12 ms·

Sugary drink tax models show health gains, cost reductions, but vary by design

112 points by hhs 6y ago

kop316 6y ago
Is there a link to the actual study? I can't seem to find it on this website.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- cinntaile 6y ago
  https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.119.042956 https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.119.042956
coldpie 6y ago
Sugary drinks are absolutely the next Big Tobacco and should be treated as such. It's promising to see the positive results of the experiments that have been performed worldwide over the past decade or two. Adjusting the prices of these products to better reflect their externalities seems to be the best way to address the problems (as opposed to just banning them, for example), and these studies show that it works.
- bendergarcia 6y ago
  Agree, we need big education campaigns though. So people understand the side effects. Then they can decide to consume sugar at the high price.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Wolfenstein98k 6y ago
In theory, this idea is great. In practice, it's a failure every time. Not every sin need be taxed. https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/the-evidence-is-clear-sugar-taxes-just-dont-work https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/the-evidence-is-...
- ethbro 6y ago
  > Not every sin need be taxed. Absolutely... as long as every individual is willing to pay the full costs of their sins.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - elric 6y ago
    I'm going to have to disagree with that. There are many "sins" that are not entirely (or entirely not) the individual's fault or choice. Addictions are hard to overcome. It's easy to fall into the trap of needing distractions (food, drugs, sex, whatever) because you happen to be stuck in a dead-end job or have family issues or whatever. Making each and every individual responsible for the cost of their own "sins" completely removes society's responsibility for creating the circumstances in the first place.
- Cenk 6y ago
  > In practice, it's a failure every time. The study literally came to the opposite conclusion: > Three types of taxation on sugary drinks lower healthcare costs, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes, but some – such as taxing sugar content – perform even better than taxing based on the volume of the beverage.
  - jfengel 6y ago
    But the study itself is a model, so it's theory rather than practice. I had hoped that the article would be about real world results, but it's really about comparing different results theoretically. Which is also helpful, but not nearly so helpful as data. Actually gathering data is hard. The effects of sugar in the diet take decades to show up, and there are millions of variables and compounding factors. So it's not really a surprise that the article is theoretical rather than practical, but it is disappointing that the headline doesn't make that more prominent. The real-world experiments will be policy, and those policies will have to be driven by these models ahead of there being experimental results. So we have to do it. But we won't know how good they were for a long time.
throwaway4666 6y ago
My (admittedly anecdotal) experience with taxing an addictive/harmful thing "for people's own good" is that it just results in said people cutting their budget to afford the tax, making their life worse overall. This ranges from heroin addicts somehow always finding the daily $$$ to fund their dose, to people mildly grumbling about the price of cigarettes yet buying them anyway. On the other hand, forbidding a thing altogether seems to have disastrously ineffective results too (see: the prohibition, war on drugs, etc.). Maybe a better solution is to simply forbid companies from putting addictive things in their products to sell them, but keep the addictive thing legal, e.g. don't put too much sugar in the soda you make (so people won't expect too much sugar as a matter of course) but let people add sugar to the soda if they really want to. In other words, regulate companies' practices but not individuals'.
- himinlomax 6y ago
  This argument does not fly IMO for sugary drinks, for two reasons: First, there are healthier alternatives. Sugar-free sodas are probably not ideal but they can't be worse than sugary drinks. Second, while sugar may be addictive, it is not that addictive. Some people would murder to fuel an heroin addiction, but no sugar addict would walk a mile to get their fix instead of drinking water. And if they did the exercise would burn some of the calories :)
  - thomasfedb 6y ago
    > Sugar-free sodas are probably not ideal but they can't be worse than sugary drinks. They are very much, comprehensively, most certainly, for sure far better than sugary drinks. Aspartame is safe. The acidity remains an issue for dentition. But the sugar is the real killer.
    - bzb3 6y ago
      Is aspartame really that safe? I thought it altered the intestinal bacteria?
      - 6y ago
bluedino 6y ago
What about taxing high sodium, frozen prepared foods? edit: I appreciate the downvotes, but I feel they have just as much of an impact on public health as sugary drinks.
- rabanne 6y ago
  >high sodium Normal people have ability to filter out sodium from the bloodstream on high intakes without any problem. They might develop problems with the kidney but kidney problems due to sodium is doubtful. I'd say tea is more dangerous for kidney than sodium. But same does not apply for sugar. If you eat excess sugar it will turn into blood sugar, and it will cause insulin to spike. The body eventually stores the excess in fat, but the process is so harsh for the body that it will definitely cause cardiovascular problems and diabetes. Sodium is problematic because it makes us easy to eat carbs (i.e. sugar) more. Try to eat excess sodium by itself or with protein or fat. You really can't. But with carb you can. Sodium isn't toxic per se. Carb is the problem. Thus the sugar tax. Lots of innocent food ingredients have been blamed for cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Fat's been exonerated. But I really dobut that sodium is bad for those two. Fat and sodium have the same thing in common. They make carb taste good. >frozen prepared foods As long as they use good quality ingredients it's OK. Taxing them would make them less profitable and result to using worse ingredients.
  - dredds 6y ago
    Imagine if we taxed pre-existing conditions, like propensity to diabetes or obesity. Your genetics will set your tax bracket. Politically-incorrect enough? Right, so target drinks.. slippery slope.. all sugar. Then people buy the cheaper cuts of meat to afford a soda or two. Bacon ends with huge chunks of fat. Congrats, we just swapped one issue for another. Isn't orange/apple/etc juice full of sugar? What about whole fruits? What about flying in bananas from the other side of the planet? Can we do that with less carbon emissions? I'm just getting started. :P
    - rabanne 6y ago
      Taxing sugary drinks can lead to more consumption of proven-safe sugar subsitutes like saccharin and erythritol. And that's a good thing. It will definitely boost sales of all-subsitute drinks such as diet coke, and regular sugar drinks will try to use low sugar and more sugar subsitutes. We've already seen producers lowering on sugars due to the trend of avoiding sugar. People won't buy cheaper cuts of meat. Producers will try to dodge the tax by using sugar substitutes, and it will result to overall positive effect to the public health. Also, Bacon does not have bad influence on your body. Fat does not cause cardiovascular problems, diabetes or other accusations of diseases it faced in the 70s. Fruit juices are bad for you because of, you guessed it, sugar. Creating an incentive to swap out juices for real fruits? Or an incentive to drive producers to extract sugar and replace them with sugar substitutes? I'm in.
Someone1234 6y ago
No doubt people will arrive shortly to knee-jerk against sugary drink taxes; but would they mind explaining why sugar is made artificially cheap to start with? Obesity massively increased internationally after the mid-1970s US agriculture policy changes ([0]). Specifically look at corn production after the mid 1970s[1]. One of corn's products is HFCS, the massive influx of this sugar substitute drove international raw sugar prices down until 2007[2]. This had the side effect of sugar being a cheaper food ingredient than most of the alternatives, even in countries that didn't directly import HFCS (since the US was no longer removing as much raw sugar from the market, driving down costs). A lot of people who bring up HFCS try to paint it as an even less healthy sugar, my point is more nuanced than that: That HFCS is driving down prices and causing more, even raw sugar, to appear in foods as both sugar/HFCS are subsidized by US aggro policy (and tax payer cash) since between mid-1970s and today. We can pass sugar-drink taxes, but it feels like fixing a leak with duct tape. Instead, we should fix the whole pipe, by changing US aggro policy so that HFCS isn't unnaturally cheap. This will cause both food manufacturers and consumers to consider the healthier and cheaper alternatives. PS - I'm not against sugar-drink taxes as an interim step. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity#History [1] https://suyts.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/image20.png https://suyts.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/image20.png [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:World_raw_sugar_prices_since_1960.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:World_raw_sugar_pric...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- snarf21 6y ago
  You are exactly right. It is a travesty that the food pyramid is provided by the Department of Agriculture and not the Department of Health and Human Services. USDA whole job is to make and sell food at scale to make sure the country can always be fed. They have an insane conflict of interest. We need to stop propping up corn and soybeans.
- briefcomment 6y ago
agurk 6y ago
One thing that's not mentioned in this article (and it's too soon to access the original manuscript) is if they control for how markets change their products in response to the sugar tax. I've noticed after the UK brought in the sugar tax the formulations for a lot of drinks changed to have a lower sugar content with sweetness boosted with artificial sweeteners. This allows them to avoid the sugar tax as they are now lower sugar. I realised this as occasionally when I was in England I'd enjoy something like an Irn-Bru (orange Scottish soda made from girders), but a few years ago I noticed it now tasted horrible to me as I really can't stand artificial sweeteners. Coca-cola seems to be a notable exception that didn't change their formula. Denmark also has a sugar tax (higher than the UK's) but the market kept the existing products and just charged more for them. An interesting example is the original formula Ribena (blackcurrant cordial) is made in England and freely available in Denmark, but the new formulation (less sugar, more sweeteners, less fruit juice, more thickeners) is the only one available in the UK. It'd be interesting to see if there was an effect from sweet drinks now being a different thing in the UK and if that's a positive outcome from the legislation. I certainly avoid most soft drinks now when in the UK.
- vidarh 6y ago
  > Coca-cola seems to be a notable exception that didn't change their formula. Coca Cola is an interesting one in that the Coca Cola Zero Sugar introduction seemed to have been mostly about introducing a replacement for Coke Zero that had labeling making it easier to confuse with regular Coke, with the design dominated by the "regular" red and just some black added (in Europe; in some other markets the design is more distinct from regular Coke) > blackcurrant cordial Interestingly, blackcurrant is almost exclusively a European thing (99%+ of production).
  - user5994461 6y ago
    >>> Interestingly, blackcurrant is almost exclusively a European thing (99%+ of production). It's a UK thing as far as I am aware. Never seen it in any quantity outside of the UK.
    - 6y ago
rantwasp 6y ago
as far as health effects and addictiveness imho sugar should be classified as a schedule I drug (the whole idea of banning drugs is stupid - but i’m saying this as an indication of how bad it is) people just don’t get how harmful it is. sugar and alcohol are two things that - although socially acceptable - everyone should avoid in everyday life.
- dredds 6y ago
  I think caveat emptor also applies in this case. We don't ban sky-diving, or any other extreme sports to protect people's life or health. .. "the principle that the buyer alone is responsible for checking the quality and suitability of goods before a purchase is made."
  - rantwasp 6y ago
    sure. in the end you’re responsible for the choices you make. it’s just that it’s stupid hard to eat a healthy diet based on what you normally find in your average supermarket. sugar and added sugars are the norm. it’s also shocking - to me - seeing people attempt to minimize the health impact of sugar.
    - dredds 6y ago
      People actually travel to Asia for their cheap and delicious food. Rice takes a little more effort, but so does exercise. Recipes are free.
- jfengel 6y ago
  It literally can't be a schedule I drug. Schedule I implies that there is no valid medical use. Diabetics would disagree. Glucose is a critical tool in managing their blood sugar. Perhaps you could make the case for sucrose itself, but some kind of sugar must be available.
  - rantwasp 6y ago
    the schedule I was an exaggeration to emphasize how bad it really is.
standardUser 6y ago
I still don't understand the approach to these taxes. Why single out one very specific form of food with added sugar? If added sugar is contributing to a health crisis - and I believe it is - then taxing it may be a reasonable way to address that crisis. But focusing on such a narrow subsection of foods with added sugar seems insufficient and just plain bizarre. Do you never eat candy bars or sugary pastries but enjoy soda sometimes? You get taxed. Do you eat piles of candy bars and sugary pastries everyday but never drink soda? No tax for you! What?
- sesuximo 6y ago
  I think since the us govt sponsors corn syrup (correct me if I’m wrong), it would be weird for them to also tax the same thing. They could... you know... do neither thing...
  - nerdponx 6y ago
    It makes perfect sense. It's income redistribution from American food consumers to Big Ag shareholders.
  - dredds 6y ago
    Yes. Or otherwise we should get a full rebate for running or other exercise. Send in a BMI receipt with your yearly tax refund request. Now that is some serious job creation!
- coldpie 6y ago
  Because they've studied this and "sugary drinks remain the largest source of added sugars intake in the U.S." (quote from the article). If sugary pastries and candy bars were the largest source, they would be targeting those, but they aren't, so they don't.
  - tom_mellior 6y ago
    But why only tax the "largest source"? It might make sense if it's 90% sugary drinks vs. 10% sugary pastries and candy, and if for some reason taxes on pastries and candy were hard to calculate or collect. It would make less sense if it's 51% sugary drinks vs. 49% pastries/candy. And taxing sugar-the-substrance directly would make the tax easier to compute and to collect at the source as well. The real reason for targeting sugary drinks vs. fancy patisserie is that the drinkers of sugary drinks tend to be less well off than the eaters of fancy patisserie and less likely to have a political lobby.
Proven 6y ago
What they don't show is diminished utility to people who consume them. You're too stupid to decide for yourself what to drink, so the government has to push you around according to a "model" designed by "experts".
momokoko 6y ago
I was just thinking the other day how refreshing it was that HN had not had many diet and nutrition links on the front page recently. Like this one, they tend to be filled with highly polarized and extremists views and conspiracy theories with very little hard science or data to back things up. I thought it had already happened, but I hope someday these topics can be penalized from ranking highly like other issues that tend to have very low quality discussion. Edit: To clarify, I’m referring to the discussion here on HN as opposed to the article.
- MichaelApproved 6y ago
  Why not share specific examples from this article instead of generalizing?
mberning 6y ago
It will disproportionately punish low income people, just like all other “sin” taxes. I would prefer to see a campaign of public education and encouragement towards healthier alternatives. In the US we have had very good success in curbing tobacco consumption without resorting to crazy high taxes like Australia and New Zealand.
- bendergarcia 6y ago
  We definitely need education. It will affect poor people for sure, but with more taxes collected ideally more us put towards food education and programs. Same way it has worked for tabacco
- dredds 6y ago
  Exactly. "Death & taxes" both being certain is not a passing coincidence. What is the relationship of poverty to death rate? Oh, wait, so poverty kills more people than sugar? Who knew.
rootusrootus 6y ago
I am skeptical. The gov't has a demonstrated record of acting on bad nutritional 'science' when making policy, so why should we trust them to do a better job this time? We've certainly been convinced in the past that we had all the right information, only to find out we did not. And the consequences have been catastrophic.
ebg13 6y ago
I'm hugely in favor of sugar consumption taxes as a matter of public health, but the premise of these taxes always seems to be a bullshit facade where the "-y" in the word "sugary" outweighs the "sugar" part. For instance, the article says: > In the U.S., seven cities (Philadelphia... currently have volume-based taxes for sugary drinks Philadelphia has a tax on certain beverages that has very little to do with whether those beverages contain sugar or not. Diet sodas and low-carb protein drinks (think atkins meal replacements) are taxed heavily in Philadelphia. 100% juice is not. What Philadelphia has is a "sweetened beverage" tax that specifically doesn't care about sugar, regardless of health consequence, regardless of how it is sweetened, regardless of how much sugar exists in the product "naturally". The other cities do specifically target sugar-sweetened beverages, and then exempt 100% fruit juice despite Minute Maid 100% Apple Juice containing even more sugar than Coca-Cola.
- dominotw 6y ago
  > even more sugar than Coca-Cola. would you target a vanilla latte? What if you get latte without sugar?
  - ebg13 6y ago
    > would you target a vanilla latte? My first line started with "I'm hugely in favor of sugar consumption taxes". I don't understand which part of that was unclear, but I'll attempt to clarify. > What if you get latte without sugar? True fact: milk has sugar in it. I favor a model that taxes proportionally by total mg/ml, not just "added". This is what the American Heart Association advocates for too, though even they dance around the fruit juice problem.
    - nightski 6y ago
      I understand sugar is unhealthy. In fact I have been on keto for several years and consume < 30g of carbs each day. What I don't understand is why people want the government dictating diet through taxes. It only affects poor people anyways. So sugar is OK for the rich but bad for the poor? So stupid.
pmlnr 6y ago
Yeah, because everything is with sweeteners, and thus undrinkable, so people instead avoid all of them.
user5994461 6y ago
The tax worked amazingly well in the UK. Right after it went into effect. Ribena cut sugar by half in all their drinks, to fall under the floor of the higher tax rate. I'm saying Ribena because that's the free drinks we had the most of in the company fridges. All other vendors of artificial drinks did the same overnight.
Synaesthesia 6y ago
In South Africa they’ve now reduced the amount of sugar in soda (we call them coolrdrinks). However they’ve added artificial sweeteners to make up for the lost sweetness, which I don’t like. I would prefer it just with less sugar and that’s it.
dennis_jeeves 6y ago
Taxing is a slippery slope to tyranny. I'm no fan of sugar but will not oppose or restrict someone who wants to have sugar. Side note: there appears to be therapeutic benefits of sugar (for diabetes and other conditions) that I have read but I have not been able to confirm.
Ancalagon 6y ago
This PBS documentary on sugar and diabetes was incredibly eye-opening for me: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/blood-sugar-rising/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/blood-sugar-rising/ I had no idea America was on track for 50% of the population to be pre-diabetic by 2025, and that a vast majority of americans would be overweight or obese in the next 20 years. Its really made clear to me that I need to be 100% about what I'm putting in my body, and if you look at the ingredients of most food in grocery stores, you find it has some level of sugar. Its also drawn my attention to my own sugar and carb addiction tendencies. As much as I know I should not eat that bar of chocolate, even having the option available sways me to buy it. To round out my own opinions: sugar is the next tobacco and should be regulated as such.

112 points by hhs 6y ago

kop316 6y ago

Is there a link to the actual study? I can't seem to find it on this website.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cinntaile 6y ago
https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.119.042956 https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.119.042956

coldpie 6y ago

Sugary drinks are absolutely the next Big Tobacco and should be treated as such. It's promising to see the positive results of the experiments that have been performed worldwide over the past decade or two. Adjusting the prices of these products to better reflect their externalities seems to be the best way to address the problems (as opposed to just banning them, for example), and these studies show that it works.

bendergarcia 6y ago
Agree, we need big education campaigns though. So people understand the side effects. Then they can decide to consume sugar at the high price.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Wolfenstein98k 6y ago

In theory, this idea is great. In practice, it's a failure every time. Not every sin need be taxed. https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/the-evidence-is-clear-sugar-taxes-just-dont-work https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/the-evidence-is-...

ethbro 6y ago
> Not every sin need be taxed. Absolutely... as long as every individual is willing to pay the full costs of their sins.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- elric 6y ago
  I'm going to have to disagree with that. There are many "sins" that are not entirely (or entirely not) the individual's fault or choice. Addictions are hard to overcome. It's easy to fall into the trap of needing distractions (food, drugs, sex, whatever) because you happen to be stuck in a dead-end job or have family issues or whatever. Making each and every individual responsible for the cost of their own "sins" completely removes society's responsibility for creating the circumstances in the first place.
Cenk 6y ago
> In practice, it's a failure every time. The study literally came to the opposite conclusion: > Three types of taxation on sugary drinks lower healthcare costs, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes, but some – such as taxing sugar content – perform even better than taxing based on the volume of the beverage.
- jfengel 6y ago
  But the study itself is a model, so it's theory rather than practice. I had hoped that the article would be about real world results, but it's really about comparing different results theoretically. Which is also helpful, but not nearly so helpful as data. Actually gathering data is hard. The effects of sugar in the diet take decades to show up, and there are millions of variables and compounding factors. So it's not really a surprise that the article is theoretical rather than practical, but it is disappointing that the headline doesn't make that more prominent. The real-world experiments will be policy, and those policies will have to be driven by these models ahead of there being experimental results. So we have to do it. But we won't know how good they were for a long time.

throwaway4666 6y ago

My (admittedly anecdotal) experience with taxing an addictive/harmful thing "for people's own good" is that it just results in said people cutting their budget to afford the tax, making their life worse overall. This ranges from heroin addicts somehow always finding the daily $$$ to fund their dose, to people mildly grumbling about the price of cigarettes yet buying them anyway. On the other hand, forbidding a thing altogether seems to have disastrously ineffective results too (see: the prohibition, war on drugs, etc.). Maybe a better solution is to simply forbid companies from putting addictive things in their products to sell them, but keep the addictive thing legal, e.g. don't put too much sugar in the soda you make (so people won't expect too much sugar as a matter of course) but let people add sugar to the soda if they really want to. In other words, regulate companies' practices but not individuals'.

himinlomax 6y ago
This argument does not fly IMO for sugary drinks, for two reasons: First, there are healthier alternatives. Sugar-free sodas are probably not ideal but they can't be worse than sugary drinks. Second, while sugar may be addictive, it is not that addictive. Some people would murder to fuel an heroin addiction, but no sugar addict would walk a mile to get their fix instead of drinking water. And if they did the exercise would burn some of the calories :)
- thomasfedb 6y ago
  > Sugar-free sodas are probably not ideal but they can't be worse than sugary drinks. They are very much, comprehensively, most certainly, for sure far better than sugary drinks. Aspartame is safe. The acidity remains an issue for dentition. But the sugar is the real killer.
  - bzb3 6y ago
    Is aspartame really that safe? I thought it altered the intestinal bacteria?
    - 6y ago

bluedino 6y ago

What about taxing high sodium, frozen prepared foods? edit: I appreciate the downvotes, but I feel they have just as much of an impact on public health as sugary drinks.

rabanne 6y ago
>high sodium Normal people have ability to filter out sodium from the bloodstream on high intakes without any problem. They might develop problems with the kidney but kidney problems due to sodium is doubtful. I'd say tea is more dangerous for kidney than sodium. But same does not apply for sugar. If you eat excess sugar it will turn into blood sugar, and it will cause insulin to spike. The body eventually stores the excess in fat, but the process is so harsh for the body that it will definitely cause cardiovascular problems and diabetes. Sodium is problematic because it makes us easy to eat carbs (i.e. sugar) more. Try to eat excess sodium by itself or with protein or fat. You really can't. But with carb you can. Sodium isn't toxic per se. Carb is the problem. Thus the sugar tax. Lots of innocent food ingredients have been blamed for cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Fat's been exonerated. But I really dobut that sodium is bad for those two. Fat and sodium have the same thing in common. They make carb taste good. >frozen prepared foods As long as they use good quality ingredients it's OK. Taxing them would make them less profitable and result to using worse ingredients.
- dredds 6y ago
  Imagine if we taxed pre-existing conditions, like propensity to diabetes or obesity. Your genetics will set your tax bracket. Politically-incorrect enough? Right, so target drinks.. slippery slope.. all sugar. Then people buy the cheaper cuts of meat to afford a soda or two. Bacon ends with huge chunks of fat. Congrats, we just swapped one issue for another. Isn't orange/apple/etc juice full of sugar? What about whole fruits? What about flying in bananas from the other side of the planet? Can we do that with less carbon emissions? I'm just getting started. :P
  - rabanne 6y ago
    Taxing sugary drinks can lead to more consumption of proven-safe sugar subsitutes like saccharin and erythritol. And that's a good thing. It will definitely boost sales of all-subsitute drinks such as diet coke, and regular sugar drinks will try to use low sugar and more sugar subsitutes. We've already seen producers lowering on sugars due to the trend of avoiding sugar. People won't buy cheaper cuts of meat. Producers will try to dodge the tax by using sugar substitutes, and it will result to overall positive effect to the public health. Also, Bacon does not have bad influence on your body. Fat does not cause cardiovascular problems, diabetes or other accusations of diseases it faced in the 70s. Fruit juices are bad for you because of, you guessed it, sugar. Creating an incentive to swap out juices for real fruits? Or an incentive to drive producers to extract sugar and replace them with sugar substitutes? I'm in.

Someone1234 6y ago

No doubt people will arrive shortly to knee-jerk against sugary drink taxes; but would they mind explaining why sugar is made artificially cheap to start with? Obesity massively increased internationally after the mid-1970s US agriculture policy changes ([0]). Specifically look at corn production after the mid 1970s[1]. One of corn's products is HFCS, the massive influx of this sugar substitute drove international raw sugar prices down until 2007[2]. This had the side effect of sugar being a cheaper food ingredient than most of the alternatives, even in countries that didn't directly import HFCS (since the US was no longer removing as much raw sugar from the market, driving down costs). A lot of people who bring up HFCS try to paint it as an even less healthy sugar, my point is more nuanced than that: That HFCS is driving down prices and causing more, even raw sugar, to appear in foods as both sugar/HFCS are subsidized by US aggro policy (and tax payer cash) since between mid-1970s and today. We can pass sugar-drink taxes, but it feels like fixing a leak with duct tape. Instead, we should fix the whole pipe, by changing US aggro policy so that HFCS isn't unnaturally cheap. This will cause both food manufacturers and consumers to consider the healthier and cheaper alternatives. PS - I'm not against sugar-drink taxes as an interim step. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity#History [1] https://suyts.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/image20.png https://suyts.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/image20.png [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:World_raw_sugar_prices_since_1960.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:World_raw_sugar_pric...

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
snarf21 6y ago
You are exactly right. It is a travesty that the food pyramid is provided by the Department of Agriculture and not the Department of Health and Human Services. USDA whole job is to make and sell food at scale to make sure the country can always be fed. They have an insane conflict of interest. We need to stop propping up corn and soybeans.
briefcomment 6y ago

agurk 6y ago

One thing that's not mentioned in this article (and it's too soon to access the original manuscript) is if they control for how markets change their products in response to the sugar tax. I've noticed after the UK brought in the sugar tax the formulations for a lot of drinks changed to have a lower sugar content with sweetness boosted with artificial sweeteners. This allows them to avoid the sugar tax as they are now lower sugar. I realised this as occasionally when I was in England I'd enjoy something like an Irn-Bru (orange Scottish soda made from girders), but a few years ago I noticed it now tasted horrible to me as I really can't stand artificial sweeteners. Coca-cola seems to be a notable exception that didn't change their formula. Denmark also has a sugar tax (higher than the UK's) but the market kept the existing products and just charged more for them. An interesting example is the original formula Ribena (blackcurrant cordial) is made in England and freely available in Denmark, but the new formulation (less sugar, more sweeteners, less fruit juice, more thickeners) is the only one available in the UK. It'd be interesting to see if there was an effect from sweet drinks now being a different thing in the UK and if that's a positive outcome from the legislation. I certainly avoid most soft drinks now when in the UK.

vidarh 6y ago
> Coca-cola seems to be a notable exception that didn't change their formula. Coca Cola is an interesting one in that the Coca Cola Zero Sugar introduction seemed to have been mostly about introducing a replacement for Coke Zero that had labeling making it easier to confuse with regular Coke, with the design dominated by the "regular" red and just some black added (in Europe; in some other markets the design is more distinct from regular Coke) > blackcurrant cordial Interestingly, blackcurrant is almost exclusively a European thing (99%+ of production).
- user5994461 6y ago
  >>> Interestingly, blackcurrant is almost exclusively a European thing (99%+ of production). It's a UK thing as far as I am aware. Never seen it in any quantity outside of the UK.
  - 6y ago

rantwasp 6y ago

as far as health effects and addictiveness imho sugar should be classified as a schedule I drug (the whole idea of banning drugs is stupid - but i’m saying this as an indication of how bad it is) people just don’t get how harmful it is. sugar and alcohol are two things that - although socially acceptable - everyone should avoid in everyday life.

dredds 6y ago
I think caveat emptor also applies in this case. We don't ban sky-diving, or any other extreme sports to protect people's life or health. .. "the principle that the buyer alone is responsible for checking the quality and suitability of goods before a purchase is made."
- rantwasp 6y ago
  sure. in the end you’re responsible for the choices you make. it’s just that it’s stupid hard to eat a healthy diet based on what you normally find in your average supermarket. sugar and added sugars are the norm. it’s also shocking - to me - seeing people attempt to minimize the health impact of sugar.
  - dredds 6y ago
    People actually travel to Asia for their cheap and delicious food. Rice takes a little more effort, but so does exercise. Recipes are free.
jfengel 6y ago
It literally can't be a schedule I drug. Schedule I implies that there is no valid medical use. Diabetics would disagree. Glucose is a critical tool in managing their blood sugar. Perhaps you could make the case for sucrose itself, but some kind of sugar must be available.
- rantwasp 6y ago
  the schedule I was an exaggeration to emphasize how bad it really is.

standardUser 6y ago

I still don't understand the approach to these taxes. Why single out one very specific form of food with added sugar? If added sugar is contributing to a health crisis - and I believe it is - then taxing it may be a reasonable way to address that crisis. But focusing on such a narrow subsection of foods with added sugar seems insufficient and just plain bizarre. Do you never eat candy bars or sugary pastries but enjoy soda sometimes? You get taxed. Do you eat piles of candy bars and sugary pastries everyday but never drink soda? No tax for you! What?

sesuximo 6y ago
I think since the us govt sponsors corn syrup (correct me if I’m wrong), it would be weird for them to also tax the same thing. They could... you know... do neither thing...
- nerdponx 6y ago
  It makes perfect sense. It's income redistribution from American food consumers to Big Ag shareholders.
- dredds 6y ago
  Yes. Or otherwise we should get a full rebate for running or other exercise. Send in a BMI receipt with your yearly tax refund request. Now that is some serious job creation!
coldpie 6y ago
Because they've studied this and "sugary drinks remain the largest source of added sugars intake in the U.S." (quote from the article). If sugary pastries and candy bars were the largest source, they would be targeting those, but they aren't, so they don't.
- tom_mellior 6y ago
  But why only tax the "largest source"? It might make sense if it's 90% sugary drinks vs. 10% sugary pastries and candy, and if for some reason taxes on pastries and candy were hard to calculate or collect. It would make less sense if it's 51% sugary drinks vs. 49% pastries/candy. And taxing sugar-the-substrance directly would make the tax easier to compute and to collect at the source as well. The real reason for targeting sugary drinks vs. fancy patisserie is that the drinkers of sugary drinks tend to be less well off than the eaters of fancy patisserie and less likely to have a political lobby.

Proven 6y ago

What they don't show is diminished utility to people who consume them. You're too stupid to decide for yourself what to drink, so the government has to push you around according to a "model" designed by "experts".

momokoko 6y ago

I was just thinking the other day how refreshing it was that HN had not had many diet and nutrition links on the front page recently. Like this one, they tend to be filled with highly polarized and extremists views and conspiracy theories with very little hard science or data to back things up. I thought it had already happened, but I hope someday these topics can be penalized from ranking highly like other issues that tend to have very low quality discussion. Edit: To clarify, I’m referring to the discussion here on HN as opposed to the article.

MichaelApproved 6y ago
Why not share specific examples from this article instead of generalizing?

mberning 6y ago

It will disproportionately punish low income people, just like all other “sin” taxes. I would prefer to see a campaign of public education and encouragement towards healthier alternatives. In the US we have had very good success in curbing tobacco consumption without resorting to crazy high taxes like Australia and New Zealand.

bendergarcia 6y ago
We definitely need education. It will affect poor people for sure, but with more taxes collected ideally more us put towards food education and programs. Same way it has worked for tabacco
dredds 6y ago
Exactly. "Death & taxes" both being certain is not a passing coincidence. What is the relationship of poverty to death rate? Oh, wait, so poverty kills more people than sugar? Who knew.

rootusrootus 6y ago

I am skeptical. The gov't has a demonstrated record of acting on bad nutritional 'science' when making policy, so why should we trust them to do a better job this time? We've certainly been convinced in the past that we had all the right information, only to find out we did not. And the consequences have been catastrophic.

ebg13 6y ago

I'm hugely in favor of sugar consumption taxes as a matter of public health, but the premise of these taxes always seems to be a bullshit facade where the "-y" in the word "sugary" outweighs the "sugar" part. For instance, the article says: > In the U.S., seven cities (Philadelphia... currently have volume-based taxes for sugary drinks Philadelphia has a tax on certain beverages that has very little to do with whether those beverages contain sugar or not. Diet sodas and low-carb protein drinks (think atkins meal replacements) are taxed heavily in Philadelphia. 100% juice is not. What Philadelphia has is a "sweetened beverage" tax that specifically doesn't care about sugar, regardless of health consequence, regardless of how it is sweetened, regardless of how much sugar exists in the product "naturally". The other cities do specifically target sugar-sweetened beverages, and then exempt 100% fruit juice despite Minute Maid 100% Apple Juice containing even more sugar than Coca-Cola.

dominotw 6y ago
> even more sugar than Coca-Cola. would you target a vanilla latte? What if you get latte without sugar?
- ebg13 6y ago
  > would you target a vanilla latte? My first line started with "I'm hugely in favor of sugar consumption taxes". I don't understand which part of that was unclear, but I'll attempt to clarify. > What if you get latte without sugar? True fact: milk has sugar in it. I favor a model that taxes proportionally by total mg/ml, not just "added". This is what the American Heart Association advocates for too, though even they dance around the fruit juice problem.
  - nightski 6y ago
    I understand sugar is unhealthy. In fact I have been on keto for several years and consume < 30g of carbs each day. What I don't understand is why people want the government dictating diet through taxes. It only affects poor people anyways. So sugar is OK for the rich but bad for the poor? So stupid.

pmlnr 6y ago

Yeah, because everything is with sweeteners, and thus undrinkable, so people instead avoid all of them.

user5994461 6y ago

The tax worked amazingly well in the UK. Right after it went into effect. Ribena cut sugar by half in all their drinks, to fall under the floor of the higher tax rate. I'm saying Ribena because that's the free drinks we had the most of in the company fridges. All other vendors of artificial drinks did the same overnight.

Synaesthesia 6y ago

In South Africa they’ve now reduced the amount of sugar in soda (we call them coolrdrinks). However they’ve added artificial sweeteners to make up for the lost sweetness, which I don’t like. I would prefer it just with less sugar and that’s it.

dennis_jeeves 6y ago

Taxing is a slippery slope to tyranny. I'm no fan of sugar but will not oppose or restrict someone who wants to have sugar. Side note: there appears to be therapeutic benefits of sugar (for diabetes and other conditions) that I have read but I have not been able to confirm.

Ancalagon 6y ago

This PBS documentary on sugar and diabetes was incredibly eye-opening for me: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/blood-sugar-rising/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/blood-sugar-rising/ I had no idea America was on track for 50% of the population to be pre-diabetic by 2025, and that a vast majority of americans would be overweight or obese in the next 20 years. Its really made clear to me that I need to be 100% about what I'm putting in my body, and if you look at the ingredients of most food in grocery stores, you find it has some level of sugar. Its also drawn my attention to my own sugar and carb addiction tendencies. As much as I know I should not eat that bar of chocolate, even having the option available sways me to buy it. To round out my own opinions: sugar is the next tobacco and should be regulated as such.