I wish Germany would bring its sugar tax that we abolished in 1973 back. To be fair a lot of people are agreeing it has to come back by now, so chances are good that we’ll soon have one again.
I think with Lauterbach as minister we have quite good chances. I was honestly kind of surprised to read that they are attempting to ban supervised drinking. Didn’t think the CSU of all parties would support that
In Germany teenagers between the age of 14 and 16 (which is the legal drinking age) may drink beer, wine and pearl wine in public places such as restaurants as long as they’re supervised by their legal guardians. Obviously in a “reasonable” manner
bruh just ban all sugary drinks, it’s not that hard
They do have their place- just that place isn’t “something you can just drink every day without thinking about”
Unpopular opinion: The really bad ones, not talking about orange juice here, should be treated similarly to energy drinks. Banned for under 16 and taxed high.
I tried for a while to think of their place but there’s nothing I would say is absolutely necessary. What is their place?
There’s nothing inherently wrong with sugary drinks. It’s just how often you have them.
Some people don’t like sugar free and sweeteners come with their own problems.
Exactly. Dose makes the poison. Also, artificially sweetened drinks are all garbage.
There is something inherently wrong with them. It’s liquefied nutrition that’s been designed to create an addiction and provide nothing but calories. It’s marketed as a companion to meals, or as sports drinks, or as a convenient “pick me up”. It’s marketed to children, to poor people without alternatives. They are inherently predatory and harmful to your health.
then you’ll probably end up with a black market of sugary drinks, and people will go to great lengths to get it.
It’s almost as if this happened before with something else
Just ban the sale and don’t enforce it on the black market. That would cover like 90%. It’s not like soda would be banned entirely, so it’s not like any other example. Just drink Coke Zero (or your flavor preference)
It’s people like you that we can’t have nice things. oh some Germans in Germany has started genociding Jews out of existence, so that must mean that all Germans are evil Nazis. you only consider moderation when their is a obvious utility. like oh you don’t need alcohol to survive, but because some people get addicted to alcohol. we must ban alcohol, so no one will get addicted ever again. we seriously need to learn moderation and nuance. we really need to collectively agree that I’m not your mom and neither is the government. Otherwise we will be asking ourselves, what is the point of enjoyment? People who are miserable breath just fine, and if you enjoy something too much you might get addicted.
I agree completely with your comment but I think you probably shouldn’t have brought the Holocaust into it really!
Great! Let’s do the States too!
Philadelphia has a “soda tax” that is effective, but the sugary beverage lobby has spent millions in attack ads and disinformation campaigns. I can’t imagine the shit fit they would throw if it were attempted federally.
Don’t forget the agricultural lobbies, which are huge but rarely talked about. They’ve lobbied for massive subsidies for corn and as a result corn syrup is cheap and used everywhere as a sweetener. A bill restricting it would never make it through the corporatist Congress.
Cook county tried it in Illinois a few years back, and it really made no sense.
It didn’t apply to juices (even though juices are loaded with sugar) and it taxed sugar free sodas the same as their sugar sweetened versions. They charged 1 cent per ounce for the tax. It was repealed 4 months after initiating it.
Imagine what would happen if we taxed capital gains properly 🐸
That’s not because the sugar tax was enough.
It’s because the drink manufacturers mostly just stopped selling the full sugar versions, which kind of sucks for anyone who hates the taste of artificial sweeteners. Even squash like Robinsons became undrinkable. It tastes like battery acid.
There’s only really Coca-Cola left that tastes the same as it did before. Lemon and lime drinks like 7-Up or Sprite almost cover the taste of it, so they’ll do in a pinch. Otherwise I just drink water and cider. Apparently alcoholic drinks don’t need to tell you how many calories are in them either, so I’ll assume it’s none and carry on looking confused when I get on the scales.
It’s because the drink manufacturers mostly just stopped selling the full sugar versions
Which was a result of the sugar tax. They didn’t just suddenly drop the sugar content for no reason.
The sugar tax didn’t include artificial sweeteners? That’s an oversight. Those things are bad for you in ways that are different from digestable sugars.
They’re nowhere near as bad as consuming a huge amount of sugar.
They only cause issues for a vanishingly tiny amount of people that have pre-existing genetic conditions.
Give people options and let the market decide
Who do you think is not giving people options? Because it isn’t the UK government. They didn’t make the drinks illegal. They put a pretty modest tax on them.
So I’m not sure what you want, a law to force Pepsico to sell drinks with sugar in them? Because I think the market wouldn’t be deciding there.
I said this in another comment, but trying to find drinks that don’t use sweeteners is painful nowadays. I can no longer drink most squashes, and my soft drink options are pretty much limited to coca cola (normal pepsi now has sweeteners), sainsbury’s high juice, or rose’s lime cordial…