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

Is there evidence that sweeteners are addicitive? I've never had a craving for a diet coke BECAUSE it's a diet coke as opposed to full sugar. I have found sugar to be extremely addictive though. It takes me a fortnight to a month of completely avoiding sugar to get it out of my system and avoid the cravings. Then t only takes a couple of sweet things to get me back on the addiction trail.

There are tons of reasons why people are getting inflammatory illnesses and bowel cancer that have been going on for a lot longer than the sugar tax. Like obesity, chemicals in food, processed meats etc. Many cancers take years to develop. Think about all those people who smoked for years without getting cancer and then suddenly died of lung cancer in later life.

There is certainly a growing body of evidence to show regular consumption of sugar sweetened drinks, including 100% fruit juice is associated with an increased risk of diabetes. This does not apply to eating the whole fruit. https://newsroom.heart.org/news/sugary-drinks-fruit-juices-linked-to-higher-risk-of-developing-type-2-diabetes-among-boys

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2453647/

They are already taxed - 20% VAT!

It still doesn't say its the biggest cause of hospital admissions.

Is there any evidence it's been effective? And I mean effective at reducing obesity, tooth decay, diabetes etc...

Not just effective at filling our shelves with artificially sweetened drinks.

Indirectly sugar may be huge cause of Ill health. Especially when you look at the links between gum disease and coronary artery disease. Whoever said all UPF foods should have extra tax applied is spot on. The extra money could help improve the underfunded dentistry that we currently have.

This is quoting from article " Even more concerning is the revelation that tooth decay remains the leading cause of hospital admission for children aged 5 to 9 years."

And first sentence here https://www.nature.com/articles/s41415-021-2945-8 is
Dental caries is a largely preventable disease, yet the extraction of carious teeth is the most common reason for the hospital admission of children in England

Because I like cocktails with lemonade, or fizzy drinks and sprite or lemonade as a mixer in my Southern Comfort. Not everything us about children.

Diet drinks were warned against when I was doing Exante (meal replacement). Artificial sweetners spike hunger and sugar cravings. The ingredients in diet drinks are bad for teeth and bone health.

The statistics about children, dental decay and hospital admissions don't even tell the whole terrible truth.
In our area a young child , in pain , with abscessed teeth will wait two years or more for that hospital appointment. All a dentist can do is give multiple courses of antibiotics .

Repeal Jamie Oliver instead

Not quite true, the quantities they are consumed in currently were never anticipated when they were first introduced. The doses they tested were much lower than many people actually consume today.

Whilst I agree about getting a sugary drink, as a T1 diabetic myself I really like that I have choice now in many more places. I have real issues with diet coke, verging on addiction, because I don't really drink alcohol, and so aside from water it was regularly the only thing I could have when out and about, for the best part of 20 years, to avoid always looking like the tight one just wanting tap water with ice (and when you are a teen and everyone else is getting cool flavours of stuff a water just isn't the one). Most pub and restaurant places still do a fruit juice or two for low sugars.

As a dentist, when asked for advice by parents, I advise water. Fruit juice is essentially a waste product, it has to be pasteurised which alters the colour and oxidises the vit c which then has to be added in. Even freshly squeezed fruit juices rapidly loses the vit c. All fizzy drinks with or without sugar and fruit juices are acidic. Daily consumption irreparably damages the teeth. And as many have already said, encourage a sweet tooth.
They are all high calorie, a 250ml glass of fresh orange juice has about 24g of sugar, it may be “natural” but the mouth bacteria don’t differentiate between natural sugar and refined sugar.
In fact there is almost the same amount of sugar in 250ml of orange juice as 250ml of coke.

To summarise drink water.

I always avoided things with sweeteners in for 2 reasons, firstly I hate the taste, and secondly, I am not sure our bodies know what to do with all the chemicals.
I maintain that food manufacturers could reduce the sugar in their recipes incrementally over a few years. Would anyone really notice if cola had 6.5 teaspoons of sugar rather than 7? Or 6 rather than 6.5?

The trouble is the pendulum has swung too far. You now have choices but I'm the one looking like the tightwad for drinking water when I go out as there is nothing else now for me!

In practice I now pop a can of Dalstons or Cawsston Press in my bag in case the venue has nothing without sweeteners which is increasingly the case. I always take my own tonic for gin.

I'm prepared to pay the sugar tax - there is no reason that full sugar drinks cannot co-exist alongside the old diet versions as they did successfully for many years. We could both be happy in our choices then.

THIS

you mean Full sugar Coke 🫢 or the artificial sweetener laden ‘diet’ Coke 🤔

At a tangent, but what was that 70s orange drink that was powdered and came in a sachet and you mixed with a pint of water.I bloody loved that!

Creme-ola foam, or Cream-ola foam came in a couple of different flavours. My spelling might not be 100%

No one actually thinks non Diet Coke, has fat in it, literally no one. It’s a silly phrase to describe the non Diet version! 🤣