Sugar Tax

spideog said:
Yep,I get that. But it is T1's that will now be taxed for treating their medical condition as having sugary drinks or similar to hand is pretty much an essential part of emergency kit.
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With respect, if you are having so many hypos it makes a difference, is that root cause not the focus of your attention?

As someone who has never taken any medication for my diabetes, nor do I have any testing supplies supplied, aside from by my own, personal funding, I appreciate the diabetes world is not necessarily a fair place to be living. Some punches are easier to roll with than others.
 
AndBreathe said:
With respect, if you are having so many hypos it makes a difference, is that root cause not the focus of your attention?
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Endurance sports means that I need to keep plenty of sugar on hand to make it through the duration of an event, and also to prevent the hypos from happening just when you don't need them to. Not always treating the hypo, is also used in order to prevent the hypo ever happening in the first place. A bg of 7 is all fine and dandy, but if the start of the race is about to happen in 15 minutes you need to get that level up sharpish if you want any hope of making it to the end. :)
 
Isn't a hypo best treated by fizzy high sugary liquids to save your teeth, get the sugar quicker in your system. (Fizzy anything works quicker, apparently) and a quick fix til you have food?
T1s like T2s have to try and keep their sugar levels, level.
I know a few T1s in my life who were constantly encouraged to get those starchy carbs in. Hence keeping their level higher. Leading to a bounce back and very difficult levels to manage. Unmanageable. Being a T1 has it's own challenges and of which I truely respect. So if original lucoxade could be exempt to help with that task I would be a lot happier.
I know T2s have managing costs but through experience T1 hypo and hyper comas are very frightening and life threatening, sometimes without warning. Not an easy situation to cope with when money is an issue too.
T2 diabetes can have a slower dangerous effect on your life (none insulin dependants) where as T1 is much quicker instant threat to your life. Action is imperative.
Taking away that aid for monetary reasons is very very harsh!
Vunerable diabetics should not be put in a worse position. Ever.
 
Spideog is right - T1's don't just use sugary drinks for Hypo's. I self fund Libre and get VAT exemption on sensors. Perhaps we should petition to get Sugar tax relief on Glucojuice (25g per 100ml), although as someone said, if you are having so many hypos that the tax will significantly impact you financially, then perhaps you should be looking more to the cause than the remedy!

I also believe the drinks manufacturers will increase the pricing on zero sugar drinks - few realise there is an admin cost as an unpaid government tax collector and companies will want to recoup that!
 
3 cubes max of sugar is pretty good for a hypo stopper and so is powdered glucose in a pack from Boots..
Sugar cubes stay great in sun, ice etc but not necesarily good for someone else if they are having to treat a severe hypo.. But a glucose drink from the powder is good.
Avoids excesseive tax...
 
If it stops me from looking like my avatar, then I approve. If it stops kids emulating my avatar then I approve even more. If it helps my avatar achieve a BMI of 21 then its a no contest
 
Personally I think this tax is akin to closing the door after the horse has bolted. You see the debate and confusion on what makes a healthy diet and the emphasis on low-fat has been so drilled into us by schools, parents, health professionals etc. Not to mention that the truth about sugar has been around since atleast the early 80's but withheld until not only are we facing a massive diabetes/obesity epidemic but the addiction to sugar is well and truly established. If you look at alcohol, cigarettes, drugs and other addictive substances once the addiction is established those addicted will pay any amount to get their hands on it. True sugar may not register as an addiction in the same way, but it is an addiction just the same.
The other problem with this tax is that sugary drinks, though a problem, are only a single area of a persons diet. What about these carbohydrate heavy, unhealthy ready meals? Or how about other processed foods full of hidden sugar?
Solving this crisis could be as drastic as needing detox clinics that train people to make healthier food choices and helping people learn to cook at home.

Sorry for the rant!
Yes this is a good start but too little too late in my opinion.
 
RoseofSharon said:
Personally I think this tax is akin to closing the door after the horse has bolted. You see the debate and confusion on what makes a healthy diet and the emphasis on low-fat has been so drilled into us by schools, parents, health professionals etc. Not to mention that the truth about sugar has been around since atleast the early 80's but withheld until not only are we facing a massive diabetes/obesity epidemic but the addiction to sugar is well and truly established. If you look at alcohol, cigarettes, drugs and other addictive substances once the addiction is established those addicted will pay any amount to get their hands on it. True sugar may not register as an addiction in the same way, but it is an addiction just the same.
The other problem with this tax is that sugary drinks, though a problem, are only a single area of a persons diet. What about these carbohydrate heavy, unhealthy ready meals? Or how about other processed foods full of hidden sugar?
Solving this crisis could be as drastic as needing detox clinics that train people to make healthier food choices and helping people learn to cook at home.

Sorry for the rant!
Yes this is a good start but too little too late in my opinion.
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Tbe use of sugar levvy on soft drinks appears to have had mucho success in Mexico, so it is not without precedent. Soft drink consumption in Mexico has reduced significantly since its introduction.
 
I actually worry on a different note... The UK needs to lead the way ensuring that the "diet" drinks are going to limit the Aspartame. I only speak from my experience that I am crippled from Aspartame / sweetener intake....I've also seen an anorexic young lady absolutely addicted to the drink..
Sweeteners are also recognised as having problems with increasing appetite for sweet food.

Perhaps an incentive to advertisers and the plain simple water would be good..
 
donnellysdogs said:
Perhaps an incentive to advertisers and the plain simple water would be good..
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It would be DD but when out and about it's quite handy just to purchase a bottle/can from a shop, bottled water is one of the biggest rip-off around and it can vary in price from 30p to £2/£3 a bottle in some cases.
 
Oldvatr said:
Tbe use of sugar levvy on soft drinks appears to have had mucho success in Mexico, so it is not without precedent. Soft drink consumption in Mexico has reduced significantly since its introduction.
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I'm sorry I think you missed my point, yes it has precedent and no I'm not saying that it won't (although I personally think it unlikely) reduce the amount of consumption. What I am saying is that it doesn't actually fix the problem we have in real health terms. If you want to reduce sugar consumption then all sources of sugar need to be targeted and not just one.
 
@RoseofSharon

Well said ... this does nothing. Target it properly or shut up. Australia has been screaming about this all day. Thru with enabling governments doing nothing except raising revenues with no evidence of outcomes.
 
What the products will be altered to will just more and more artificial sweeteners and/or the end user will pay more and more for the same product as the manufacturers try to recoup their profits. There really is no incentive to the average person to change their dietary habits or for the manufacturers to enable healthy lifestyle choices.
 
chloegeek said:
Like I said I'm not really against the tax in any way really. I'm mostly just curious to see where it's going and what it will affect. The only slight issue I'm having is that I do tend to buy a fair bit of diet soda and as a student I worry about tiny increases in objects I buy a lot of.

Still, I think the fact that they are pushing that money into health and fitness is a good thing.
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Hopefully manufacturers wont increase the cost of diet soda drinks as that is whole point of the tax - to encourage people to buy the sugar free versions!
 
Catlady19 said:
Hopefully manufacturers wont increase the cost of diet soda drinks as that is whole point of the tax - to encourage people to buy the sugar free versions!
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Yuh, would be super unhelpful. My partner says it isn't legal for them to do that but I could see them getting around it by making the diet ones a couple pennies more expensive or less expensive than the taxed sugar ones. I dunno, I hope it turns out well and reduces the sugar addiction but I don't think it's going help as much as they seem to think.
 
britishpub said:
I think there is a large misunderstanding.

This measure is a Levy on the manufacturer not the consumer.

It is not targeted as a Tax/Duty on the end product.

The Levy is designed to encourage the Manufacturer to change the product.
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Yep, and any company that is being taxed for something is just going to stick that cost onto the price of all their products.

Could maybe have the right effect if the retailers were the ones to collect the tax for every sugary drink sold, like with the plastic bags. You would then definately have a difference in pricing between the products and the retailers would be less inclined to stock the sugary drinks as they will have to then hand over a greater amount of money to HMRC.
But by taxing the manufacturer, if they have any sense, they will just spread the cost across all their product lines and carry on making plenty of money selling whatever sells best for them.

The retailers are the ones with the power to make us change what we buy, the manufacturer doesn't actually control the marketplace in the same way and will just do whatever is needed to flog the most product through the retailers.
 
spideog said:
Yep, and any company that is being taxed for something is just going to stick that cost onto the price of all their products.

Could maybe have the right effect if the retailers were the ones to collect the tax for every sugary drink sold, like with the plastic bags. You would then definately have a difference in pricing between the products and the retailers would be less inclined to stock the sugary drinks as they will have to then hand over a greater amount of money to HMRC.
But by taxing the manufacturer, if they have any sense, they will just spread the cost across all their product lines and carry on making plenty of money selling whatever sells best for them.

The retailers are the ones with the power to make us change what we buy, the manufacturer doesn't actually control the marketplace in the same way and will just do whatever is needed to flog the most product through the retailers.
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Actually it is the raw ingredients that should be taxed. This however would adversly affect the sugar refiners, the farmers, the importers, and ALL products containing sugar (including Starbucks shakes). It may also affect sucralose and Stevia sweetners, and as pointed out above, boost sales in aspartame and saccarin products. It would also probably affect the sugar alcohol business , and the alcohol business. It would also increase the price of basic processed foods and so called low fat meals and spreads. Cost of jam and breakfast cereals would increase, but it would get to those things that the soft drinks tax does not reach.
But if you are to do this, then do it right, eh?
 
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