The tax on sugary drinks!?

[littlebabyjesus]

There are parallels between filthy, factory farmed meat and sugar - in terms of 'efficiencies' in the industry, and subsidies the industry affords. The low prices of factory farmed meat is a reflection of how efficient this global industry is. Any attempt to tackle the issues you raise will inevitably raise the price - or in a global market put UK farmers out of business.

When I've argued on here for tighter controls in this industry here the main response seem to be along the lines of becuase the cheap price is worth it.

That's kind of true and kind of not true. The whole way we produce needs to change, and the bottom line is that factory farming, aside from being indescribably cruel, is also unsustainable and inefficient. Factory farming isn't efficient at all - for instance, the feed-lot mega-cow farms of both North and South America lock cows up in sheds and feed them soya. The soya is grown on huge monoculture farms which degrade the soil, the cows' muck is stacked up in ways that don't allow it to disperse, causing massive pollution. A cow in a field is turning grass (non-food for us) into food (beef/milk) (and is also shitting/pissing directly on the soil in a way that allows it to be absorbed). A cow in a shed is turning food (crops) into less food. It's a negative process. Also, the externalities in terms of the environmental costs are enormous and hidden from the price - it's paid for in other ways, producing hidden subsidies for this inefficient process. Mixed farming is actually more efficient than factory farming in terms of both short-term resources in vs. resources out and long-term environmental protection and sustainability.

And that's before even considering the health issues surrounding the poor quality and nutritional value of the meat produced by such processes.

 

[Doctor Carrot]

How? What do you suggest?

I know this is aimed at someone else but I think things like banning offers on sugar rich food, removing them from child eye level, making the packaging less appealing, capping the amount of sugar allowed in foods ad so on will help.

Having said all that we know how slow and cumbersome the fight against tobacco has been. It's taken decades to get to where we are now with it because of the power of lobbying. I see big food companies in the same light as tobacco companies, they use more or less identical tactics as tobacco companies to squash any legislation against it. It's why I was saying earlier about living in a state capitalist society and all that entails so, instinctively at least, I think a tax is a good idea as part of measures. On its own I don't think it will help much but from my own experience I don't buy, say, large bags of crisps if they're over two quid, same with two litre bottles but when they're hovering around the one pound mark I will.
They'll find ways round this though, coca cola, it seems, knew this was coming and they,ve acted accordingly by reducing the size of their largest bottles to 1.75 litres instead of 2, they even do 1.25 litre bottles too in the same way tobacco started to reduce the amount of fags in a pack from 20 to 19, 18 and now 17.

 

[gosub]

I'm a smoker and a drinker, and I have no problem with them taxing the fuck out of things that are putting a strain on the health service.

A 2000% tax on Jeremy Hunt's would be progressive.

 

[fredfelt]

That's kind of true and kind of not true. The whole way we produce needs to change, and the bottom line is that factory farming, aside from being indescribably cruel, is also unsustainable and inefficient. Factory farming isn't efficient at all - for instance, the feed-lot mega-cow farms of both North and South America lock cows up in sheds and feed them soya. The soya is grown on huge monoculture farms which degrade the soil, the cows' muck is stacked up in ways that don't allow it to disperse, causing massive pollution. A cow in a field is turning grass (non-food for us) into food (beef/milk) (and is also shitting/pissing directly on the soil in a way that allows it to be absorbed). A cow in a shed is turning food (crops) into less food. It's a negative process. Also, the externalities in terms of the environmental costs are enormous and hidden from the price - it's paid for in other ways, producing hidden subsidies for this inefficient process. Mixed farming is actually more efficient than factory farming in terms of both short-term resources in vs. resources out and long-term environmental protection and sustainability.

And that's before even considering the health issues surrounding the poor quality and nutritional value of the meat produced by such processes.

As we are off on a tangent...

Of course it all depends on how you measure efficiency. In terms of carbon output factory farmed beef is more efficient than grass fed. It's counterintuitive - but by far the biggest carbon output from beef is in the form of methane. Next it's calories in keeping the beast alive until it's ready for slaughter. Intensive raised cattle are ready to slaughter much quicker than grass fed - and are more 'efficient'. Don't take my word for it though, look it up if you are interested.

There's also land use. There's simply not enough land available for the level of demand to be satisfied by grass fed beef. Grass fed is currently a tiny proportion of the beef eaten now - and its a food stuff which can only be afforded by the rich, or eaten at special occasions.

Regardless of if beef is grass fed or soya, it always going to be hugely resource intensive - or a negative process as you refered to the process as. On a global scale at least - as soon as you divert crops to animal feed it's an inefficient way to generate calories for human consumption.

All of which means that eating of beef needs to be rationed. This could be done through tax, forcing the industry to adopt higher standards and therefore higher prices, or some other kind of rationing (food stamps anyone?)

Back to sugar - here's another example of the price (being a factor of supply and demand) not factoring in social costs / benefits (or a similar meaning, a term you used, externalities).

Which brings me back to my first point... controlling consumption through increased price is always going to be regressive. This is where policies on income should come in to counter this effect.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

There's also land use. There's simply not enough land available for the level of demand to be satisfied by grass fed beef. Grass fed is currently a tiny proportion of the beef eaten now - and its a food stuff which can only be afforded by the rich, or eaten at special occasions.

This is a big issue, but to take you to task on this point, currently nearly all British beef is grass-fed. And land is used less efficiently by intensive farming. Mixed farming with rotation of crops/pasture allows cow shit to fertilise the land one year for crops to be grown the next. There are lots of studies out there showing that, by any sensible measure that takes into account the externalities, this is more efficient and sustainable.

If you go to the supermarket, you'll find that British beef is not extortionately expensive.

 

[redsquirrel]

How? What do you suggest?

Well for a start, how about not getting rid of (or at least reducing) the subsidises you mentioned in your first post. Or make it illegal for companies to add large amounts of sugar to drinks. Or whatever, the idea that you can't tackle the problem of sugar in drinks/food by means other than a regressive tax is nonsense.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

If sugar full fizzy drinks are more expensive than sugarfree aspartame loaded fizzy drinks any obesity reduced by the tax will be offset by the increase in cancers and brain tumours caused by the aspartame.

Has George Osborne got shares in Monsanto?

Donald Rumsfeld and the Strange History of Aspartame

It's not like obesity itself causes cancer. You know in Britain we have perfectly drinkable tap water - so no-one will die of thirst if Coca Cola goes up in price. We also have tea bags and various fruity concoctions (tho some of these can hide high levels of sugar).

People arguing this is a regressive tax - do they also think tax should come off booze and fags?

IMO anything that makes people reduce their sugar consumption or increases funds to the NHS to deal with the effects of sugar consumption is a good thing. But we need wider measures than just tax. And there should also be carrot to the stick - subsidies, money re-invested, etc.

This is a bigger issue now than booze, fags or legal highs. It's quite astonishing how long it's taken anyone to act, especially as these products are pushed at children, no age restrictions.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

This is a bigger issue now than booze, fags or legal highs. It's quite astonishing how long it's taken anyone to act, especially as these products are pushed at children, no age restrictions.

This is a very different kind of issue from booze, fags or legal highs, though. Nobody needs to drink, smoke or snort to stay alive. You do need to eat. A person with a really unhealthy diet is still better off than a person with no diet at all.

I agree with you btw that diet is the single biggest health issue. But it always has been.

 

[Gromit]

An article on all this has validated me in preferring Tango over Fanta.

Suck it Fanta preference fools.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

This is a very different kind of issue from booze, fags or legal highs, though. Nobody needs to drink, smoke or snort to stay alive. You do need to eat. A person with a really unhealthy diet is still better off than a person with no diet at all.

But the foods we're talking about are pretty devoid of nutrition, high sugar and salt levels used to get their claws into the public. They're foods - but so remote from any of the foods our ancestors would have eaten. Coca Cola (sugar, caffeine) is arguably closer to a drug than it is a sustaining drink.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

But the foods we're talking about are pretty devoid of nutrition, high sugar and salt levels used to get their claws into the public. They're foods - but so remote from any of the foods our ancestors would have eaten. Coca Cola (sugar, caffeine) is arguably closer to a drug than it is a sustaining drink.

Sugar is a great source of energy. It is nutrition. So on their own, they're not devoid of nutrition at all - you'll survive far longer just eating junk food than not eating anything.

 

[stavros]

Are there any laws, either British or EU, which prevent governments subsidising certain consumables? Could, for example, the Exchequer put money into the greengrocer market to reduce their prices or overheads? I'm just thinking of something progressive to couple with what was announced on Wednesday. As it is, there's a perception that healthy food is expensive and what is more affordable lacks nutritional worth.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Sugar is a great source of energy. It is nutrition.

Yes and no. In absolute terms sugary drinks contain a lot of energy, but the trouble is that they contain too much energy in a form that the human body is not really set up to process in large amounts. If you're hypoglycaemic and about to pass out, a can of coke will work wonders (literally you'll be back to normal in a matter of seconds, that's how quickly your body can absorb glucose) but in normal circumstances your body can't deal with rapid increases in blood sugar very well at all, particularly when you're basically just consuming pure sugar with no other nutrients.

Because there's more sugar in a can of coke than your body knows what to do with, the insulin system starts working double shifts to squirrel away the sugar for later, in the form of glycogen and fats. All of which is fine if it doesn't happen too often, but if the pancreas is constantly being asked to work overtime to produce insulin, if the liver is constantly storing up glycogen that never gets used, if deposits of useless fat start to build up around the other internal organs, then you can end up in serious trouble.

Nutrition is not a matter of absolutes, despite what the concept of 'recommended daily amounts' would suggest. A given amount of sugar will be less harmful if it's consumed at the same time as fibre, proteins and complex carbohydrates than if it's consumed by itself in a sugary drink or something in between meals.

The trouble with trying to educate people about this sort of thing is that you're talking about an addictive substance, and one which is an easily accessible source of energy for people in the middle of a long shift who don't have time to sit down and eat a baked potato but still need something to keep them going. I don't suppose workers not getting enough breaks or schoolkids sitting in class hungry because their parents don't earn enough to feed them are issues that George Osbourne is intereted in adressing, but they will certainly have an impact on the amount of sugar consumed and the resulting damage to public health.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Yep. It's all about context, in other words. If you're a type-1 diabetic, a mars bar might literally save your life.

 

[Gromit]

Yep. It's all about context, in other words. If you're a type-1 diabetic, a mars bar might literally save your life.

A Mars bar in my breast pocket once stopped a sniper's bullet.

 

[SpookyFrank]

A Mars bar in my breast pocket once stopped a sniper's bullet.

Next time I'll just aim higher.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Next time I'll just aim higher.

And stop using a .22 for sniping. You can borrow my Lee Enfield .303.

 

[stavros]

Are there any laws, either British or EU, which prevent governments subsidising certain consumables? Could, for example, the Exchequer put money into the greengrocer market to reduce their prices or overheads? I'm just thinking of something progressive to couple with what was announced on Wednesday. As it is, there's a perception that healthy food is expensive and what is more affordable lacks nutritional worth.

To add to what I wrote on Friday, another relatively cheap - for all concerned - idea is to promote the hell out of tap water. The vast majority of what I drink is tap water, and the UK's is the cleanest in Europe I believe. It's virtually free and can replace at least some of the drinks targeted by this policy.

 

[Ted Striker]

Have we had this yet?

 

[DotCommunist]

Have we had this yet?

on another thread but yes. Good to know even his colleagues recognize the man is a raging cokehead. Running an economy. These people

 

[Tankus]

Av adult recommended daily sugar intake is around 30 g

1x500ml coca cola. =56 g added sugar ......this is one of the bottles you get with a £3 sandwich /snack / drink deal in supermarket's

Sugar use is a bit mental though....but at least we haven't gone down the corn syrup misuse as in the states

.....the 5p plastic bag tax has caused behavioural change .....so why not try it ?

 

[NoXion]

To add to what I wrote on Friday, another relatively cheap - for all concerned - idea is to promote the hell out of tap water. The vast majority of what I drink is tap water, and the UK's is the cleanest in Europe I believe. It's virtually free and can replace at least some of the drinks targeted by this policy.

"Drink tap water! It's free and it won't give you dysentery!" - Not sure if that'll be all that appealing to be honest.

Plus the quality of tap water is pretty variable in this country even if it doesn't make you sick. The tap water in the south-east is full of that crap that causes limescale on kettles and stuff and as a result is often cloudy and muggy, while tap water in north Wales is crisp, clear and ice cold if you let the tap run for a bit.

 

[DotCommunist]

that limescale is a vital source of nutrition for some of us midlanders

 

[fredfelt]

This is a big issue, but to take you to task on this point, currently nearly all British beef is grass-fed. And land is used less efficiently by intensive farming. Mixed farming with rotation of crops/pasture allows cow shit to fertilise the land one year for crops to be grown the next. There are lots of studies out there showing that, by any sensible measure that takes into account the externalities, this is more efficient and sustainable.

If you go to the supermarket, you'll find that British beef is not extortionately expensive.

I've no idea about the beef that's sold in supermarkets, but British grass-fed beef certainly comes with a high socialised cost - and I also don't agree that pastures are an efficient use of land.

First of all all 'grass fed' doesn't mean that all their diet is grass. I lived on a farm where they have very well kept cows - rotated between three fields. Hay was also harvested from the farm to supplement the cows diet over the winter. However the cows, in common with just about all British beef, are taken into sheds in the winter. Their diet still had to be supplemented by brought in grain over the winter - grain being a heavily subsidised commodity. Incidentally the fields where the cows grazed were not rotated with crops - and there's excess slurry, particularly from when they are brought in over winter. Effluent continues to be a major source of pollutant in our rivers.

The subsidies given to feed, along with the generous subsidies to farms (or more precisely owners of the land which have farms on) may partly explain why the amount of forest cover in the UK is the second lowest in Europe (at 12%.. France 29%, Germany 32%). It's no wonder that British beef is not extortionately expensive.

Beef imported from Brazil may well come from land with has been cut, cleared, and burned, where the rain forest continues to be cleared for our appetites. However this is not hugely different from the UK - where our primary forests have been cut, cleared, burned and given to livestock. Our subsidised, deforested land is effectively a dessert - that comes with flood risks.

Grass fed beef can also take up to twice a long to raise before it's ready to slaughter. All the time consuming grain / soya and producing methane - a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2.

In an effort to link this back to the topic - regardless of how beef is raised it has similarities with sugar, a product with an artificially low price and where the costs are heavily socialised. The profits of which are filtered up towards the few.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Most of the deforestation of Britain had already taken place by the time the Romans arrived. That didn't create a desert. Far from it - it created farmland that remained fertile for thousands of harvests. However, monoculture does create deserts as it degrades soils.

 

[krink]

My daughter wanted a drink of water so we went in the local shop and a small bottle was 79p. Pepsi 49p. Energy Drink 35p. So why not just make the healthy option cheaper? Because this tax is about raising money not helping people with no money make better choices. If you're rich a rise in the price of pop/fags/booze won't have any effect on you but it does on the rest of us.
(she got the water and i got an energy drink for 35p because we didn't have enough for two waters)

 

[NoXion]

It's fucking absurd that water is more expensive than soft drinks.

 

[gosub]

My daughter wanted a drink of water so we went in the local shop and a small bottle was 79p. Pepsi 49p. Energy Drink 35p. So why not just make the healthy option cheaper? Because this tax is about raising money not helping people with no money make better choices. If you're rich a rise in the price of pop/fags/booze won't have any effect on you but it does on the rest of us.
(she got the water and i got an energy drink for 35p because we didn't have enough for two waters)

It doesnt raise money. Raises half billion, but the inflationary effect on the retail price index adds 1 billion to outgoings on index lunked bond payments , so half billion down

 

[krink]

It doesnt raise money. Raises half billion, but the inflationary effect on the retail price index adds 1 billion to outgoings on index lunked bond payments , so half billion down

sorry you lost me

 

[Idris2002]

"Drink tap water! It's free and it won't give you dysentery!" - Not sure if that'll be all that appealing to be honest.

Plus the quality of tap water is pretty variable in this country even if it doesn't make you sick. The tap water in the south-east is full of that crap that causes limescale on kettles and stuff and as a result is often cloudy and muggy, while tap water in north Wales is crisp, clear and ice cold if you let the tap run for a bit.

Appealing? Well, a few years back, Coca-Cola were caught bottling tap water, straight from the tap, to sell it as "Dasani".