this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2024

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The amount of sugar consumed by children from soft drinks in the UK halved within a year of the sugar tax being introduced, a study has found. (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Cough Cough... Now follow suit America. I am sick of seeing people being so unhealthy and addicted to this drug.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago (2 children)

The comments here are incredible. Are we being botted by Big Sugar?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

No, people are just gullible and love to feel like they know something everyone else doesn't

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

A billion dollar industry would never do such a thing.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

That, and sugar is insanely addictive.

[+] [email protected] -20 points 2 months ago (3 children)

As someone with an intolerance to artificial sweeteners, I'll never forgive Jamie Oliver for pushing the sugar tax, alongside his insistence on "improving" school meals that resulted in mass outsourcing of school food to the lowest bidder.

Kids aren't drinking less soft drinks than before, the drinks themselves have just replaced sugar with chemicals and byproducts that aren't particularly healthy themselves...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Have you considered drinking unsweetened stuff? Either plain water, or "flavoured" water. Basically soda without any sugar or sweeteners. It's surprisingly tasty, and pretty much as healthy as pure water.

Alternatively there are tons of different sweeteners. Some like stevia should be fine even if you have issues with, say, aspartame.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Sadly, Stevia doesn't agree with me either, although I don't feel as ill as if I have drinks with aspartame, which is what most drinks in the UK use.

I recently bought a soda stream for just this, since I now mostly drink sparkling water. There aren't many cordials here that don't use a sweetener, and many of my previously favourite kombucha brands now use aspartame - but there's enough to have some choice.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The point that should be taken from your comment is not that they replaced the sugar with something else because we dont yet know if the aspartame is better or worse than sugar, though we do k ow that sugar is bad in large quantities.

What should be noted is that the study found that sugar consumption has halved, which seems to be a no brainer as the majority of soft drinks either contain half the amount or no sugar. I belive in the UK at least pepsi has half the sugar and almost everything else has no sugar. Coke is the only one that still has the full sugar content it had before. But they sell coke zero at such a low price now and push it with alternative flavours that it is being consumed in higher quantities than ever.

The point being, yeah, the tax stopped drinks makers using sugar so the sugar consumption dropped.

Like i stopped using salt to season my food and i found that my salt intake lowered... wow. Thats crazy.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 months ago

True, and in typical UK fashion, the costs didn't go down, but up despite using a cheaper amount of sweetener to get the same sweet effect.

I'm not really sure why, but it felt like a huge surprise at the time that basically all sodas and squashes just switched sugar out almost overnight. For those with diabetes or intolerances, it was quite a tricky switch, and I've had a few friends that relied on drinks like Lucozade look for alternatives (and struggle).

Fully agree that the amounts are concerning. Removing sugar will have obvious health benefits, but drinking a lot of anything is likely going to be disastrous.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

replaced sugar with chemicals

OH NO, NOT SCARY CHEMICALS!!!111

Sugar is a chemical, ya dolt. So is water. So are most of the components that make up you.

Man, education has really taken a nose dive...

[+] [email protected] -17 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Maybe leave the cuntery back over at Reddit...

This community is supposed to be for uplifting news.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The community name isn't a license to say dumb things and not be called out for it

[+] [email protected] -6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Then call it out, but maybe not be such a cunt about it. It's an embarrassment for the fediverse that someone can't be civil to what is a fair comment, even if it's not factually accurate. Even on cesspools like Reddit you wouldn't see this kind of toxicity.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's an embarrassment for the fediverse that someone can't be civil to what is a fair comment

It wasn't a fair comment though was it it was an attempt to spread utterly false information. Also I'm sorry, but I completely do not accept this premise that somehow Lemmy is better than Reddit.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It was absolutely a fair comment.

The quoted part of the comment makes it seem like "chemicals" is the subject of the assertion. It's not. The comment goes on to describe what chemicals and why they're a concern.

Yes, it's not a great comment, it's not eloquent, it could be more concise... but that doesn't mean it's appropriate to make disingenuous misrepresentations about the authors intended meaning.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Okay well I will challenge the content of the comment and you can make arbitrary and utterly unfounded comments about my assessment.

But apparently I'm not allowed to call out insanity wherever it appears because that would be rude. God save me, I was rude to an ass wipe.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

And the amount of aspartame has doubled

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (2 children)

So? That's way less bad

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Aspartame can lead to overeating. Some research also point to liver cancer.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Ok, now do sugar, and compare the statistical quality of the evidence too please

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

But sugar sucks too? I'm not defending either.

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