Posted on 03/17/2010 12:32:18 PM PDT by presidio9
Is soda the new tobacco?
In their critics’ eyes, producers of sugar-sweetened drinks are acting a lot like the tobacco industry of old: marketing heavily to children, claiming their products are healthy or at worst benign, and lobbying to prevent change. The industry says there are critical differences: in moderate quantities soda isn’t harmful, nor is it addictive.
The problem is that at roughly 50 gallons per person per year, our consumption of soda, not to mention other sugar-sweetened beverages, is far from moderate, and appears to be an important factor in the rise in childhood obesity. This increase is at least partly responsible for a rise in what can no longer be called “adult onset” diabetes — because more and more children are now developing it.
Attention is being paid: Last week, the Obama administration announced a plan to ban candy and sweetened beverages from schools. A campaign against childhood obesity will be led by the first lady, Michelle Obama. And a growing number of public health advocates are pushing for even more aggressive actions, urging that soda be treated like tobacco: with taxes, warning labels and a massive public health marketing campaign, all to discourage consumption.
A tax on soda was one option considered to help pay for health care reform (the Joint Committee on Taxation calculated that a 3-cent tax on each 12-ounce sugared soda would raise $51.6 billion over a decade), and President Obama told Men’s Health magazine last fall that such a tax is “an idea that we should be exploring. There’s no doubt that our kids drink way too much soda.”
But with all the junk food and U.F.O.’s (unidentifiable food-like objects) out there, why soda? Why a tax? And, most important, would it work?
To the beverage industry,
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Soda Pop?
Another Beverage Tax?
Didn’t we fight a war and secede from Britain over another beverage tax?
I agree and I’ve always wondered about the New Coke fiasco, Coke never tasted the same after that I think they just did that so they could substitute the real sugar with the corn sweetenter.
I live near the Mexican border and before Mexico became so anarchic we could buy Real Coke there.
I remember when they used to do the Pepsi/Coke taste tests and I’d tell them no thank you because I liked Coke and I wasn’t going to change my mind. Then they’d challenge me because they said most people couldn’t tell the difference. I told them that not only could I tell the difference but I could tell them whether the Coke came from a 16, 12 or 8 ounce bottle or a can. My brothers made me prove it to them several times.
Will there be a soft-drink extortion agreement with Coke and Pepsico like the tobacco extortion agreement?
Now that SCOTUS has unshacked them for unlimited political message spending, I would hope they just turn Max Headroom loose 24/7 and beat these Democrats into the ground.
This sounds really lame, but when I took that first swig of an ice-cold pepsi throwback last July or August, I felt like I was about eight years old for a moment. It would have been better out of one of those Red-Stripe-shaped 16oz bottles (with the thin styrofoam lables), but even out of a plastic bottle, it was the best tasting soda I've had in 30 years. I can hardly even remember the spiral bottles.
When I was a kid, there was a kid on the block who's dad was a Pepsi executive up in Purchase. I remember they always had the old-fashioned bottles, but they moved when I was about seven.
Thanks, but I'd rather drink warm flat HFCS Pepsi than the best coke I ever had.
Gezzz...That made honk a burp just thinking about that.
Thank you both. I looked for that quote before posting.
Taxes get raised for one reason only - to take more of your money. Anybody who says different like these yahoos, are liars.
The weren't rich enough so " wham bamm thank you mam " boom HFCS!
And ever since then the rise in obesity, diabetes, etc. tracks perfectly on a graph chart with the introduction of HFCS into more aspects of our diet.
"But, that's a good thing!",
says Mr. Sneakyman Inc. VP of Medical profits.
Needless to say, I have never in my life gotten an ounce of sympathy out of that story, but that doesn't mean it still isn't a pain in the ass.
The way it works for me is that I am almost never humgry. I love food, and I like the feeling of being full, I just forget it eat. I frequently go more than a day without eating without noticing. Believe it or not, it is often the sugar from a soda, that shocks my blood sugar, and reminds me that I need to eat. Maybe I can get a perscription from my doctor to show at the deli or bodega so I don't have to pay the tax.
I'll play your game, and assume you are. The moronic article you linked to my thread required my email address. I gave them an old one that I keep for such purposes. The article warns that carbonated beverages cause cancer. Then it goes on to say that most do no cause cancer, but the following do:
•Safeway Select Diet Orange
•Crush Pineapple
•AquaCal Strawberry Flavored Water Beverage
•Crystal Light Sunrise Classic Orange.
•Giant Light Cranberry Juice Cocktail.
So, presumably, as long as we avoid Crush Pineapple and the others, we're in the clear.
What if Coke & Pepsi were on that list? Is it your business what adults chose to do to their bodies? Would Jefferson and Hamilton have agreed with you? Should we outlaw motorcycles and crab fishing?
Soda is crap, sweetened or unsweetened , and I say that as someone who once owned a small vending business in Scottsdale Az. 25 years ago.
I didn’t drink soda of any kind then, while I was in the business, but it was very lucrative for me, for an expenditure of no more than 10 hrs. weekly to buy the product and service the 21 machines.
I could agree with EVERYTHING in any initiative to tell the truth about soda, EXCEPT putting an additional tax on it.
THAT feature is the ONE AND ONLY feature of course, Michelle Obama, our new Obesity Czar, cannot do without.
So I say SCREW HER~
sorry for the mental image-——
I’ve always liked Mark Bittman, but if he goes along with the tax part of this, I like him less.
Soda has even more deleterious effects than helping bring on obesity to those already prone to it: the acids are not good for digestion, and wear away the enamel on teeth, just as white wine does.
I stopped drinking diet soda as of today, interestingly enough.
Four or five hours ago was involved in a discussion on this very subject: someone was talking about the provable handy household uses of Coca Cola for cleaning out toilet bowls, loosening rusty screws, (like WD-40) and a host of other things. THat did it for me. Cold Turkey, just like smoking
five years ago.
I don’t need that kind of stuff in my stomach ,or on my teeth.
And as for Michelle Obama, I would and will much sooner welcome the British food guy Jamie Oliver and try to get us to be more healthful eaters, which is a legitimate desire.
Jamie is in the marketplace of ideas, and is NOT being paid by “government money” (OUR MONEY)
Well, not in a ROW!
I see you're still trying to perpetuate the same, tired myths.
Kathleen J Melanson and others at Rhode Island University reviewed the effects of HFCS and sucrose on circulating levels of glucose, leptin, insulin and ghrelin in a study group of lean women. All four tested substances have been hypothesized to play a role in metabolism and obesity. The study found "no differences in the metabolic effects" of HFCS and sucrose in this short-term study, and called for further similar studies of obese individuals and males. ("Similar effects of high fructose corn syrup and sucrose consumption on circulating levels of glucose, leptin, insulin and ghrelin,"
"A recent study by Martine Perrigue, et al at the University of Washington was presented at the April 2006 meeting of Experimental Biology. ("Hunger and satiety profiles and energy intakes following the ingestion of soft drinks sweetened with sucrose or high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)" Program Abstract # LB433) They concluded:"
.
Oops, looks like you're still wrong. Now, back to CSPI with you.
I don’t advocate a tax on soda by any means, but I don’t think it’s healthy to ingest a lot of this stuff. I used to drink 2-3 Diet Cokes a day but stopped about 10 years ago. Now I don’t drink any non-naturally carbonated drinks and I don’t add sugar or salt to any of my food, and haven’t for a long time. Still, I think people should be free to eat and drink whatever they want without meddling by the government, and certainly without any taxes.
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