To think it's time to repeal the sugar tax?

[Citrusandginger]

It's been a soapbox subject of mine for a while that it's difficult to buy drinks without artificial sweeteners since lots of products have been reformulated to reduce the sugar content.

Now UPF and artificial sweeteners are being looked at, as very sadly the incidence of bowel cancer has increased in younger people.

I was brought up in the 70's and while we mostly had home cooked foods, we also had angel delight, Vesta meals, and plenty of other chemical foods. The one thing we didn't have was Diet Coke. We had full fat coke on high days and holidays but the only drinks with artificial sweeteners were marketed for people with diabetes.

I personally gave up sweeteners about 18 months ago and have found it has reduced my sugar cravings overall, so I can see the benefits to me as an individual. My adult children drink diet drinks regularly though - and think they are invincible. I'm worried that the messaging that sugar is bad/so drink diet drinks is so ingrained in their generation, that this will be hard to turn around.

Surely, we need to at least be honest about the health issues associated with sweeteners and give people a choice?

Cancer cases rising twice as fast among under-50s

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/c9a913dc-63f4-4fa4-8c25-0faa3301cdee?shareToken=654498f832dfc690127f6e147c127e93

Sweeteners are one of the most heavily investigated ingredients over a long period of time.
Just because bowel cancer is on the rise does not mean sweeteners are the cause.

I agree about the risks of sweeteners (see also Alzheimers) but isn’t that more a case for banning or restricting artificial sweeteners, rather than making sugar cheaper again? Sugar isn’t great either.

Also I don’t think manufacturers switched to sweeteners because of the sugar tax, they’ve done it because customers wanted “sugar free” or lower calorie products. To change this demand (and hence what manufacturers offer) we need education about sweetener risks.

Ultimately the best thing would be to wean ourselves off having regular sweet foods (as you say, the cravings do go away) rather than debating whether sugar vs sweeteners is better or worse.

I understand the concerns about sweeteners but still think sugar is worse. The sugar tax should stay.

I don't think you can blame sweeteners. There is far too much processed food about. Takeaways, ready meals etc. The western diet is so unhealthy, plus a lot of youngsters have a sedentary lifestyle.

This country has a rapidly escalating obesity epidemic that has huge individual and public health consequences.

If sweeteners are a problem then the solution would be to educate on the issues and potentially tax them too.

Nobody, particularly children, needs to be drinking sugary or sweetened drinks with any regularity. The default should be water. We only ever had a can of coke or something as a special treat in my household growing up and I use that approach now too, both for myself and my children.

As someone who has family members with diabetes it does worry me that there is a lot of places now where you cannot get non diet drinks. A full fat Coke has been really useful in the past when sugars have dropped unexpectedly.

On top of that aspect one of my kids has a low tolerance for aspartame and gets horrid stomach cramps if they have much of it and it limits their choices.

I personally don’t think demonising sugar or fat as they did in the 90s is helpful. Moderation is key.

Totally agree that processed foods generally are not a good thing. I suppose I'm musing on the fact that the 1970's were not a nirvana of organic food either and yet there has been a rise in health issues in more recent decades. And sweetners are far more widely available and consumed.

I'm also not arguing that sugar is a good thing. Especially when it's in ready meals that really shouldn't be sweetened at all. But at least we know that sugar is unhealthy. I'm concerned by the sugar bad / sweetener ok messaging.

I think it should go or we need to at least have choice. I only really buy full fat coke now as it's not full of sweetners.

They other are all ruined for me anyway Despite the potential health issues

Also. After all the scandals of blood post office vaping smoking etc etc. Do you think manufacturers give a shit about safety profiles. I'm willing to get something comes out about them. It's already proven they raise blood insulin levels.

For me it's not so much about the cost, but having sugar available would be nice. I'd happily pay more for my blood orange san pellegrino if it tasted like it should do. Choice would be good, as at the moment I have none.

You are entirely right. Artifical sweeteners are proven to be carcinogenic. Of course anything in moderation is likely to be fine but the problem is that people don't seem to be able to moderate a flavoured drink over just water.

I really miss having the option of fizzy drinks and mixers that don't leave me at risk of shitting myself 😭 A lot of sweeteners are terrible triggers for IBS.

I can’t tolerate artificial sweeteners - they make me very ill. I wouldn’t actually mind paying the tax but what has actually happened us that the producers have put the artificial stuff in nearly all the drinks. I hardly ever drank Coke before the sugar tax, now it’s one of the few “safe” soft drinks for me. If I go to a pub I can rarely be the designated driver unless I drink water! The sugar tax has meant I now HAVE to ( 😉) drink alcohol instead of orange juice and lemonade or lemonade and lime.

The sugar tax is doing nothing to to wean us off sweet foods if the consequence is that sugar is substituted with artificial sweeteners. We just need to have drinks and cakes which are less sweet. I routinely reduce the amount of sugar in any baking I do, and that's not detrimental to the outcome.

But artificial sweeteners taste foul, and that's why I continue to buy full fat Coke and haven't had a Pimm's in years, because of the bad lemonade which may be used.

I have a similar dilemma. I drink tea, wine & water. Pubs are not fun if I'm not drinking alcohol.

There's already been a ton of research already done on artificial sweeteners, for decades. No studies have found any evidence that they're harmful to humans in the way we consume them. The fact that bowel cancer is on the rise doesn't mean that sweeteners are responsible. Correlation and causation are two different things.

Multiple studies, however, have found a fucking mountain of evidence that obesity is harmful and that excess sugar consumption is a major factor.

Sugar is also, of course, a major cause of tooth decay. As well as being an unpleasant, painful and expensive problem, dental infections can be really dangerous, even fatal if untreated.

At the risk of sounding a bit tin foil hat, I think we’re going to find out that artificial sweeteners cause a whole raft of health issues and that food companies have been sitting on the evidence, just as the tobacco companies did.

I’m sad to say it as I absolutely love Diet Coke (genuinely, to the point that I think it’s like an addiction- I think it has this effect on a lot of regular drinkers) and would love be able to drink it all day long. But I’m trying to cut it out and to get my kids to do the same.

Multiple studies, however, have found a fucking mountain of evidence that obesity is harmful and that excess sugar consumption is a major factor.

Sugar is also, of course, a major cause of tooth decay. As well as being an unpleasant, painful and expensive problem, dental infections can be really dangerous, even fatal if untreated.*

@KreedKafer (love the user name by the way). I grew up in the 70s with full sugar squash, full sugar “pop”, sugar sprinkled on my cereal, even sugar sandwiches at my grandparents’ house. Same with my husband. I’ve always avoided giving the DCs any artificially sweetened products. BUT not one of us is overweight (I’ve put on weight recently due to some medication I’m on but doctor says it’s definitely the meds). Adult DD is a size 6/8. Adult DS is 6’ tall and wears 28” jeans and adult small t-shirts. DH isn’t much bigger than DS. So I’m not “thinking” we aren’t fat when we are. None of us have dental issues either. It’s about being sensible. The fattest people I know have always gone for the “diet” drinks - but LOTS of it.

Agreed. Artificial sweeteners make me need to pee almost instantly. Sugar is fine as long as you take it in moderation....

Artificially sweetened drinks such as Diet Coke are incredibly bad for your teeth.

Op I'm with you. The aim should be for foods to be as natural as possible.

There may be no evidence yet, but, as others have said, it is odd that the 70's generation, of which I am one, we were drinking squash, ribena, nesquick. Putting spoons of sugar on to our sugary chocolatey cereals, spoons of sugar into our tea. Lots of bread. We had proper puddings with meals. Literally no kid was overweight, not one.

It's way more complex than just eating sugary things. It's a holistic lifestyle thing, and focusing just on sugar is simplistic.

J2os - I know what you mean about being a bit tin hat, but I am inclined to agree that I have my doubts about some of the studies. Especially ones sponsored in some way by industry.

And yes I know that correlation isn't causation. But sweeteners are addictive. We all know people who struggle with their weight and as a PP pointed out, we also know obese people who drink a lot of diet fizzy pop. It certainly isn't helping them.

Slimming World are totally anti diet juice because it encourages a sweet tooth and leaves people craving actual sugar too.

Or at least that's what I was told years ago when I tried SW. They might actually be on go some thing.

People thinking that sugar is fine because no one was overweight in the 70s… the generation that were kids in the 70s are now majority overweight adults and health conditions like diabetes are rife. It might not have had a visible impact at the time but it will have had a long term impact, T2DM doesn’t happen overnight. I don’t think sweeteners are good either but the answer needs to be discouraging both sugar and sweeteners, not encouraging one over the other.

Why not just give up sweet fizzy drinks altogether?