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Sugar Tax


Sugar Ape
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I'd like to see them cut down on how ubiquitous the excessively unhealthy food is before taking the approach of taxation. If you can only have a certain amount of betting shops in a given vacinity, then the same should apply for stores whose prime business is unhealthy products. Moderation should be considered before punitive costs are brought in.

 

The fact that there seems to be little concern over the proliferation of fast food outlets, coffee shops and expansions to the number of sweets aisles in supermarkets indicates to me that perhaps they don't really care, but would like to make more money off our unhealthiness rather than solving it.

 

Either way, I'm not drinking tea without sugar and I like a chocolate hobnob.

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I'm amazed by the turn around on this topic, me and stronts for it (him less so), the leftie nonces against it. I hope to see this strong stance on people taking responsibility for their own actions and not expecting the state to mollycoddle them carried through to other threads.

Where do you stand on minimum alcohol pricing, rics?

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The British attitude towards food is just backwards compared to other European nations.

 

I spend a lot of time in France due to her family and you don't see any fatties there unless they're super old or not french.  From my observations of her family, friends and the surrender monkeys in general eat cheese by the bucket load, love their sugary sweet soft drinks and drink wine at all hours (and contrary to popular belief it's not "just one glass with a meal" it's shit loads) and cakes.  The french fucking love their cakes, the boulagerie's are chocker block full of them but hardly any of the people are morbs'  

 

On the whole they don't seem to eat processed foods though.  They eat fresh and cook.  You struggle to find a ready meal in a french supermarket and even if you do they're "bio" (organic with minimum shite in) You look at the fish mongers in france and half of the fish is caught off the british isles.  They love british mackerel and you see the little union jack over various types which I'd never even heard of never mind saw being sold in the Uk. 

 

It's the whole food culture in Britain; filthy fried chicken shops on every corner, snackables in lunch boxes, greggs, fast, easy cheap which is the issue IMO not specifically sugar.  I honestly don't think the tax on one specific thing will make a difference.  I used to think education was needed but I don't think it is anymore.  Everyone knows that smoking is bad for you, everyone knows drinking too much is and everyone knows if you eat shitty high fat foods it's also bad for you.

 

Nuke the nation it's a lost cause. 

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Christ ever increasing tax rises on ciggies and alcohol didn't change behaviour. changing how it was sold, where it can be used and making it more socially awkward hit it more than anything else. Ban sweet commercials, stop shops piling tonnes of sweets near the tills, promote healthy living more, stop knocking down fucking parks and football pitches and flogging the land, so at least kids actually have some bastard place to be active. Fine companies for excessive sugar use. Stop with the taxing that solves fuck all except hits those who need the money the most and now are hit even more when they try to treat the kids. Raise the cost and solve nothing. Educate kids in school on the serious effects of sugar not just holes in your teeth but full graphic details and the damage it does, see if they can be smart enough to make their own choices when given the full facts.

 

Fuck em I'm a savory person anyway, and the tories tried to whack vat on that. God I hate those fucks.

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Drivel. Beans, rice and lentils are not a healthy diet.

 

You seem to be attacking a claim I didn't make. Not so much reading between the lines as reading things that aren't there.

 

Of course beans, rice and lentils can form part of a cheap, healthy and balanced diet. But I would certainly suggest you don't limit yourself to three foods as that would probably leave you malnourished.

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I should very we hope a liberal wouldn't support it. That's why I was surprised to read that it didn't bother you.

 

All things being equal, I would be against it. However, society has to cover the cost of treating overuse of sugar, because we have universal healthcare. And I don't think it unreasonable or illiberal for the cost of externalities to be factored into the price of the product.

 

Since I don't have a problem with petrol tax to pay for cleaning up the resulting pollution, or tobacco tax to pay for treating the resulting heart and lung disease, or alcohol tax to pay for treating the resulting addiction and liver disease, then on what basis can I oppose a tax on sugar to pay towards the cost of treating the resulting obesity without being inconsistent?

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When I was a kid when you were knocking around with your mates you always ate shite from coke to sweets, to chocolate to chips but in those days we actually had fields to play football on or cricket in the summer...But guess what there were still fat cunts in our class (or big boned as they used to say)....Kids eating shit is part of growing up...

 

 

We had one, yes one lardy in our school. I can see him now, "Chunky' he was called and he had a high pitched voice and his parents ran a pub. He was bullied a lot (not by me) But more importantly I remember him, that one person in school that was a lardy arse and got shit because of it. 

 

You are right though, they built on those playing fields and kids these days would rather spend hours engrossed watching tv or playing games than go out and play. Socialising in my day was walking round to your mates, now kids moan if they have to walk to the car and socialising is clicking 'like'. Lazy little fuckers. 

 

Shit they even have parking spaces closer to the stores for mothers and children. From what I'm seeing some of those mothers could do with parking a little further away and possibly realising that 'eating for two' ended when they spat the sprogg out. I've  seen fights almost break out when a disabled person has parked in a mothers and kids parking space, yeah fuck that disabled person who is in agony with each step, let that fat cunt with a kid park closer. 

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Usual bollocks. The media terrifies people into keeping their kids indoors for fear of rampaging paedophiles so they don't get any exercise, them bombards them with adverts for shite - to the point where even the likes of the world cup and Olympics are sponsored by McDonalds and coke - then blame people for being overweight and penalise them.

Good food should be subsidised by the government. If I forget my lunch I've got a choice of two pasties for a quid or a sandwich from boots which costs about eight grand. It should be the other way around.

  

Nailed it.

Correct.

 

The cynic in me says the government has shied away from this under pressure from the big food companies although I'm not quite sure why all of a sudden sugar is the new demon. I thought that was supposed to be fat. Why did nobody mention a fat tax?

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Advertising - Peter Andre is the face of Iceland foods replace him with Eric Pickles and show the nation that eating the shite Iceland sell will not have your looking like Peter but more than likely looking like Eric and the parents might sit up and notice and spew there smiley faces and deep fried crispy pancakes for something a bit healthier.

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  • 3 years later...

Tax on snacks would have 'huge impact' on obesity, say experts 

 

A 20% levy on cakes and sweets would be more effective than taxing sugary drinks

 

A snack tax of 20% on biscuits, cakes and sweets would have “a huge impact” on obesity levels in the UK and be more effective than the current levy on colas and other sugary drinks, say experts.

 

But the idea may struggle to get past the current government. Boris Johnson took a stand against “sin stealth taxes” in July, ordering a review and opposing plans to extend the sugary drinks tax to milkshakes, which he said “seems to me to clobber those who can least afford it”.

 

Researchers writing in the British Medical Journal say the UK’s love of sweet snacks means it should consider taxing food as well as drinks, which would lead to a drop in sales especially among families where obesity is a problem and incomes are low.

 

Dr Pauline Scheelbeek from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the lead author of the study, said a snack tax could cut obesity in the UK population from about 28% to about 25%. “That is, on a population level, a huge impact,” she said.

 

In some countries, sugar intake is mostly from drinks, but the UK is keener on sweets and cakes. The research found that for all income groups combined, increasing the price of biscuits, cakes, chocolates and sweets by 20% would reduce annual average energy intake by about 8,900 calories, leading to an average weight loss of 1.3kg over one year. The effect would be greater among the lowest income families, where obesity levels are highest.

 

In contrast, a similar price increase on sugary drinks would result in an average weight loss of 203g over one year.

 

The impact would be greatest on the lowest income groups, leading some critics to call it a regressive tax that would hit the poorest. However, type 2 diabetes, heart attacks and strokes caused by obesity also affect the poorest most, said Scheelbeek.

 

“The burden of non-communicable diseases by itself is regressive,” she said. “The health impact is therefore progressive for people who consume large amounts of these products.

 

“We also saw that low income households have the strongest response to price changes. They won’t necessarily pay these taxes – they will cut these products out.”

 

A subsidy for fruit and vegetables would benefit the most affluent, who eat more of them and would “raise some ethical concerns”, she said.

 

Co-author Susan Jebb, professor of diet and population health at Oxford University and a former government adviser, argues that we need a more open-minded approach to what might work in the fight against obesity than Johnson’s “instinctive” rejection of sin taxes.

 

Many drinks companies have cut sugar from their products or use sweeteners instead, but that sort of reformulation is much harder in foods that need sugar for other reasons, such as to raise cakes or provide texture. Low-sugar confectionery is particularly unlikely to be popular.

 

“The only real option to cut sugar is for people to eat less. Previous efforts to encourage smaller portions have decreased the size of individual bars of chocolate, but coincided with a growth of so-called ‘sharing bags’ with no evidence of any substantive decrease in overall consumption. It’s time for a new approach,” Jebb writes in a commentary with Theresa Marteau from Cambridge University.

 

Fiona Sing of the World Cancer Research Fund said: “The idea of a ‘snack tax’ is very interesting and could be the start of some exciting developments in nutrition and health policy. There is already clear evidence from around the world that taxes are effective, such as in Mexico and Berkeley. So we welcome further research into other taxes on foods high in fat, salt and sugar.”

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On 05/09/2019 at 23:40, Tony Moanero said:

Reduced sugar sweets are shite. Had a bag of Rowntree’s Randoms 30% less sugar a while ago, which tasted disgusting. Chocolate bars will be even worse. 

 

No wonder when you see the shite that goes in them and it's done for no other reason than profit. 

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