To think Jamie Oliver shouldn't be so smug about getting artificial sweeteners in ribena

[jnfrrss]

www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/may/01/sugar-fat-junk-obsesity-uk-hugh-jamie-parliament-health-committee

He's calling it beautiful that the sugar tax that he campaigned and persuaded the government to implement "a beautiful thing" as ribeana has half the sugar now. But it's still just as sweet as it's been replaced with artifical sweeteners so don't see how its improving anything, could be making it woorse.

I still haven't forgiven him for my Turkey Twizzlers!

That explains why ribena now tastes awful though, thought it was just me!

Noooo.....not San Pellegrino?? I've been drinking it unaware

As for hypocrisy in serving high sugar foods isn't that giving everyone a choice to have a very sweet treat once in a while?

Naturally occurring sugars in fruit should not counted as free sugar. So the PP upthread quoting that there was 51gsm of sugar in a JO dessert is incorrect.

And I agree Bagadverts there's no harm in a nice treat every now and again. Just not five times a day.

It was incredibly naive of Jamie Oliver and co to assume that manufactures would be happy for the prices of their products to rise due to the sugar tax. They were always going to mess with the formulation of their products to negate any price increase.

Why is Jamie O to blame?
The companies involved didnt need to replace sugar with artificial sweeteners, if they are replacing sugar with apparently un-safe additives and ruining the taste then put the blame firmly where it belongs......

Of course by keeping the price similar and still with plenty of sugar, teeth and dietary problems amongst the young will still persist.

Bring his kids into the argument... nasty and pathetic.

Just judging by this thread it seems the addition of AS is making people stop consuming the products entirely, so people are not consuming the sugar AND they are not consuming the AS. How is this not a win-win situation? Maybe that was their plan all along.

I've gone right off Jamie Oliver because of this.

The addition of artificial sweeteners to so many foodstuffs is ill thought out and intensely annoying to those of us who can't stand them (and plenty of people who can't physically tolerate them) who only drink a couple of glasses of squash or fizzy drink per week, if that. I last had a fizzy drink on March 31st (yes I do remember the exact day) and it might be another month before I have another one.

I think he needs to sort himself out first before going on crusades. Hes like a house side.He must be about 16 or 17 stones.

It wasn't him and co being naive, they said many times that they wanted this to cause reformulation. He's been celebrating that they have less sugar even though it's just been replaced with AS.

Shocking that he says he can't taste any difference between coke and diet coke

This thread reads more like a Facebook feed with the hysteria about artificial sweeteners. If your Facebook page is full of idiots that is.

Good for him. I hope he goes after processed meat next.

Bunty 😂😂😂

Yes it was so cruel of Jamie Oliver to deprive the country of those lovely non-carcinogenic turkey twizzlers wasn't it?

This thread is very ugly; it reads to me like a lot of (probably overweight or obese) people moaning because they don't like hearing the truth. Consuming sugary, fizzy drinks and milkshakes is like pouring neat sugar down your throat. Then you fully expect free NHS dental care for your dc's wrecked teeth.

Free choice? well yes, in theory free choice is a good thing except it has been abused to such a massive extent that this country has a childhood obesity crisis. Stop being so bloody lame and wake up. The comments on here saying "oh yes my daily glass of Ribena has been ruined" - Jesus wept. Think you are being treated like toddlers? you bloody sound like toddlers.

Personally I think you should be grateful that there are people willing to point out the dangers you are showering upon your dc. if you don't like hearing the truth change the narrative and stop buying UTTER SHITE AND MAKING YOUR DC OBESE AND TOOTHLESS.

Midthread, but surely you must see that that's a positive change. They want people to drink less squash and fizzy drinks. Making them more expensive and less tasty are actually extremely effective ways of doing this. No one gives a shit about education campaigns from the government. A lot of people have said they will cut down on squash as a result of this change though. Mission accomplished.

The Nature article linke above used the FDA maximum guidelines for daily artificial sweetener consumption, which is 5mg/kg body weight for the sweetener they used. It's not comparable with a couple of cans of Diet Coke a day, or a glass of squash.

This thread reads more like a Facebook feed with the hysteria about artificial sweeteners. If your Facebook page is full of idiots that is.

Agree. The vast majority of posters have not a single clue about the campaign as a whole, or the research and evidence behind it. Anyone viewed the link to the actual parliamentary meeting this stems from? Probably not because it requires a couple of hours of attention Why do that when you can read a vox pop in the newspaper, or a headline on a Facebook link?

JO and HFW part of that meeting was sandwiched between over an hours of evidence and debate presented by about ten different academic, health, research and governmental experts.

JO doesn't make this stuff up, he work in collaboration with all these people then acts as the public figure head. As a consumer, unfortunately we're more likely to take note of what he says than from a Professor of nutitrion or someone from the Centre of Heath Economics.

Also, carbs aren't evil. Pretty much every Asian country has rice with every meal, but low levels of obesity. Rice with vegetables and a little low-fat protein is a perfectly healthy meal. There is an argument that Western diets are too meat-based these days. Our parents generation never ate as much meat as we do. Meat was expensive and limited. But, current thinking in the UK is that carbs are bad and fatty meat is healthy. Doesn't make much sense to me. People in the Asian countryside who eat a traditional rice-based diet are slim and healthy. Those in the city who live off McDonalds and KFC are getting fatter and fatter.

You're calling people idiots because artificial sweeteners make them unwell it ruin the taste.

Hardly anybody has time to watch an hour of evidence, that's why we read news outlets. All these people that say they have watched it but yet can't give any useful information on what we missed.

The point is he's championing the sugar tax and holding up ribeana as it contains less sugar, but it's still just as sweet with artifical sweeteners now making up the sugar removed.

Health trends changed and the NHS is always so far behind, I would be shocked if in a few decades it hasn't changed again and they backpedal on pushing artificial sweeteners as a healthier alternative to sugar.

@iwasjustabouttosaythat "And not wilfully blind too given the amount of diabetic retinopathy. Lovely natural sugar, eh? Not sure how many people get those kinds of complications due to obesity from having artificial sweeteners... oh wait... Turns out it’s none."

Actually that's bullshit. 99.9% of people with type one diabetes (autoimmune) have some background retinopathy within 20 years. And even amongst people with type 2 diabetes, not everyone who is diagnosed is overweight or has a bad diet.

The blame culture around diabetes and complications is one of the things that stops people from get the treatment they need. If you want to get on your high horse about something to do with diabetes complications, perhaps you could get angry about the poor standards of diabetes care in this country.

BTW the reason that I get annoyed with JO is that his broad brush messages and scattergun approach lead to people thinking that they know about conditions which they haven't got a fucking clue about which increases the stigma and worsens the outcomes for people with those conditions.

Hardly anybody has time to watch an hour of evidence, that's why we read news outlets. All these people that say they have watched it but yet can't give any useful information on what we missed.

I just don't understand why you start a thread about something when you have no idea of the context behind it. Hence suggesting you watch the meeting. You've probably just spent an hour getting riled up on this thread haven't you, or why not watch a bit of it instead of a TV programme later? Of course you have the time. It's important to have an opinion and I don't care if you disagree with me, but at least let it be an informed opinion.

No-one in that meeting was saying AS were better than sugar. It was part of a powerful (clearly considering this thread) public campaign to get the wider discussion about obesity, and importantly childhood obesity into the public consciousness. To that extent it has worked. Because what this is really about is working out how to change long ingrained habits, public knowledge and education about the foods we eat, where there come from, what they contain, to encourage people to make better choices for their own and their childrens choice.

Anyone viewed the link to the actual parliamentary meeting this stems from?

I would like to watch this actually. Where can I find It?

I drink mostly water during the day. Very rarely have fizzy drinks but even I am thinking maybe I need to cut out the one teaspoon I have in my coffee (2 or 3 a day) so it does have a positive effect on some of us. I agree with this thread reading like a bunch of angry toddlers demanding their Ribena! And never for a moment would have thought this tax and been brought in to effect on JO's say so only.... of course it's backed up by research!!

There is a link upthread and jnfrrs my post also gave an overview of the points raised but to recap
Hearing didn't just focus on sugar tax but explored why this had been introduced and considered what we should look for in learning from its implementation - which level do manufacturers peg reformulation, how is the hypothecated tax being used, how can we make best use of this
It discussed food advertising and how only 1.2% of food advertising was on fruit and vegetables at a time when vegetable consumption is declining and how we could be more creative about promoting fruit and vegetables (the Batman/carrot social media was cited as an illustration)
It discussed the role of local peer support activities around healthy eating
It considered how devolution and local authorities could use their powers imaginatively to promote healthy eating - looking at takeaways concentrated in areas of multiple deprivation, heat mapping fresh food deserts in areas
It looked at incentivising producers and retailers to equalise Bogof deals so healthy foods included
It also looked at nudge theory and balancing state intervention with personal responsibility and better information.
It was a series of evidence to the select committee so they could take a view to influence the next childhood obesity strategy to be a strategy that takes and ensures pan government responsibility for childhood health.

My bugbear with the sugar tax is that they're taxing the obvious stuff. I know, for example, that full fat Coke is packed with sugar so if I buy it I know the risk. However, other foods that have sugar added aren't so obvious (pasta sauce, ketchup etc) so to me it would make more sense to tax those as you would be raising awareness of the hidden and unnecessary sugars.

This smacks of knee jerk laziness from the Government, and a good amount of pandering to the food producers.

I hate the taste of AS, very rarely drink fizzy drinks (I like the occasional can of Innocent Bubbles). I mainly drink tea (no sugar) and very watered down elderflower cordial - if they fill that up with AS I will not be happy, just checked the Belvoir website and looks like they have no plans to do that!

The problem for me is that I have difficulty drinking water - when I was pregnant the tiniest sip caused instant vomiting, and I mean instant - plain, fizzy, ice, my body just rejected it. I developed something of an aversion to water that is still with me and the thought of drinking it still makes me feel nauseous.

My preference would be for the sugar to be reduced gradually so we all got used to things being less sweet - to me that's the problem, there is too much sugar in too many things, and using AS doesn't make us adjust to things being less sweet.

t1mum3 I didn’t go into the details so you can’t call it bullshit unless you’re claiming that diabetic retinopathy is in no way related to diabetes caused by obesity. Is that the claim you’re making? No, I didn’t think so. Diabetic retinopathy IS related to type II diabetes which IS often caused by obesity which IS caused by sugar. Can’t believe I have to spell this out.