5 ms·

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"

by 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.
    - ebg13 6y ago
      > What I don't understand is why people want the government dictating diet through taxes. Public health is public. > It only affects poor people anyways. True fact: poor people in the US suffer obesity at higher rates than rich people do because cheap foods are more packed full of sugar. Unregulated pollution of the poor diet is a class equity issue. The market response when sugar is penalized _correctly_ is that cheaper foods become more healthful, not that the price floor increases.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - nightski 6y ago
        They become more healthful at the same cost? I find that highly unlikely. What you are doing is raising the cost of food across the board. Sugar is used to make bad food more palatable. Taking away the sugar isn't going to make that food healthy and delicious at the same price point. Instead it's a regressive tax on the poor and gives the government even more power over controlling the daily lives of it's citizens. I could get behind subsidizing fresh meat and vegetables. But artificially making food more expensive seems ridiculous.
        ebg13 6y ago
        > They become more healthful at the same cost? I find that highly unlikely. What you are doing is raising the cost of food across the board. There is a real limit to how much food expenditure in general can increase. If prices had safe room to go up, they'd already be higher. You can see this by just looking at the price differences between poor area grocery stores and wealthy area grocery stores. There's a reason why poor people don't shop at Whole Foods, and it isn't because they don't like mochi ice cream and espresso bars. A very large percentage of people in the US actually don't have extra money to spend. On top of that, you're imagining that literally everything has and needs to have a bunch of sugar in it when that's just not true. What people will do first is switch to foods with less sugar, even if they don't like it as much, because the vast majority of grocery buyers are both extremely price sensitive and also adaptable. > I could get behind subsidizing fresh meat and vegetables. 1. We do that already. 2. You're the only one suggesting that a tax on sugar can't go directly and completely to additional consumer-side price subsidization of fresh meat and vegetables. I think that would be great and fully inline with the goal of taxing sugar in the first place.
  - alistairSH 6y ago
    What's the "fruit juice problem"? At the end of the day, it's a sugary beverage. Why shouldn't it be taxed in the same way as any other sweet drink.
    - ebg13 6y ago
      > What's the "fruit juice problem"? The fruit juice problem is that fruit juice is basically just sugar water but nobody in the general public seems to realize or care and medical associations continue to drop the ball. The American Academy of Pediatrics only recently started saying to not give children juice. The American Heart Association should be hammering that drum loudly when talking about sugar in drinks...but they don't. > At the end of the day, it's a sugary beverage. Why shouldn't it be taxed in the same way as any other sweet drink. Correct, it _should_ be taxed. But municipalities keep exempting it despite extremely high sugar content because people are brainwashed into thinking that fruit juice is healthful and magically forgetting all the sugar.
      - alistairSH 6y ago
        Got it, I thought the parent comment was arguing for the status quo (keeping fruit juice untaxed). The other thing that amuses me is the size of juice servings in the US vs UK. I enjoy a glass of OJ with breakfast. In the UK, that's a little "half-size" glass and in the US it's a full-size water glass (pint?). I much prefer the UK size (though admittedly, I'm also consuming coffee and water at the same time).
    - tomjen3 6y ago
      Juice is considered unhealthy, so there will almost certainly be a huge backslash if sugar taxes are slapped on it. Also it seems a little more complicated than gp pointed out: natural sugar in fruit doesn't (as far as I remember) have the same impact that the sugar in juice made by the same fruit would have. Something about the sugar being digested slower because it is bound in the fibers that are destroyed when the fruit is made into sugar.

by ebg13 6y ago

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.
  - ebg13 6y ago
    > What I don't understand is why people want the government dictating diet through taxes. Public health is public. > It only affects poor people anyways. True fact: poor people in the US suffer obesity at higher rates than rich people do because cheap foods are more packed full of sugar. Unregulated pollution of the poor diet is a class equity issue. The market response when sugar is penalized _correctly_ is that cheaper foods become more healthful, not that the price floor increases.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - nightski 6y ago
      They become more healthful at the same cost? I find that highly unlikely. What you are doing is raising the cost of food across the board. Sugar is used to make bad food more palatable. Taking away the sugar isn't going to make that food healthy and delicious at the same price point. Instead it's a regressive tax on the poor and gives the government even more power over controlling the daily lives of it's citizens. I could get behind subsidizing fresh meat and vegetables. But artificially making food more expensive seems ridiculous.
      - ebg13 6y ago
        > They become more healthful at the same cost? I find that highly unlikely. What you are doing is raising the cost of food across the board. There is a real limit to how much food expenditure in general can increase. If prices had safe room to go up, they'd already be higher. You can see this by just looking at the price differences between poor area grocery stores and wealthy area grocery stores. There's a reason why poor people don't shop at Whole Foods, and it isn't because they don't like mochi ice cream and espresso bars. A very large percentage of people in the US actually don't have extra money to spend. On top of that, you're imagining that literally everything has and needs to have a bunch of sugar in it when that's just not true. What people will do first is switch to foods with less sugar, even if they don't like it as much, because the vast majority of grocery buyers are both extremely price sensitive and also adaptable. > I could get behind subsidizing fresh meat and vegetables. 1. We do that already. 2. You're the only one suggesting that a tax on sugar can't go directly and completely to additional consumer-side price subsidization of fresh meat and vegetables. I think that would be great and fully inline with the goal of taxing sugar in the first place.
- alistairSH 6y ago
  What's the "fruit juice problem"? At the end of the day, it's a sugary beverage. Why shouldn't it be taxed in the same way as any other sweet drink.
  - ebg13 6y ago
    > What's the "fruit juice problem"? The fruit juice problem is that fruit juice is basically just sugar water but nobody in the general public seems to realize or care and medical associations continue to drop the ball. The American Academy of Pediatrics only recently started saying to not give children juice. The American Heart Association should be hammering that drum loudly when talking about sugar in drinks...but they don't. > At the end of the day, it's a sugary beverage. Why shouldn't it be taxed in the same way as any other sweet drink. Correct, it _should_ be taxed. But municipalities keep exempting it despite extremely high sugar content because people are brainwashed into thinking that fruit juice is healthful and magically forgetting all the sugar.
    - alistairSH 6y ago
      Got it, I thought the parent comment was arguing for the status quo (keeping fruit juice untaxed). The other thing that amuses me is the size of juice servings in the US vs UK. I enjoy a glass of OJ with breakfast. In the UK, that's a little "half-size" glass and in the US it's a full-size water glass (pint?). I much prefer the UK size (though admittedly, I'm also consuming coffee and water at the same time).
  - tomjen3 6y ago
    Juice is considered unhealthy, so there will almost certainly be a huge backslash if sugar taxes are slapped on it. Also it seems a little more complicated than gp pointed out: natural sugar in fruit doesn't (as far as I remember) have the same impact that the sugar in juice made by the same fruit would have. Something about the sugar being digested slower because it is bound in the fibers that are destroyed when the fruit is made into sugar.