated ? (albeit they are not a major sponsor of PyeongChang unlike McDo)
the upstanding olympics commitee, do not like association with drugs, if the excess consumption is a consequence of the powerful healthy lifestyle advertising message, then let's cut that off.
Alternatively, the carrot strategy, state subsidising healthy foods (vegetables, ....)

They should definitely expand the sugar tax to other drinks and food in general but they have to start somewhere.

Being targeted largely at children sugary drinks and cereals should be more of a priority for now.

 

[LabR@t]

No tax on food and drink. Let people decide to eat , drink whatever.

Put income tax up

 

[adolf hamster]

The low end of the scale it has actually shot up in the last decade.

The thing is with alcohol is it tends to make people switch to cheaper brands. Taxing people till they cant afford it is a stupid way to solve a problem. It also hits small pubs hard where margins are small enough.

I am not saying alcohol should be cheap, just questioning the effectiveness and the 'health benefit intent' behind heavy alcohol taxation.

the thing with governments is if there are 2 options to solve a problem: 1 that works and 1 that makes money, they'll always take the second option.

take smoking- they could have banned it outright or raised the age to buy cigarettes by 1 year every year, but instead they chose to go down the tax it to death route.

 

[Shocky-FM]

No tax on food and drink. Let people decide to eat , drink whatever.

Put income tax up

For products targeted and consumed only by adults only one could argue that, not sure I agree with it as it doesn't only affect them, we all have to use and pay for the NHS.

 

[Felon]

There needs to be more regulation in the way that certain business practises target consumers to buy unhealthy products, for example; is it really necessary, to be paraded back and forth through a maze of sugary snacks and fattening junk food, when trying to get to the till at a petrol station?

Some people will say things like "Well it's my body, I don't want the government telling me what I can and can't put in my body" the problem is it's the government and its services that you go crawling to when your vision gores blurry and you're awake at night peeing 20 times an hour because of type 2 diabetes.

If you look at smoking, tax never worked, ever. The only thing that really worked, was a systemic campaign that ran for decades, bans on all advertising, terrifying pictures on packs, zero branding etc - most of which was legislation and law, not just tax.

I think we're at a point where if we carry on the way we're going - like America, the cost of preventable metabolic disease will get so high, there won't be much money left for anything else.

 

[Avenged7Fold]

the thing with governments is if there are 2 options to solve a problem: 1 that works and 1 that makes money, they'll always take the second option.

take smoking- they could have banned it outright or raised the age to buy cigarettes by 1 year every year, but instead they chose to go down the tax it to death route.

Ofc.

Just look at these grey packets.

It was never about making them too boring for youths to be tempted to buy, that's ********. When they introduced these packets, the cigarettes were not meant to be on display in the shop anyway and had to be hind a closing door.

Grey packs were about making it much harder for people to sell cigarette without declaring the sale to the taxman. If you have to sell these new UK grey packets, then your only choice is UK suppliers, which are heavily watched. No longer can you sell smokes from outside the UK for huge margins.

This is taken from a 2016 report from the Tobacco manufacturers association:

Tobacco taxation
• Tax on cigarettes is made up of specific duty of £196.42 per 1,000 cigarettes and an ad valorem rate of 16.5% of the Recommended Retail Price3 . VAT is charged in addition.
• A pack of 20 cigarettes with an RRP of £8 will be over 80% tax, while on some of the lowest price cigarettes tax can account for 90%4 .
• Between 2010 and 2016 the average duty burden on cigarettes increased by 50%, while in the case of handrolling tobacco it has increased by 60%5 .
• Excise revenues over the same period were more than £2bn less than forecast .

£12 billion in tax revenue – £9.5 billion in excise duty plus £2.5 billion of VAT – was raised from the sale of tobacco products in 2016. £3bn Lost tax revenues to the illicit market and cross border shopping in 2015-162

Now I am not suggesting cigarettes should be cheaper, just that the government often likes to dress the taxman up as the doctor when giving you the next bill.

 

[jpaul]

Grey packs were about making it much harder for people to sell cigarette without declaring the sale to the taxman. If you have to sell these new UK grey packets, then your only choice is UK suppliers, which are heavily watched. No longer can you sell smokes from outside the UK for huge margins.

it's the converse - they have made it easier for smugglers to duplicate the packets ? they could have requested holograms or more elaborate tracking mechanisms if they wanted to really stop grey imports (can't immediately see stats on seizures, but, it is not black and white)
quelling the 'glamour' of the advertising message of the packets was their motivation.