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.

Governments bring in taxes to make money, not because they're concerned about our well-being. I don't really have a problem with sugar being taken OUT, as long as artificial sweeteners aren't being put IN. They taste dreadful, and aspartame in particular has some very nasty effects indeed.

@expatinscotland

Anyone who believes he's after anything other than his own self-aggrandisement is fooling himself/herself.

I agree!

Agree that the sugar tax has backfired, but that's what you get when all powerful big business want people to continue consuming their totally unnecessary products at ridiculously high levels.

I say this every time on these threads, but when I were a kid, there were no huge bottles of pop, a can was a rare thing, a family size bar of chocolate was just that and lasted a bloody long time. If you had a glass of sugary squash it was not a pint glass. Why not try and re educate people in ways of moderation rather than greed? I know the idea of food as treats is frowned upon here, but I mean it not as rewards but as in something unusual we consume very occasionally. That's how we should be dealing with sugary drinks and sweets

^^ This. a thousand times over. If you are consuming too many calories through sweetened drinks, cut down, rather than switching to disgusting tasting artificially sweetened versions.

From the Fever Tree website:

Unlike most mixers and soft drinks on the market today which contain saccharine or aspartame, our products contain no artificial sweeteners. In our regular products we use cane sugar and in our Refreshingly Light products we use fruit sugar. These naturally sourced sweeteners create a fuller mouth-feel with none of the cloying aftertastes associated with cheaper, artificial alternatives.

Lets hope they continue with this policy. For anyone looking for a less expensive alternative, Waitrose own brand tonic continues to be sweetener free, I hope.

www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/essential-waitrose-indian-tonic-water/058201-29243-29244

Here's the link again

www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/14fd35da-3f7f-4207-886d-904fb87fdb03#player-tabs

I'd really recommend watching from the beginning and the panel before JO and HFW as it really demonstrates how little JO has to do in the strategy and ideas behind this, and how is really is a public mouthpiece for this.

Or for those of you with the attention span of a gnat and just prefer the headlines, myrtleWilson sums it up brilliantly.

JO has to do in the strategy and ideas behind this, and how is really is a public mouthpiece for this.

We agree on one thing - Jamie Oliver is one big mouthpiece

To be honest I put the blame on Ribena. Full sugar coke still exists, you just pay the same for 18 cans as you uses to for 24. Ribena should've been brave enough to at least try giving consumers a choice. I would've happily paid more for the old version. We don't drink gallons of the stuff and prefer to avoid sweeteners.

In SE Asia we used to buy Ribena Less Sweet which was a great option. No sweeteners but less sugar. I wish they'd sell it here.

www.newscientist.com/article/2114043-why-diet-drinks-with-aspartame-may-actually-help-make-you-fatter/

I'm not sure sweeteners are going to help.

I try and give my DC milk or water but playgroups, nurseries, schools GP and other parents constantly undermine that and you can't deny them as those are then the things they then crave.

Hidden sugars are more an issue – I wasn’t aware till recently many cold cut meats have sugar in them though was aware dried milk can be added as a sweetener as knew parents who had allegoric children and told me.

Though main issues I can see living in areas with large weight problems in children is poverty of both time and money.

I'm not concerned about artificial sweeteners causing cancer and I KNOW that everything is a chemical but if I put artificial sweeteners and gut microbiome into Pubmed there are an awful lot of recent publications that link certain artificial sweeteners with shifts in gut microbiome to compositions which we now associated with all kind of illhealth including obesity. There are also publications which show links between artificial sweeteners and glucose intolerance (in mice).
I can see the need of reducing overall sugar consumption but replacing sugar with artificial sweeteners is, in my opinion, not the way to go if you want to reduce obesity and diabetes.

I hope he goes after processed meat next.

What 'naice' ham? Good quality sausages and lovely smoked bacon? Leave those alone - if sugar is verboten, there has to be some pleasure in life!

Over the course of my 50 odd years, I have seen various foodstuffs/foodgroups demonised, then effectively brought back into favour. What makes anyone think sugar will be any different? Just as the totality of the effects of the contraceptive pill still aren't known, the same could be said of artificial sweeteners. I'd rather not be the lab rat for the latter.

Just because you can type a search term into Pubmed does not give you the slightest clue how to interpret the papers, as this thread demonstrates so well. I haven't seen a sweetener/microbiome study where they have used levels of sweetener which correlate to normal human consumption, rather than giving the absolute maximum recommended dose, which would be something like the equivalent of 20 cans of diet pop a day.

I don’t know why there is a fear of artificial sweeteners causing cancer, when we know obesity can cause cancer too.
How about we reduce our intake of sugar and sweetners and eat more fruit and vegetables.
Healthy eating isn’t new information and Jamie Oliver isn’t telling anyone anything we don’t already know.
There is very very little nutritional value to ribena so I don’t know why it is such a hot topic. Children aren’t meant to drink it every day.

I am not a huge fan of artificial sweeteners and have stopped drinking some of my favourite rubbish but I fully support Jamie’s efforts and feel the blame isn’t with him, it’s with the food industry and ourselves. If we don’t like what they’re doing we can vote with our wallets and not buy their products.

I think arguing the rights and wrongs of artificial sweetners is perfectly fine but in a few short posts, the ‘conversation’ has degenerated into insults about Jamie Oliver’s appearance and bitching about the names of his children. I’m truly sick of supposedly grown arse people who think that throwing ipersonal nsults around is ok, it isn’t and only exposes the inability of some to argue a point like a grown up.

I don't mind paying more for my occasional classic red Coca Cola. I do object to the removal of choice and stealthily swapping in foul tasting, soapy, headache inducing sweetners without clear labelling as many of the high juice/ Ribeana type products have done. I (and the DCs) drink mainly water anyway, but it is nice to drink something else for variety anyway. (I'm talking about children who wear under-aged clothes with hems let down and waists cinched in because their waists can't hold up the waist bands on age appropriate clothes) One of my DCs seems to have an issue with his mood following fruit shoot type drinks, and gets worked up into explosive tempers (he has a history of food allergy and intolerances).

Sugar in excess is harmful however sugar does have some nutritional purpose. When I'm doing long runs or intense exercise, a well diluted full sugar cordial is more refreshing than water, easily metabolised and maintains my energy level. Sweetners don't have that function and would make me insatiably thirsty due to their lingering foul aftertaste and give me a pounding headache. Alternative sports nutrition is a minefield due to my IBS.

Artificially sweetened alternatives have been around for years, yet still obseity levels have risen. I think the jury is out on the long term effects of large scale consumption of sweetners. The conclusions of scientific research change over time as more evidence emerges, and it seems particularly inconclusive with regards to foods.

I don't think that mass scale substition of sugar to sweetners is actually addressing a national sweet tooth and the myriad of other causes of obseity and its health effects. Sweetners lull people into a false sense of security that they are making choices that appear healthier than they really are.

Over the course of my 50 odd years, I have seen various foodstuffs/foodgroups demonised, then effectively brought back into favour. What makes anyone think sugar will be any different?

Diets which are no fat, no carb or no protein aren't healthy because these are all essential elements in a balanced diet and can be eaten well in moderation.

Sugar is not an essential element for the healthy human diet. We don't need sugar and it isn't essential for life.

I don't understand why people are already condemning this tax as a mistake. It's still early days, but as far as I can see, many people on Mumsnet have been complaining that they are not buying as much squash and fizzy drinks as they are too expensive/have artificial sweeteners/taste bad. Surely that makes it a success. I'm interested in seeing the long-term results.

I'm annoyed about San Pellegrino as it was the only pop I ever drank. I managed the amount I drank all by myself.
Sitting in the beer garden on a rare hot afternoon will never be the same.

Yabu to expect Jamie Oliver not to be smug about something though it's his default position.

JO has said he doesn't want it to apply to food, which doesn't make sense. All Value ranges of tined Veg/Fruit and Soups etc have added sugar. Pay thirty pence more and they don't. Likewise so does Value Bread and cheap meat isn't as good.

Our food has 40% less vitamins/minerals than our Grandparents did, there needs to be strategies around that.

It was said that Government policies has to look at the whole welfare of the child. Well that "Every Child Matters" was about. That's been thrown out of the window.

In every Country, Obesity is rising among the poor. The poorest in the, UK, Greece, Italy, France and other parts of the World. A Tory Government isn't going to even start to address that. Child poverty and overall poverty has risen. There's more families living in unsuitable housing, that doesn't allow for healthy proper cooking.

Reports over the last few weeks, link eating badly, even if you have an ideal BMI, to a high risk of lots of health conditions. This isn't just about Obesity.

It will be interesting to see if the £250 million is going to be put back into schools, for Sports and Breakfast clubs. I imagine that there will be two hundred million excuses why it was felt it was put to a 'better' use.

Jo and that Hugh fernly-whatsisnmae now.

mind their own business FFS.

At the end of the day tis peoples responsibility what they eat and how much.

JOs not exactly stick thin himself.

after a knighthood.

don't do cooking shows that are full of salt and fat and sugar then JO, practice what you preach.

This is what I mean: sputniknews.com/business/201711301059573097-norway-sweden-sugar-tax/

I note that Finland has reversed its sugar tax.

www.bbc.com/news/av/health-43381411/sugar-tax-the-norwegians-travelling-to-sweden-for-sweets

Well there’s one good thing about the sugar tax. The fashionable body shape is normally dictated by what makes you look wealthy. Hence larger body shapes being fashionable quite a bit in the past because only rich people could afford to overeat. Now poor people eat poor food and to be slim is to be rich as it demonstrates you can afford healthy food and to go to the gym so that’s fashionable.

If poor people can’t afford pop and biscuits so only the rich like Jamie Oliver have the money to maintain their lardarses then lardarses are very likely to come back in to fashion. And this is one trend I am currently very much on fleek for myself.

'Personally I think you should be grateful that there are people willing to point out the dangers you are showering upon your dc.'

Yes, peons! Be grateful to the multi-millionaires with their huge estates complete with legion of staff to grow their organic veg to make sure they eat healthily pointing out that you, the masses, need to be policed by the government because you're too stupid to know what's good for you. They are just Lord Bountiful who know what's best for you.

Jesus wept.

Interesting stuff from New Zealand where the anti sugar craze is picking up steam "The New Zealand Institute of Economic Research reviewed 47 peer-reviewed studies and working papers from the last five years.
They said for a tax to be judged an "effective" health intervention, the tax must make the item more expensive, which must lead to less consumption of the item, reducing sugar or energy intake, lowering risk factors and thus improving health outcomes.
But while the researchers found some evidence a tax would cut sugar intake, the evidence of better health outcomes was "weak" at best, they said.
Then again they don't have celebrity chefs wasting parliamentary time showboating.

Yabu to expect Jamie Oliver not to be smug about something though it's his default position

I looked up annoying arsehole in the dictionary and dound his photo.

All Value ranges of tined Veg/Fruit and Soups etc have added sugar. Pay thirty pence more and they don't. Likewise so does Value Bread and cheap meat isn't as good

Not true. Value ranges often have fewer additives or are sometimes identical but in different packaging. Some value ranges are full of rubbish, but others are not.

Cheap meat could be lower welfare but it could also just be less popular cuts from the same animals, eg liver, brisket. So not at all inferior.

Anything that reduces the strain on the nhs is a good thing. I personally am not bothered about sugar tax or artificial sweeteners etc etc cos I don't drink sweet drinks