Brickbat: Sugar, Sugar

Credit: poolie / photo on flickr

Share prices for British soda makers and distributors plunged after the government announced plans for a tax on drinks with sugar in them. The tax will be 25 to 34 cents per liter depending on the amount of sugar. Fruit juices and milk-based drinks will be exempt from the tax. 

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Fruit juices and milk-based drinks will be exempt from the tax.

No taxation without carbonation! Time for the Limeys to start dressing as injuns and dump Coke into the Thames or whatever.

[Adans smith]

That would be a hate crime and possibly contribute to 'climate change'.

[Radioactive]

not to mention the cultural appropriation associated with dressing as injuns...so wrong on so many levels not to the least of which is the poor spelling of injun...oh the horror, the micro aggression!!...where's my safe place?

[Mustang]

Because the sugar in fruit juice is somehow different.

These people are at least two different types of stupid.

[kV]

It's the intentionz that matter. You see, peddlers of Coke are trying to make people fat and give them metabolic syndrome. That's how they make profitz. Fruit juice makers, on the other hand, only want to give you more Vitamin C and would never try to influence the childrenz.

[Adans smith]

Look how fat Coke makes polar bears.You want your kids to be like that? And all those people singing on that hill with bottles of Coke 40 some years ago.I bet many of them are dead.

[Eric L]

'Fruit juice makers, on the other hand, only want to give you more Vitamin C and would never try to influence the childrenz.'

Fruit juice makers as in Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Dr. PepperSnapple corporations?

[Radioactive]

you don't have a number big enough to count the kinds of stupid these people are...

[An Innocent Man]

Is there a more overrated 'healthy' food than milk?

[some guy]

It's a balanced, dense energy source and it tastes pretty good. Also it's usually fortified with some useful vitamins. I'd say it's just as overrated as every other "healthy" food.

[Almanian's Rusty Woodchipper]

As my doctor says, "Cow milk is intended to make baby cows grow. So it has lots of fat, and it's good at making baby cows grow. SOME of that is OK for humans, too. We need some fat. Just remember - you're not a baby cow...."

Makes sense...

[Radioactive]

am too a baby cow....and a chick and a puppy and a kitty...

[kV]

Well, OK then. Just don't expect to use the rabbit bathroom, freak.

[Radioactive]

and a bunny, forgot to mention the bunny part....so am too gonna use the rabbit bathroom neener, neener, neener

[Adans smith]

Agree and they make cheese out of milk.Cheese,along with beer,are staple foods.

[Thrackmoor]

Cheese is nature's most perfect food. You can have it for every meal, as a snack and as a dessert. Alcohol is a close second.

[GILMORE?]

Soy

[invisible furry hand]

I'll see your soy and raise you a coconut water

[An Innocent Man]

OK. I will grant both Soy and Coconut water.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Coconut water is all the rage now.

[Adans smith]

Do you like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain?

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

How could he not know his wife liked fucking pina coladas all those years? What the fuck were they doing for all that time?

[Radioactive]

how do you fuck a pina colada?

[Thrackmoor]

It's all in the hips...

[lap83]

Soy is the worst dairy alternative. At least almond lattes don't taste like chalk if they're made right

[Acosmist]

Fat, protein, some sugar? It's a good food.

Bodybuilders drink a gallon a day.

r u srs bro

[Hyperbolical]

This is just an excuse to gain more revenue through sin tax. Soft drinks are already significantly marked up in many places and people still buy them. I wonder if they're taxing the drinks that include non-sugar sweeteners.

[Libertarian]

Every once in a while I'll find myself on a tour of a historic house somewhere. The group will always smile/giggle when told that the house was built as it was because, back in the day, windows or perhaps street-facing doors were taxed. "Oh, those silly people back then," we all think, shaking our heads at their silliness.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

We visited some mansions in Rhode Island where the guide explained how each room was built. They would have ENTIRE ROOMS custom built in France or Italy and shipped back. I don't know if it was because they wanted a particular design or materials but I wonder if taxes had something to do with it.

[UnCivilServant]

What time frame are we talking about for these?

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Three months. But with Amazon Prime....two weeks tops.

[UnCivilServant]

Okay, I had to laugh (though I was asking when the houses were built)

[bvandyke]

+1 Snorted my coffee on that one.

[invisible furry hand]

I suspect a combination of craftsmanship and cachet was the cause

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Yeh that's what I was getting at but you said it better.

Aussie( greater) Canadian.

[lap83]

If it was before the Arts and Crafts movement of architecture in the USA, European design was the only thing wealthy Americans wanted.

[bvandyke]

Just wait. Next tax to come:

Standard weight for body height / sex tax: Male 5'-11" target weight 140 - 180 lbs. Show up for monthly weigh in, tax $1.00 per lb over 180 lb / $2 per lb on 220.

Just wait, coming to a Nanny State near you.

[Libertarian]

Way ahead of you.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new.....-says.html

[some guy]

Or we could, you know, have all people pay their own healthcare costs, regardless of weight.

[Adans smith]

And insure against unforeseen ,large expenses.

[Libertarian]

Sounds like you guys want to live in the past (when both insurance and health care were cheaper). Luddites.

[Eric L]

Yeah, we'll have none of that nostalgia around here - only vision. Starbucks' CEO Howard Schultz told me so.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Recently the German Teachers' Association recommended weighing children in class each day and reporting the seriously overweight to social services, who would have the power to remove them to clinics.

Because taking 45 minutes to weigh 25 to 30 kids daily is a good use of instructional time.

[Adans smith]

Taking children from their parents and raising them 'right? In Germany? Where would they get such a idea?

[Thrackmoor]

Deutschland Uber Alles!

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

Sparta?

[some guy]

I propose a $100M grant to replace all school chairs with special chairs that continuously monitor the occupants weight and sound an alarm if that weight exceeds the proper amount for a child of that age. It will save 45 minutes per day of instructional time, thus making it a no-brainer really.

[Heroic Mulatto]

But wasting 45 minutes a day will surely lower German PISA scores, thus we'll have to put up with less hysteria about how we need to implement Common Core to make our kids 'college and career ready' to compete with them.

[Adans smith]

The Germans have always been a comforting people.

[lap83]

It's recommended that adults don't even weigh themselves that often. It's discouraging if you're trying to lose weight

[straffinrun]

Give them a can of Sugarfree.

[Jerryskids]

Simple syrup.

You sell the cola with no sugar in it with an attached packet of sweetener. Just like they did when they outlawed dying margarine yellow in an attempt to get people to buy butter and the margarine manufacturers just included a packet of yellow dye the customer could mix into the margarine.

(IANAC, so I'll let you chemist wanna-bes explain why you can't just mix sugar into soda and expect it to dissolve and spread evenly throughout the soda unless you shake up the soda and ruin the fizziness - but I do know something about economics and I'll explain to you how, if you offer somebody a huge bag of money to solve a particular problem, the smart bet is that somebody somewhere is going to find a solution to that problem. I don't know how you would go about solving the problem - why don't you offer me a big bag of money and we'll see if I can't come up with some ideas?)

[Thrackmoor]

Actually, Jerryskids, you can mix the sugar in and keep the fizz. You heat it and keep the contents under pressure. Sure, a plastic bottle might rupture, or worse, melt, but you could put them in a closed metal container and make it happen.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

You heat it and keep the contents under pressure.

Pressure cooker time!

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

I'll let you chemist wanna-bes explain why you can't just mix sugar into soda and expect it to dissolve and spread evenly throughout the soda unless you shake up the soda and ruin the fizziness

You can make soda at home from scratch or from concentrate. From concentrate seems easiest (not that from scratch is that hard)? you could sell concentrate without sugar and carbonated simple syrup separately and people mix it at home or if sweetened concentrate isn't taxed, you'd sell concentrate and people could mix it with carbonated water at home.

In Canada, taxes on wine lead to the popularity of home wine making. Will taxes on soda in the US lead to a growth in popularity of home soda making?

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

You could even include instructions with the concentrate not to mix it with carbonated water as that will create soda which is illegal. 😀

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

I just remembered Pop Rocks were originally developed when trying to make instant soda (which ultimately failed). You could try restarting that research.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

There. Three solutions. Can I have the big bag of money?

[Viral Stories]

Discover 27 Healthy Delicious Juice Recipes! Why Not Try One Tonight?

[Viral Stories]

How to Eliminate Sugar from Your Diet

Sugar can lead to many diseases, such as Type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol. So it's definitely important to watch what you eat when it comes to sugar