Sugar Tax

antrobus

chewmylegoff wrote: »

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).

Not having a biochemistry degree, I'll take your word for it.

As far as I can see breast milk contains 7g of sugar per 100ml, which would make it liable for the lower rate of levy. If it wasn't already exempt. I presume it must be exempt. I think that 'milk based drinks' are exempt, and in any case there's supposed to be a 'small operator' exemption as well, which I would have thought would have covered most mothers.

Perhaps Coca Cola should produce a lactose sweetened variety of Coke. Is such a thing possible?

kinger101

chewmylegoff wrote: »

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).

Actually in drinks at least, fructose is usually the main sugar. Fructose is 1.7 times sweeter than sucrose by weight (glucose in 0.7). There's a whole industry converting sucrose (or even starch) to fructose for sweeteners.

There's a lot of controversy at the moment as to whether fructose is more harmful than glucose (or more harmful than the 1:1 ratio in sucrose). What we do know is that the metabolism differs, as it needs to be metabolized in the liver.

kinger101

antrobus wrote: »

Not having a biochemistry degree, I'll take your word for it.

As far as I can see breast milk contains 7g of sugar per 100ml, which would make it liable for the lower rate of levy. If it wasn't already exempt. I presume it must be exempt. I think that 'milk based drinks' are exempt, and in any case there's supposed to be a 'small operator' exemption as well, which I would have thought would have covered most mothers.

Perhaps Coca Cola should produce a lactose sweetened variety of Coke. Is such a thing possible?

I think the tax is just on sugar in drinks. But lactose is only 16% the sweetness of sucrose anyway. Which is why cow's milk (which contains about 5% lactose) isn't particularly sweet.

Lactose isn't cheap either. And it gives a significant proportion of the adult population a poorly tummy and a squirty bum.

antrobus

kinger101 wrote: »

Actually in drinks at least, fructose is usually the main sugar. Fructose is 1.7 times sweeter than sucrose by weight (glucose in 0.7). There's a whole industry converting sucrose (or even starch) to fructose for sweeteners.

There's a lot of controversy at the moment as to whether fructose is more harmful than glucose (or more harmful than the 1:1 ratio in sucrose). What we do know is that the metabolism differs, as it needs to be metabolized in the liver.

High fructose corn syrup. Apparently linked with even higher rates of diabetes.

https://www.diabetes.org.uk/Research/Research-round-up/Behind-the-headlines/High-fructose-corn-syrup-fuelling-diabetes/

antrobus

kinger101 wrote: »

I think the tax is just on sugar in drinks. But lactose is only 16% the sweetness of sucrose anyway. Which is why cow's milk (which contains about 5% lactose) isn't particularly sweet.

Lactose isn't cheap either. And it gives a significant proportion of the adult population a squirty bum.

I thought there were probably some drawbacks to my cunning plan.:)

kinger101

antrobus wrote: »

I thought there were probably some drawbacks to my cunning plan.:)

I dunno, perhaps the squirty bum might get that weight under control.

cells

Generali wrote: »

No. Legislation is being put forward because people are making poor choices which impact negatively on their health.

You can argue about whether it's the state's place to do that but it seems self-evident that people do pretty badly on a high sugar diet after a very young age.

Are you sure about breast milk being 40% sugar BTW? It seems a bit unlikely as it would be pretty hard to get out of the breast. These people don't think so either:

http://archive.unu.edu/unupress/food/8F174e/8F174E04.htm

Milk is mostly water.
By calorific value human milk is 28.5 out of 70 calories sugar. Or over 40% sugar.

kinger101

cells wrote: »

Milk is mostly water.
By calorific value human milk is 28.5 out of 70 calories sugar. Or over 40% sugar.

I always though the right one tasted a bit sweeter than the left.

cells

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.

Are you sure the science is clear? I'm not saying it isn't I'm just asking if you are certain?

Bear in mind a lot of trials and data are junk. There is a fantastic article in scientific america which deals with and discusses the fact that most scientific trials and data are manipulated junk even some which make it onto top journals. I can also confirm it's always been my observation that the vast majority of experiment's and data are junk. I've even done it myself just turned a blind eye to the data points which don't fit to help reduce the banda of error. Of course I understand manipulation of the data like that takes it away from being science into being junk but I did it anyway just as almost all scientists and humans manipulate data to fit.

So are you certain there have been solid unbiased fully verified long term tests and trials of high sugar diets and that the result clearly shows a negative heath outcome? Bear in mind even the choice of participants and their willibgless to lie too can impact the outcome (just just the willingness of the observers to lie or ignore what doesn't fit)

My guess is no such trial exists vecuase its quite boring and difficult to herd a bunch of people and have them strictly control their diets.


If however you do come across what you believe to be a 100% accurate unbiased unfiddled sufficent trial of a high sugar diet I would be happy to accept it for this thread. Actually you would need to fond 3-4 such trials and they would need to agree with their observation's pretty closely to call it


Once more I'm not suggesting a sugar rich diet is good or bad just challenging that its a given or certainty

mwpt

cells wrote: »

Are you sure the science is clear? I'm not saying it isn't I'm just asking if you are certain?

Bear in mind a lot of trials and data are junk.

<snip>

I'm not certain because everything is open to question, I only have limited time in my life, I'm not about to become a food and medical research scientist to conduct my own trials.

I will have to form a judgement to believe things such as this:
http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/sites/default/files/short_and_sweet_exec_sum_live.pdf

Or skin through headlines here:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/search/?keyword=sugar+obesity#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=sugar%20obesity&gsc.page=1

Or to believe people on a random house price and economics forum.

I choose to believe the accepted mainstream science.