Sugar Tax

wotsthat

Generali wrote: »

For me this the first step along a very long road; the GWR express to Paddington introducing a No Smoking carriage. To address a problem we have to recognise there is a problem in the first place. This is the start of a very long road.

Soda companies are even responding to what they clearly fear is an existential threat in the same way tobacco companies did:

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/sep/22/coca-cola-discloses-health-research-funding

I had a wander around Asda earlier with this in mind. In partnership with food manufacturers retailers have convinced people to work jobs they hate to buy crap they don't need which is also putting their health at risk. If people considered their health a priority Asda would be bust.

Yes, it's baby steps but I note smoking is still quite a popular hobby. It was only last year smoking was banned in cars with children - !!!!!! what sort of halfwit needs legislation to prevent themselves from smoking in the car with their children?

Shrimply

antrobus wrote: »

That's odd. Because I'm laughing at you.:)

Nothing you have said so far is of any relevance to the economics of the sugar levy.

So just re-cap, you tried to tell me my evolutionary argument was wrong, despite that fact you actually don't really understand how evolutionary adaptation works.

Having defended my argument you then tell me it's irrelevant. For something that was irrelevant you put a lot of effort into telling me I was wrong.

And actually it is all relevant. If we go back to my original point, we start adding alternative sweeteners instead (which we haven't really experienced previously so don't have an evolutionary adaptation to). And our reliance on these will increase, the amounts used in drinks etc will probably increase and we don't really know what sort of health effect these may have long term at high concentrations or what pressures that may point on the NHS. Possibly on top of high levels of obesity which are unlikely to be solved by taxing sugary drinks.

antrobus wrote: »

Maybe we'll adapt to aaspartame in exactly the same way.:)

So now you agree that we can adapt to something over a relatively short period of time. Which you've previously told me was pseudoscience.

Wait a minute, that was my original point. We've already had a lot of chance to adapt to sugar and not to alternative sweeteners.

antrobus

mwpt wrote: »

Why are you being obtuse about this? The science is pretty clear, large consumption of certain types of sugar in children and adults is bad for you.

If you don't believe the science, your choice, but you can't expect people to engage in a rational debate about it based on your whims.

The science seems pretty clear that the large consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks is bad for you. (Increased risk of type 2 diabetes, apparently.) But I don't think that there is a consensus that the large consumption of any type of sugar is bad for you in any specific sense. Beyond the more general fact that sugar has calories, and consuming too many calories makes you fat, and that's bad for you.

And apart from dental health of course.

Studies have confirmed the direct relation between intake of dietary sugars and dental caries across the life span.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14522753

Generali

wotsthat wrote: »

I had a wander around Asda earlier with this in mind. In partnership with food manufacturers retailers have convinced people to work jobs they hate to buy crap they don't need which is also putting their health at risk. If people considered their health a priority Asda would be bust.

I'm watching a great program called 'Cooked' on Netflix. The presenter made the claim that in the US processed food has fallen in cost by 8% since 1980 whereas unprocessed food has increased in price by 40%, inflation adjusted.

wotsthat wrote: »

Yes, it's baby steps but I note smoking is still quite a popular hobby. It was only last year smoking was banned in cars with children - !!!!!! what sort of halfwit needs legislation to prevent themselves from smoking in the car with their children?

Well precisely.

antrobus

Shrimply wrote: »

So just re-cap, you tried to tell me my evolutionary argument was wrong, despite that fact you actually don't really understand how evolutionary adaptation works....

To recap, you started off by claiming that sugar is "a naturally occurring chemical my body knows how to handle". Since SACN has concluded that "evidence from prospective cohort studies did show that greater consumption of sugars-sweetened drinks is associated with increased risk type 2 diabetes", that's clearly not true. Thus your evolutionary argument was indeed wrong and you don't really understand how evolutionary adaptation works.

And that "increased risk type 2 diabetes" would be the effect" other than obesity" that you didn't know about.

The fact that your whole argument is irrelevant is just a bonus.:)

Shrimply wrote: »

...So now you agree that we can adapt to something over a relatively short period of time. Which you've previously told me was pseudoscience.....

No, that's just me taking the p*ss out of you.:rotfl:

P.S. 10,000 years would indeed be a "relatively short period of time" in evolutionary terms. But economists would characterise it as the very, very, very, very, very long term.

Shrimply

I'm stepping out of this one. I've said my piece without constantly changing my argument or trying to make anyone feel stupid.

Correlation is not causation, "associated" being the key word. The people that drink the most sugary drinks will also be correlated with those that have the unhealthiest diets overall. And given that obesity is linked to type 2 diabetes I don't really see your point. In any case I never said a lot of sugar wouldn't make you fat, or anything similar.

I said the body was relatively well adapted to dealing with high levels of sugar and the species had had much longer to adapt to the negative effects of sugar than newer alternative sweeteners.

If I don't understand evolutionary adaptation then I've wasted a lot of years of study and research.

chewmylegoff

antrobus wrote: »

I agree. For one thing breast milk is a fluid, and fluids are mostly water. (I'd have thought that was bl00dy obvious, but perhaps not.)

I find one academic source that states that breast mil contains "6.9%--7.2% carbohydrate calculated as lactose"
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/392766

So 7% would be a more accurate number.

I think he meant 40% of the calories in it are from sugar.

chewmylegoff

cells wrote: »

I think this is grasping. I doubt eother of us knows if there is any significant difference between the ability of a baby or adult to digest or handle high sugar diets. I think its reasonable to assume that adults too can handle high sugar diets from the simple fact that a lot of adults do handle high sugar diets just fine.

I reckon with two 13 month old babies and a biochemistry degree I am probably in a reasonably informed position; I can't vouch for you.

The sugar in breast milk is lactose anyway, which is not digested in the same way as sucrose which is the most prevalent sugar in poor diets. I think you are barking up the wrong tree with the breast milk point (particularly as many adults lose the ability to digest lactose despite having been able to digest it as babies).

antrobus

Shrimply wrote: »

I'm stepping out of this one. I've said my piece without constantly changing my argument or trying to make anyone feel stupid.

Correlation is not causation, "associated" being the key word. The people that drink the most sugary drinks will also be correlated with those that have the unhealthiest diets overall. And given that obesity is linked to type 2 diabetes I don't really see your point. In any case I never said a lot of sugar wouldn't make you fat, or anything similar....

It's not my point. It's the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition's point. Ironic isn't it, that for someone making 'scientific' claims, you now find yourself rubbishing science.:)

Shrimply wrote: »

...I said the body was relatively well adapted to dealing with high levels of sugar and the species had had much longer to adapt to the negative effects of sugar than newer alternative sweeteners.....

So you keep saying.

Shrimply wrote: »

....If I don't understand evolutionary adaptation then I've wasted a lot of years of study and research.

No comment.

kinger101

Shrimply wrote: »

And the same goes for my adaptation argument to sugar. We don't know what the selection pressures are but, if you argue that sugar has negative health benefits, you are also arguing there is a negative selection pressure. The two go hand in hand, however subtle they are. I'm not saying that people that drink a lot of coke won't reproduce. But they may produce less offspring, or less fertile offspring. If some people are more likely to get fat from drinking coke they may be less attractive. It's not something science can really quantify BUT I don't think any evolutionary biologist would argue that after 10000 (for example) years of exposure to something we wouldn't expect there to be some degree of evolutionary adaptation.

Nobody is arguing that though. Overweight people have children. In fact, it's thought for females that the onset of puberty is more related to body weight that chronological age. So without any other constraints, fatties would procreate first.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/121/Supplement_3/S208

And I don't think either the Chancellor or the NHS are concerned about whether people might not get type-II diabetes in 10,000 years.