Taxing Soda

I've stated in the past here that I'm not a big fan of regular soda.

But how much of an affect would there be on sales of soda if there were a tax specifically on high calorie drinks like regular soda, energy drinks, etc.?

This article talks about how that is being entertained in the conversations among lawmakers as they try to take on the healthcare issues in the United States:

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington-based watchdog group that pressures food companies to make healthier products, plans to propose a federal excise tax on soda, certain fruit drinks, energy drinks, sports drinks and ready-to-drink teas. It would not include most diet beverages. Excise taxes are levied on goods and manufacturers typically pass them on to consumers.

How much would the tax be?:

The Congressional Budget Office, which is providing lawmakers with cost estimates for each potential change in the health overhaul, included the option in a broad report on health-system financing in December. The office estimated that adding a tax of three cents per 12-ounce serving to these types of sweetened drinks would generate $24 billion over the next four years.

Three cents? I think you can look at this in two different ways. It's three cent more for every 12 ounces so a normal 20-ouncer would cost an extra 5 cents. I guess if the argument is that it's going to generate $24 billion over 4 years towards changes to a health care system that is in need of changes, then it seems like a small price to pay.

But at the same time, let's not go to the extremely laughable argument like this:

Proponents of the tax cite research showing that consuming sugar-sweetened drinks can lead to obesity, diabetes and other ailments. They say the tax would lower consumption, reduce health problems and save medical costs.

I highly doubt that anyone is going to drop their 2 a day Mountain Dew addiction because the price of each one goes up 5 cents. So please, let's not try with a straight face that this is being proposed to get people healthier, it's being proposed to raise revenue for health care changes.

Want to discourage people from drinking soda with a tax? Make it a two dollar a bottle tax and then you might get some people that'll give up the habit if it's going to cost them $4 for a 20-ouncer.

It seems this approach might be better:

"Taxes are not going to teach our children how to have a healthy lifestyle," said Susan Neely, president of the American Beverage Association. Instead, the association says it's backing programs that limit sugary beverage consumption in schools.

Get the soda machines out of the schools, stop the daily menu of high calorie pizza and burritos in the school cafeterias and create required classes in school that focus on health and nutrition. That's going to go a much longer way in truly fighting against the obesity epidemic than three cents.
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Liquid Calories Re-visited

Back when I was in high school, I worked at a grocery store stocking groceries, cleaning out meat coolers, and bagging groceries for customers.



I still remember one gentleman (who was extremely overweight) who would stand at the checkout and had every high calorie food there was in the place. Sugar cereal, candy, pies, anything you could imagine. Then the last thing he would take out of his cart was a 12 pack of DIET Coke. I always remember laughing thinking, "Oh, I guess the Diet Coke equals it all out."

But I came across this story that made me think a little more.

I've written in the past here on how easy it is to consume a high amount of calories just from one bottle of regular soda. Without even thinking twice, people are putting between 200-300 calories in their bodies from a 20 oz bottle of regular soda.

This article talks about how if someone simply eliminate that regular soda (and keep eating the rest of their crappy diet), they could stabilize or lose weight.

I was a little disappointed though in the article when it gave the results of how much weight was actually lost:

The specific results:

* A reduction in liquid calorie intake was associated with a weight loss of 0.55 pounds (0.25 kg) at 6 months and 0.52 pounds (0.24 kg) at 18 months.
* Among sugar-sweetened beverages, a reduction of 1 serving daily was associated with a weight loss of 1.1 pounds (0.5 kg) at 6 months and 1.54 pounds (0.7 kg) at 18 months.
* Of the seven types of drinks examined, sugar-sweetened beverages were the only type significantly associated with weight change.
* At 37 percent, sugar-sweetened beverages were the leading source of liquid calories.

Losing less than two pounds over a period of 18 months doesn't seem all that big of a deal to me.

But I think the argument still holds that I mentioned back in this post that if you simply drop your regular soda intake (especially if you're consuming more than 2 a day) over time those eliminated calories will add up to less pounds around your waistline.

But maybe another benefit of dropping those liquid calories is that you're not priming your body for more sweet tasting foods. In other words, maybe it needs to be researched whether drinking regular soda then also leads you to crave the sweeter foods that also happen to be the high calories garbage that is out there.

In the end, I might have been laughing at the guy at the counter buying all the high calorie food to go along with his Diet Coke but, in a way, at least he wasn't consuming as many calories as he could have.

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Sugary Drink Myth for Children

I can't remember what my mother use to give me when I was a kid and I had an upset stomach, throwing up, etc., but when I saw this article, it made me vaguely remember that I think she used to give me a flat soda. I do remember when I was older being given Vernors (those outside of Michigan and Ohio probably have no idea what that is but, trust me, once you've had it, you'll find a way to get it shipped to your state) and that actually worked pretty well.

What we're finding out now is that, it's not a good idea to be giving infants that are dehydrated flat soda or very high sugar drinks (this seems like a no brainer but, I guess it's not).

The recommendation is for a parent to give a child a drink that does have some sugar in it as well as salt, but not to the level of the regular sodas that are currently on the market.

I think it brings up a good question: What did they do 300 years, 1000 years, and 40,000 years ago when a child was dehydrated and there wasn't a soda vending machine within 50 feet?

Have we forgot about the simplest form of liquid that we can use to hydrate ourselves?: Water?

Have a good weekend everyone.

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American Caloric Consumption

Not sure why I have been thinking about this lately but, I started wondering if the numbers that we normally see on what the "average" American eats in a day is actually in the ballpark, or if it's over the fence.

A lot of things that I've read (articles, studies, etc) have stated that the "average" American eats between 1800-2500 calories a day. Which is fairly in line with what the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) is that the government has formulated as a guideline.

But that brings up a question though: If the "average" American is eating within the range of the RDA, then why are we now in a position where 66% of the population is either overweight or obese?

One answer that seems simple enough is that we aren't as active anymore like we were 10, 20, 30 years ago. But can that really be the entire reason? Simply a result of no activity (supposedly)?

Then I came across this chart that was published by the United Nations and it shows what they average caloric consumption for Americans was for various time periods:



The "average" American is consuming over 3700 calories a day? That can't be right!!

But, think about it. Don't think about it in the sense of the number of calories that you're eating day in and day out. Think of the number of calories that you're eating within a week, or within a month, or within a year and then average it out from there.

Sure, maybe most of the time on a plurality of days you're eating between 2000-2500 calories. But think about those times when you're out to dinner. Or you're at a party. You snack on a few things here and there (but it's more than "here or there"). For some reason in your mind you don't think of them as real "calories." You're not hungry, but you just keep putting those chips in your mouth.

Or you stop at a fast food place once a week. That value meal isn't that bad. But in reality, you just stuffed down a 2000 calorie meal in 10 minutes, and that's on top of the rest of the calories you ate during the day.

When you look at it in those terms, I don't think it's out of the question that it's possible that over a course of the year, the average American eats 3790 calories a day.

Even if you think that's way off and you wanted to be a little more conservative, I think it would be hard to argue that the average American consumes 3000 calories a day.

Think about it in this terms of soda. We'll use Mountain Dew as an example. In a 20 ounce bottle of mountain dew (and let's be realistic, if you're going to drink soda, the vast majority of people are going to drink a 20 ouncer), there are 275 calories. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibilities that a large segment of American Society drinks 3, 20-ounce bottles of soda in one day. So that's already 825 calories in one day. If you throw on 2500 more calories in actual food that a person might take in one day, you're at 3325 calories in a single day.

This is on a "normal, average" day. when you throw in the outliers such as parties, bar night, baseball game, etc, then you're bumping it up even more.

So overall, I think we need to stop lying to ourselves into thinking that on average, we're only consuming 1800-2500 calories a day, because in the bigger picture, it just doesn't make sense. The longer we keep lying to ourselves about this, the large the waistline of this country is going to get.

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The Fizzle on Diet Soda

I tend to go back and forth on the issue of diet soda and whether I'm for it or against it (I know this would appear obvious but, there really is no reason to drink regular soda, see my write up on that here).

But I think i'm starting to lean a little more towards the side that it's not the end of the world is someone is addicted to it.

This article talks about the "dangers" of it and quite frankly, I think the author is reaching a little bit.

Here he says:

Just because diet soda is low in calories doesn't mean it can't lead to weight gain.

It may have only 5 or fewer calories per serving, but emerging research suggests that consuming sugary-tasting beverages--even if they're artificially sweetened--may lead to a high preference for sweetness overall. That means sweeter (and more caloric) cereal, bread, dessert--everything.

I guess I just don't know if I can relate to that. What he's saying is that because diet soda taste sugary, then it might lead you to dive into wanting to eat something else that really does have sugar in it (ice cream, candy, etc). I think that's assuming a lot. From my own experience, there are times when I'll grab a diet soda just to get a little caffeine in me because maybe I'm feeling sluggish. I've never had one and then thought "I know those Ho-Ho's are around here somewhere!!"

His second part of the argument says:

Guzzling these drinks all day long forces out the healthy beverages you need.

Diet soda is 100 percent nutrition-free, and again, it's just as important to actively drink the good stuff as it is to avoid that bad stuff. So one diet soda a day is fine, but if you're downing five or six cans, that means you're limiting your intake of healthful beverages, particularly water and tea.

Okay fine. I'll give him this one.

And lastly he states:

There remain some concerns over aspartame, the low-calorie chemical used to give diet sodas their flavor.

Aspartame is 180 times sweeter than sugar, and some animal research has linked consumption of high amounts of the sweetener to brain tumors and lymphoma in rodents. The FDA maintains that the sweetener is safe, but reported side effects include dizziness, headaches, diarrhea, memory loss, and mood changes. Bottom line: Diet soda does you no good, and it might just be doing you wrong.

This one bothers me the most. These side effects in my opinion don't seem all that common. But the bigger issues I have with this is that these effects are no where NEAR the effects that other man-made ingredients such as trans fats and High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)
have that can out and out lead you to possibly falling over dead while waiting for the bus.

I guess the bottom line is that I think we need to look at the big picture and realize that sure, maybe diet soda isn't the greatest if you're consuming a case a day, but, I don't see any studies out there that are concluding that it's leading to heart disease, increases in cholesterol, causing your brain to drip out of your ear, etc. Let focus on the man-made crap out there that we're consuming that's actually doing us harm rather than maybe making us sit on the toilet a little longer than we wanted in the morning.

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