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Should junk food be taxed?
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I am normally a libertarian, but sugar is not any sort of essential nutrient and it is definitely addictive and abused which causes societal costs that we all bear. Alcohol and cigarettes are similar in that vane. I wouldn't be opposed to taxing sugar or HFCS.
sugar has never been found to be an addictive substance, never.
That's not true. Sugar has been found to be highly addictive in multiple studies. In brain scans it was shown to be as addictive as cocaine.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/13/sugar-addiction-like-drug-abuse-study-reveals/
FFS, I really wish this misinterpretation would die. All that happened was that the same pleasure centers lit up between the two.
The difference is that after cocaine use, the centers dim out heavily, and repeated increased dosages are required to have the same effect, and eventually even gain normalcy. This is addiction/dependency.
This doesn't happen with sugar. Everything returns to baseline, and that's it. This is not addiction/dependency.
When was the last time you saw someone shoveling in spoonfuls of sugar? My guess is never. Handfuls of M&Ms though? Probably often.6 -
I am normally a libertarian, but sugar is not any sort of essential nutrient and it is definitely addictive and abused which causes societal costs that we all bear. Alcohol and cigarettes are similar in that vane. I wouldn't be opposed to taxing sugar or HFCS.
sugar has never been found to be an addictive substance, never.
That's not true. Sugar has been found to be highly addictive in multiple studies. In brain scans it was shown to be as addictive as cocaine.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/13/sugar-addiction-like-drug-abuse-study-reveals/
Please find me a study on humans that has conclusive evidence that sugar is addictive.
and you get the same reaction in your brain to petting puppies as you do to sugar, so does that mean that petting puppies is addictive as cocaine.
Here you go. You may get the same type of reaction in brain by petting puppies..but the magnitude is far far lower. Just like the effects of paracetamol vs. Morphine. Yes both are analgesics, but paracetamol is not addictive like an opiate is.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23719144.0 -
I am normally a libertarian, but sugar is not any sort of essential nutrient and it is definitely addictive and abused which causes societal costs that we all bear. Alcohol and cigarettes are similar in that vane. I wouldn't be opposed to taxing sugar or HFCS.
sugar has never been found to be an addictive substance, never.
That's not true. Sugar has been found to be highly addictive in multiple studies. In brain scans it was shown to be as addictive as cocaine.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/13/sugar-addiction-like-drug-abuse-study-reveals/
Please find me a study on humans that has conclusive evidence that sugar is addictive.
and you get the same reaction in your brain to petting puppies as you do to sugar, so does that mean that petting puppies is addictive as cocaine.
Here you go. You may get the same type of reaction in brain by petting puppies..but the magnitude is far far lower. Just like the effects of paracetamol vs. Morphine. Yes both are analgesics, but paracetamol is not addictive like an opiate is.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23719144.
Clearly, puppies need to be banned.3 -
I am normally a libertarian, but sugar is not any sort of essential nutrient and it is definitely addictive and abused which causes societal costs that we all bear. Alcohol and cigarettes are similar in that vane. I wouldn't be opposed to taxing sugar or HFCS.
sugar has never been found to be an addictive substance, never.
That's not true. Sugar has been found to be highly addictive in multiple studies. In brain scans it was shown to be as addictive as cocaine.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/13/sugar-addiction-like-drug-abuse-study-reveals/
No - this is misrepresentation of facts and misinformation. This simply stimulates the pleasure centers of the brain. You get the same response from any pleasurable stimulus such as a warm hug or petting puppies.1 -
Gallowmere1984 wrote: »I am normally a libertarian, but sugar is not any sort of essential nutrient and it is definitely addictive and abused which causes societal costs that we all bear. Alcohol and cigarettes are similar in that vane. I wouldn't be opposed to taxing sugar or HFCS.
sugar has never been found to be an addictive substance, never.
That's not true. Sugar has been found to be highly addictive in multiple studies. In brain scans it was shown to be as addictive as cocaine.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/13/sugar-addiction-like-drug-abuse-study-reveals/
FFS, I really wish this misinterpretation would die. All that happened was that the same pleasure centers lit up between the two.
The difference is that after cocaine use, the centers dim out heavily, and repeated increased dosages are required to have the same effect, and eventually even gain normalcy. This is addiction/dependency.
This doesn't happen with sugar. Everything returns to baseline, and that's it. This is not addiction/dependency.
When was the last time you saw someone shoveling in spoonfuls of sugar? My guess is never. Handfuls of M&Ms though? Probably often.
I'm afraid that multiple scientists disagree with you, the brain does not return to baseline, it reduces dopamine receptors which mean more sugar is needed to get same "high" this kicks off cravings, etc etc just like with drugs. Please see abstract to study I posted.0 -
French_Peasant wrote: »
Good idealemurcat12 wrote: »Bumping -- this is a better place for the effect of taxes on consumption (including of alcohol, I think) than the addiction thread. There may be others, this is the first one that came up.
Personally I'd be in favour of some sort of government action regarding junk food in the US. For example, here in the UK we have a stoplight system on the nutritional information printed on food packages...if a food is high in salt, sugar, fat it'll have the grams printed in a red background with the %rdi...if its moderate, it'll be on a yellow background, if low, a green background. That way you can easily tell that your honey roasted peanuts are high in sugar, salt and fat without calculating grams and RDIs for your weight etc. Go here to see an example
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/food-labelling.aspx
I'd like to see this expanded to be included on restaurant menus, fast food joints..everywhere. Mostly because a lot of people are in the dark as to what is in their food. A quick stoplight chart lets people make quick informed decisions.
Another thing I'd like to see is no more advertising of junk food to children...period. Children don't stand a chance against the slick advertising campaigns.
Movies/Hollywood/Disney should not accept product placement of fast food or portray it as cool...just like we did with smoking.
Amusement parks, esp Disney should offer healthy choices to eat. I've been to Disney and there are NO healthy eating options anywhere. We were really miserable and hungry there as we do not eat fast food. It makes myself and my husband physically ill..vomiting..the work, so our kids have never eaten fast food their entire lives. I think anywhere that caters to kids should be required to offer a healthy option for every junk food option.
No more fast foods in schools..many US schools will have school lunches that are a rotating menu of Taco Bell, dominios, McDonalds, Arby's, etc. Every school should at least have a salad bar every day so kids can actually make a healthy food choice.
Additive chemicals need to be strictly regulated...no more adding chemicals to up the taste/addictiveness. They should only be for preservative purposes. Not for appearance, taste, texture.
I don't think fast food should be taxed, but I do think it should be regulated.
It is interesting that you couldn't find anything that was not fast food at Disney; I picked the first Magic Kingdom restaurant that caught my eye and found several options that would meet most reasonable definitions of a healthy, balanced meal, unless there is an odd medical condition in play:
Colony Salad - featuring Ocean Spray® Craisins® BRAND with Washington Apples, Sweet Pecans, Applewood- smoked Cheddar, and Craisins® Dried Cranberries tossed with Field Greens in a Honey-Shallot Vinaigrette
Freedom Pasta with Grilled Chicken - Rigatoni Pasta with Sautéed Seasonal Vegetables tossed in a Cream Sauce
Freedom Pasta with Sautéed Shrimp - Rigatoni Pasta with Sautéed Seasonal Vegetables tossed in a Cream Sauce
New England Pot Roast - Our Tavern Keeper's Favorite...Braised Beef in a Cabernet Wine and Mushroom Sauce served with Mashed Potatoes and Garden Vegetables
Pilgrim's Feast - Traditional Roast Turkey served with Herb Bread Stuffing, Mashed Potatoes, and a Garden Vegetable
The Vegetarian Proclamation - Roasted Seasonal Vegetables Sandwich, fresh Greens, and Tomatoes topped with a Tangy Vegan Mayonnaise Spread with fresh Fruit or Sweet Potato Fries
Of course, when we travel with our kids I make sure to always have healthy snacks stashed in my purse so we don't have to rely completely on options that don't meet my specifications as a parent. By the same token commercials aren't a problem in our house, because our children normally aren't exposed to them, have been taught to think critically about them, and when they see them will in general scoff at them.
We do invest a lot of time and energy in parenting (and effective research of restaurants) and would prefer not join in the screaming and dancing to have the government or media conglomerates do our parenting for us.
US schools are actually having a huge problem with mandated healthy options going straight into the trash--they are required to put very expensive fruits and vegetables on the tray, but many of the kids do not eat them.
We were there in 2005, so my Disney experience is probably out of date. Glad to see there is more choice now.
I don't understand why you are viewing regulation of junk food as a parenting issue? Surely it's a public health issue to regulate it and the parenting comes in insofar as encouraging the kids to eat healthy.
I've heard about the kids not eating Ms Obamas healthier school lunches...surely that would be a parenting Issue? As in encouraging kids to eat healthy? Kids not eating healthy food is no reason to just throw up our hands and say let them eat cake, pizza, and French fries...and then ban all healthy options from schools.
Yes, an assessment that is 12 years out of date might not be the most useful example for making your point for your grievance.
I am viewing the *consumption* of junk food (and indeed all food) as a parenting issue; the more we have resilient, educated, empowered families and communities with strong NATURAL bonds to healthy food, such as learning about and taking pride in their traditional foodways, the less we have to have heavy-handed, obtuse regulations shoved down our throats.
School lunches are definitely a parenting AND educational issue. I am in charge of the vegetable garden at my kids' school, and can tell you from experience that kids will willingly eat all kinds of crazy things when they have grown and harvested it themselves, but will blow off or actively resist being nagged and forced to eat things just because the government or school says they must. Regarding the boldface, I am not sure where you are coming up with the argument that someone wants to ban healthy food from schools. This seems like a straw man, which is a logical fallacy.5 -
Gallowmere1984 wrote: »I am normally a libertarian, but sugar is not any sort of essential nutrient and it is definitely addictive and abused which causes societal costs that we all bear. Alcohol and cigarettes are similar in that vane. I wouldn't be opposed to taxing sugar or HFCS.
sugar has never been found to be an addictive substance, never.
That's not true. Sugar has been found to be highly addictive in multiple studies. In brain scans it was shown to be as addictive as cocaine.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/13/sugar-addiction-like-drug-abuse-study-reveals/
FFS, I really wish this misinterpretation would die. All that happened was that the same pleasure centers lit up between the two.
The difference is that after cocaine use, the centers dim out heavily, and repeated increased dosages are required to have the same effect, and eventually even gain normalcy. This is addiction/dependency.
This doesn't happen with sugar. Everything returns to baseline, and that's it. This is not addiction/dependency.
When was the last time you saw someone shoveling in spoonfuls of sugar? My guess is never. Handfuls of M&Ms though? Probably often.
I'm afraid that multiple scientists disagree with you, the brain does not return to baseline, it reduces dopamine receptors which mean more sugar is needed to get same "high" this kicks off cravings, etc etc just like with drugs. Please see abstract to study I posted.
I'm missing where that abstract shares the conclusion that sugar consumption reduces dopamine receptors.1 -
I am normally a libertarian, but sugar is not any sort of essential nutrient and it is definitely addictive and abused which causes societal costs that we all bear. Alcohol and cigarettes are similar in that vane. I wouldn't be opposed to taxing sugar or HFCS.
4 -
I am normally a libertarian, but sugar is not any sort of essential nutrient and it is definitely addictive and abused which causes societal costs that we all bear. Alcohol and cigarettes are similar in that vane. I wouldn't be opposed to taxing sugar or HFCS.
So...why exactly does society bear this cost to begin with? This is anti-libertarian.
Society bears the cost of sugar and HFCS via government subsidies. Your taxes are paying for sugar and corn to be grown, increasing availability and artificially depressing the prices. This makes it cheap to use in food...and food companies like cheap ingredients. Society also bears the costs of the healthcare associated with sugar and HFC overconsumption...like type 2 diabetes..via higher health insurance premiums and higher Medicare/Medicaid costs.0 -
Gallowmere1984 wrote: »I am normally a libertarian, but sugar is not any sort of essential nutrient and it is definitely addictive and abused which causes societal costs that we all bear. Alcohol and cigarettes are similar in that vane. I wouldn't be opposed to taxing sugar or HFCS.
sugar has never been found to be an addictive substance, never.
That's not true. Sugar has been found to be highly addictive in multiple studies. In brain scans it was shown to be as addictive as cocaine.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/13/sugar-addiction-like-drug-abuse-study-reveals/
FFS, I really wish this misinterpretation would die. All that happened was that the same pleasure centers lit up between the two.
The difference is that after cocaine use, the centers dim out heavily, and repeated increased dosages are required to have the same effect, and eventually even gain normalcy. This is addiction/dependency.
This doesn't happen with sugar. Everything returns to baseline, and that's it. This is not addiction/dependency.
When was the last time you saw someone shoveling in spoonfuls of sugar? My guess is never. Handfuls of M&Ms though? Probably often.
I'm afraid that multiple scientists disagree with you, the brain does not return to baseline, it reduces dopamine receptors which mean more sugar is needed to get same "high" this kicks off cravings, etc etc just like with drugs. Please see abstract to study I posted.
The full text is behind a paywall, and even the abstract seems to have some problems.
It states sugar-laden foods, not specifically sugar. As we all know, foods end up being greater or less than the sum of their parts, based upon several factors, including but not limited to: taste, smell, mouth feel, nutritional response, etc.
If you have access to the full text, I'd appreciate you sending it to me. I would be interested to see which foodstuffs were used for these things.0 -
I am normally a libertarian, but sugar is not any sort of essential nutrient and it is definitely addictive and abused which causes societal costs that we all bear. Alcohol and cigarettes are similar in that vane. I wouldn't be opposed to taxing sugar or HFCS.
So...why exactly does society bear this cost to begin with? This is anti-libertarian.
Society bears the cost of sugar and HFCS via government subsidies. Your taxes are paying for sugar and corn to be grown, increasing availability and artificially depressing the prices. This makes it cheap to use in food...and food companies like cheap ingredients. Society also bears the costs of the healthcare associated with sugar and HFC overconsumption...like type 2 diabetes..via higher health insurance premiums and higher Medicare/Medicaid costs.
And this is why both subsidies, and entitlement programs need to die in a fire.5 -
ILiftHeavyAcrylics wrote: »ILiftHeavyAcrylics wrote: »ILiftHeavyAcrylics wrote: »
No more fast foods in schools..many US schools will have school lunches that are a rotating menu of Taco Bell, dominios, McDonalds, Arby's, etc. Every school should at least have a salad bar every day so kids can actually make a healthy food choice.
I was a public school teacher and this is news to me. Every school where I taught had a salad bar, a regular meal line (which generally involved a veggie, a starch, and some kind of protein), and in some cases an "a la carte" line where kids could get pizza or chicken nuggets (no a la carte options in the poorest district, only the middle class kids got this option). Just curious what your public school experience was like?
I lived in US for three years 2011-2014 and my kids went to a US public school for one year (private the other two years). In the public school it was all fast food. There was no salad bar. There was no regular line. It was all fast food choices. My kids had a packed lunch every day because the food was so bad. According to this article...it's not that uncommon nowadays.
https://www.education.com/magazine/article/fast-food-school-cafeterias/
Weird. Maybe it's the area? I'm not doubting your contention, it's just so vastly different from my own experience it took me aback. I'm from the midwest and I've never seen a school that didn't have a salad bar.
It probably is the area. I just think it's a bad thing and should be banned otherwise it'll spread to more and more schools. The schools are only doing it for money reasons..they don't care about obesity or the health of the kids. It just doesn't seem right to purposely create an unhealthy environment and then expect kids to weather it with no impact. To me it's no different than putting teenagers in a room with a keg of beer and then being all surprised when some of them drink til they puke. School environments should reinforce healthy behaviours, not try and sabotage them.
I don't disagree with your point, but I think the bolded is unfair. In the article you linked to, they said that when the cafeteria makes it's own healthier food, no one buys it. They are supplying the demand so they can make some money, yes. But unless students are forced to eat healthy food the cafeteria is serving, and parents are teaching the same lessons at home, the schools are kind of caught in a pickle - make healthy food and have to throw it out because no one buys it, or serve tweaked branded food and make money to help fund school meal programs for low income children. It stinks that those are their choices, but it's not that they don't care about health.
I agree, it's unfair to say that schools don't care about student health. I can tell you that even in schools with no fast food or a la carte options, all of the apples and vegetables end up in the trash. The school is stuck between throwing money away buying the fruit/vegetables that they know will end up not getting eaten, or getting criticized for not providing any healthy items for students because they used the fruit/veggie money to provide pizza and chicken nuggets.
Agreed. The meals in our schools seem okay, despite it being a low-income school district in large part, with never-ending money issues. They provide breakfast and lunch that many kids rely on, and also do their part with nutrition education, from what I've seen. The problem is that most of this really does start at home.
It's also a problem, IMO, that people take the most extreme examples and make claims about all US schools, when so much of how our schools are run is local.5 -
Gallowmere1984 wrote: »I am normally a libertarian, but sugar is not any sort of essential nutrient and it is definitely addictive and abused which causes societal costs that we all bear. Alcohol and cigarettes are similar in that vane. I wouldn't be opposed to taxing sugar or HFCS.
sugar has never been found to be an addictive substance, never.
That's not true. Sugar has been found to be highly addictive in multiple studies. In brain scans it was shown to be as addictive as cocaine.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/13/sugar-addiction-like-drug-abuse-study-reveals/
Please find me a study on humans that has conclusive evidence that sugar is addictive.
and you get the same reaction in your brain to petting puppies as you do to sugar, so does that mean that petting puppies is addictive as cocaine.
Here you go. You may get the same type of reaction in brain by petting puppies..but the magnitude is far far lower. Just like the effects of paracetamol vs. Morphine. Yes both are analgesics, but paracetamol is not addictive like an opiate is.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23719144.
Clearly, puppies need to be banned.
Please don't tax my puppy petting!!!!!3 -
I am normally a libertarian, but sugar is not any sort of essential nutrient and it is definitely addictive and abused which causes societal costs that we all bear. Alcohol and cigarettes are similar in that vane. I wouldn't be opposed to taxing sugar or HFCS.
So...why exactly does society bear this cost to begin with? This is anti-libertarian.
Society bears the cost of sugar and HFCS via government subsidies. Your taxes are paying for sugar and corn to be grown, increasing availability and artificially depressing the prices. This makes it cheap to use in food...and food companies like cheap ingredients. Society also bears the costs of the healthcare associated with sugar and HFC overconsumption...like type 2 diabetes..via higher health insurance premiums and higher Medicare/Medicaid costs.
But -- presumably -- a libertarian would advocate for ending subsidies and making people bear the cost of their own healthcare instead of advocating for higher taxes on foods containing sugar or HFCS.
A libertarian state wouldn't have to worry about Medicare/Medicaid costs.3 -
French_Peasant wrote: »French_Peasant wrote: »
Good idealemurcat12 wrote: »Bumping -- this is a better place for the effect of taxes on consumption (including of alcohol, I think) than the addiction thread. There may be others, this is the first one that came up.
Personally I'd be in favour of some sort of government action regarding junk food in the US. For example, here in the UK we have a stoplight system on the nutritional information printed on food packages...if a food is high in salt, sugar, fat it'll have the grams printed in a red background with the %rdi...if its moderate, it'll be on a yellow background, if low, a green background. That way you can easily tell that your honey roasted peanuts are high in sugar, salt and fat without calculating grams and RDIs for your weight etc. Go here to see an example
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/food-labelling.aspx
I'd like to see this expanded to be included on restaurant menus, fast food joints..everywhere. Mostly because a lot of people are in the dark as to what is in their food. A quick stoplight chart lets people make quick informed decisions.
Another thing I'd like to see is no more advertising of junk food to children...period. Children don't stand a chance against the slick advertising campaigns.
Movies/Hollywood/Disney should not accept product placement of fast food or portray it as cool...just like we did with smoking.
Amusement parks, esp Disney should offer healthy choices to eat. I've been to Disney and there are NO healthy eating options anywhere. We were really miserable and hungry there as we do not eat fast food. It makes myself and my husband physically ill..vomiting..the work, so our kids have never eaten fast food their entire lives. I think anywhere that caters to kids should be required to offer a healthy option for every junk food option.
No more fast foods in schools..many US schools will have school lunches that are a rotating menu of Taco Bell, dominios, McDonalds, Arby's, etc. Every school should at least have a salad bar every day so kids can actually make a healthy food choice.
Additive chemicals need to be strictly regulated...no more adding chemicals to up the taste/addictiveness. They should only be for preservative purposes. Not for appearance, taste, texture.
I don't think fast food should be taxed, but I do think it should be regulated.
It is interesting that you couldn't find anything that was not fast food at Disney; I picked the first Magic Kingdom restaurant that caught my eye and found several options that would meet most reasonable definitions of a healthy, balanced meal, unless there is an odd medical condition in play:
Colony Salad - featuring Ocean Spray® Craisins® BRAND with Washington Apples, Sweet Pecans, Applewood- smoked Cheddar, and Craisins® Dried Cranberries tossed with Field Greens in a Honey-Shallot Vinaigrette
Freedom Pasta with Grilled Chicken - Rigatoni Pasta with Sautéed Seasonal Vegetables tossed in a Cream Sauce
Freedom Pasta with Sautéed Shrimp - Rigatoni Pasta with Sautéed Seasonal Vegetables tossed in a Cream Sauce
New England Pot Roast - Our Tavern Keeper's Favorite...Braised Beef in a Cabernet Wine and Mushroom Sauce served with Mashed Potatoes and Garden Vegetables
Pilgrim's Feast - Traditional Roast Turkey served with Herb Bread Stuffing, Mashed Potatoes, and a Garden Vegetable
The Vegetarian Proclamation - Roasted Seasonal Vegetables Sandwich, fresh Greens, and Tomatoes topped with a Tangy Vegan Mayonnaise Spread with fresh Fruit or Sweet Potato Fries
Of course, when we travel with our kids I make sure to always have healthy snacks stashed in my purse so we don't have to rely completely on options that don't meet my specifications as a parent. By the same token commercials aren't a problem in our house, because our children normally aren't exposed to them, have been taught to think critically about them, and when they see them will in general scoff at them.
We do invest a lot of time and energy in parenting (and effective research of restaurants) and would prefer not join in the screaming and dancing to have the government or media conglomerates do our parenting for us.
US schools are actually having a huge problem with mandated healthy options going straight into the trash--they are required to put very expensive fruits and vegetables on the tray, but many of the kids do not eat them.
We were there in 2005, so my Disney experience is probably out of date. Glad to see there is more choice now.
I don't understand why you are viewing regulation of junk food as a parenting issue? Surely it's a public health issue to regulate it and the parenting comes in insofar as encouraging the kids to eat healthy.
I've heard about the kids not eating Ms Obamas healthier school lunches...surely that would be a parenting Issue? As in encouraging kids to eat healthy? Kids not eating healthy food is no reason to just throw up our hands and say let them eat cake, pizza, and French fries...and then ban all healthy options from schools.
Yes, an assessment that is 12 years out of date might not be the most useful example for making your point for your grievance.
I am viewing the *consumption* of junk food (and indeed all food) as a parenting issue; the more we have resilient, educated, empowered families and communities with strong NATURAL bonds to healthy food, such as learning about and taking pride in their traditional foodways, the less we have to have heavy-handed, obtuse regulations shoved down our throats.
School lunches are definitely a parenting AND educational issue. I am in charge of the vegetable garden at my kids' school, and can tell you from experience that kids will willingly eat all kinds of crazy things when they have grown and harvested it themselves, but will blow off or actively resist being nagged and forced to eat things just because the government or school says they must. Regarding the boldface, I am not sure where you are coming up with the argument that someone wants to ban healthy food from schools. This seems like a straw man, which is a logical fallacy.
Great point.
A public school near me (preK to 8th grade), which is admittedly much better-off than many in this school district (less than 18% low income vs. over 80%, the neighborhood is much less than 80% but it's a magnet school so also gets kids from all over), has a similar thing with the garden. Even more exciting are the gardening projects in the inner city, and seeing kids who are involved with it selling their produce at the green market.0 -
janejellyroll wrote: »I am normally a libertarian, but sugar is not any sort of essential nutrient and it is definitely addictive and abused which causes societal costs that we all bear. Alcohol and cigarettes are similar in that vane. I wouldn't be opposed to taxing sugar or HFCS.
So...why exactly does society bear this cost to begin with? This is anti-libertarian.
Society bears the cost of sugar and HFCS via government subsidies. Your taxes are paying for sugar and corn to be grown, increasing availability and artificially depressing the prices. This makes it cheap to use in food...and food companies like cheap ingredients. Society also bears the costs of the healthcare associated with sugar and HFC overconsumption...like type 2 diabetes..via higher health insurance premiums and higher Medicare/Medicaid costs.
But -- presumably -- a libertarian would advocate for ending subsidies and making people bear the cost of their own healthcare instead of advocating for higher taxes on foods containing sugar or HFCS.
A libertarian state wouldn't have to worry about Medicare/Medicaid costs.
I'm not a libertarian at all, but yes, this seems obvious.0 -
Also, I think the Government should stop subsidising food period. Now this article is a bit frothing at the mouth but just focus on the nine foods that are being subsidised...not a single vegetable is on there. The fact that some foods...grains, meat and dairy are being subsidised means food stuff derived from these are cheaper than they should be...thus the overuse of corn syrup, the overproduction of cheese resulting in marketing to get people to eat more cheese, etc. Wishfully, I'd like to see vegetables subsidised...but in lieu of that...stop subsidising and let the consumers decide what they want to eat instead of creating an over abundance of food stuffs that then get heavily used and marketed.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/08/03/the-9-foods-the-us-government-is-paying-you-to-eat.aspx
My favorite part of this Mercola article is that the entire last section is for shilling his book, with the six FREE!!!!! gifts (two of which are discounts, but FREE!!!! discounts). Commercials are the devil, but since this is integrated in the article, it's like research or something:
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French_Peasant wrote: »Also, I think the Government should stop subsidising food period. Now this article is a bit frothing at the mouth but just focus on the nine foods that are being subsidised...not a single vegetable is on there. The fact that some foods...grains, meat and dairy are being subsidised means food stuff derived from these are cheaper than they should be...thus the overuse of corn syrup, the overproduction of cheese resulting in marketing to get people to eat more cheese, etc. Wishfully, I'd like to see vegetables subsidised...but in lieu of that...stop subsidising and let the consumers decide what they want to eat instead of creating an over abundance of food stuffs that then get heavily used and marketed.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/08/03/the-9-foods-the-us-government-is-paying-you-to-eat.aspx
My favorite part of this Mercola article is that the entire last section is for shilling his book, with the six FREE!!!!! gifts (two of which are discounts, but FREE!!!! discounts). Commercials are the devil, but since this is integrated in the article, it's like research or something:
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I like the warning that we likely have cancer in our bodies, even if we haven't "yet" been diagnosed. Subtle, yet effective.3 -
Gallowmere1984 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »I am normally a libertarian, but sugar is not any sort of essential nutrient and it is definitely addictive and abused which causes societal costs that we all bear. Alcohol and cigarettes are similar in that vane. I wouldn't be opposed to taxing sugar or HFCS.
sugar has never been found to be an addictive substance, never.
That's not true. Sugar has been found to be highly addictive in multiple studies. In brain scans it was shown to be as addictive as cocaine.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/13/sugar-addiction-like-drug-abuse-study-reveals/
FFS, I really wish this misinterpretation would die. All that happened was that the same pleasure centers lit up between the two.
The difference is that after cocaine use, the centers dim out heavily, and repeated increased dosages are required to have the same effect, and eventually even gain normalcy. This is addiction/dependency.
This doesn't happen with sugar. Everything returns to baseline, and that's it. This is not addiction/dependency.
When was the last time you saw someone shoveling in spoonfuls of sugar? My guess is never. Handfuls of M&Ms though? Probably often.
I'm afraid that multiple scientists disagree with you, the brain does not return to baseline, it reduces dopamine receptors which mean more sugar is needed to get same "high" this kicks off cravings, etc etc just like with drugs. Please see abstract to study I posted.
The full text is behind a paywall, and even the abstract seems to have some problems.
It states sugar-laden foods, not specifically sugar. As we all know, foods end up being greater or less than the sum of their parts, based upon several factors, including but not limited to: taste, smell, mouth feel, nutritional response, etc.
If you have access to the full text, I'd appreciate you sending it to me. I would be interested to see which foodstuffs were used for these things.
This link should take you to the full text of the study. If not, go to research gate, search via author or title and it should let you download study in PDF without joining. It'll be a blue button in top right hand corner.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Serge_Ahmed/publication/236967373_Sugar_addiction_Pushing_the_drug-sugar_analogy_to_the_limit/links/02e7e51dab5fbc2754000000/Sugar-addiction-Pushing-the-drug-sugar-analogy-to-the-limit.pdf.0 -
Lone_wolf46 wrote: »Enough with the taxes already. People should exercise some self control and just don't eat it. It's that simple.
I would tend to agree, but with 70% of the US population obese or overweight, how's that working out?0
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