Posted on 03/17/2010 12:32:18 PM PDT by presidio9
Is soda the new tobacco?
In their critics’ eyes, producers of sugar-sweetened drinks are acting a lot like the tobacco industry of old: marketing heavily to children, claiming their products are healthy or at worst benign, and lobbying to prevent change. The industry says there are critical differences: in moderate quantities soda isn’t harmful, nor is it addictive.
The problem is that at roughly 50 gallons per person per year, our consumption of soda, not to mention other sugar-sweetened beverages, is far from moderate, and appears to be an important factor in the rise in childhood obesity. This increase is at least partly responsible for a rise in what can no longer be called “adult onset” diabetes — because more and more children are now developing it.
Attention is being paid: Last week, the Obama administration announced a plan to ban candy and sweetened beverages from schools. A campaign against childhood obesity will be led by the first lady, Michelle Obama. And a growing number of public health advocates are pushing for even more aggressive actions, urging that soda be treated like tobacco: with taxes, warning labels and a massive public health marketing campaign, all to discourage consumption.
A tax on soda was one option considered to help pay for health care reform (the Joint Committee on Taxation calculated that a 3-cent tax on each 12-ounce sugared soda would raise $51.6 billion over a decade), and President Obama told Men’s Health magazine last fall that such a tax is “an idea that we should be exploring. There’s no doubt that our kids drink way too much soda.”
But with all the junk food and U.F.O.’s (unidentifiable food-like objects) out there, why soda? Why a tax? And, most important, would it work?
To the beverage industry,
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Yes, it dawned on me just about the time I posted my ignorance. Agreed, it’s bad stuff. I’ve taken to reading labels and not buying things that have HFCS in them. I hardly ever drink a soda, and when I do, it’s Diet Rite and very little of that, because Splenda is no better than Aspartame. I drink Arizona Green Tea mixed with water, and milk. Once in a blue moon a glass of regular tea. I do love my coffee though. Thanks for the info.
My generation smoked,drank alcohol,and guzzled coffee when pregnant. (I never liked soda or I would have drunk that also.)
We all had healthy kids.
The world has gone stark-raving mad.
Well, I don't give a crap about hfcs because I only drink coffee, milk and water.
I just don't want the federal government telling me what I can or cannot ingest.
If only we'd welcomed with open arms their intrusion into the minutiae of our life we could have lived forever. Or at least as long as the Great Health Collective decided we could, burdening the other members of the hive being the new Mortal Sin.
Freedom was just, well, messy and now we're dead.
Yes, what you said reminds me of an old saying about a guy who read this was bad for you and read that was bad for you, so what did he do?
He stopped reading.
No tolls between Westchester County and Fairfield County.
You don’t get: When someone says something stupid to me, I call them on it. It could be on one of my own threads. It could be on somebody else’s thread. It could be on the subway. I have a zero tolerance policy for stupidity. When a person’s feelings get hurt, they have three choices: They can walk away, they can admit they’re wrong, or they can persue the line of stupidity until they’ve made a complete ass out of themselves: A vain attempt to somehow make whatever it was they said correct. You chose the third option. I’m constantly wrong. I usually chose to own up to it. Sometimes I walk away. When I let my pride force me to fight it out, I generally regret it.
That makes zero sense. Thanks for wasting my time with it.
There's no doubt about that. It explains why some people prefer Coke to Pepsi and vice versa.
That's where I draw the line. Even if it means riding with my pitchfork and tar and feather launcher, this is it.
R.I.P. Madame D.
You can have my Coke, when you pry it out of my cold dead hands!
Flash from the past:
Cancer Alert: Bread and French Fries
New Study: Heated Carbohydrate Foods Can Carry Cancer Chemical
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/04/25/health/main507222.shtml
I will heretofore avoid all threads started by you.
My mistake to hit post to #1 and not read the other
replies first to perhaps find someone or something more
appropriate to respond to.
You treat your posts like your personal property : you’re the guy with the shotgun, and I’m the guy trying
to break in. Bully for you.
Maybe you could save your animosity for some REAL enemies
we all have in common?
Yep. We preached about this very scenario for years. Looks like it’ll be playing out soon enough. Wonder how they’ll like it then?
Demonize-Profitize. Tax & Spend. This will continue until.......???
Corpo-villain? Legal action akin to the tobacco circus? As I recall, that was billions of dollars given to the states, supposed to be for treating smokers' diseases and to educate children. What a stupid joke!
None of this is good news. It all plays into national health care. It's communist.
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