Sugar Tax

a step to far? your not wrong. 70% of the uk's production comes from small distilleries up here and gimps is right, G Brown is a w..k. personally i cant stand G+T. but never one to miss an opportunity me. :smileys:

 

If anyone is interested, this Wikipedia article lists and describes the many artificial sweeteners which are on the market. Personally I would rather take my chances with actual sugar.
Sugar substitute - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Independent studies claim sugar is responsible for, or causally linked to, a whole host of ailments, including the obvious like obesity and type 2 diabetes (both now approaching global epidemic proportions), but also things like Alzeimer's (which is apparently on the increase). Some rate sugar alongside alcohol and cigarettes in its effects on health.

The sugar industry is something like a $50bn dollar industry that relies on the consumption of sugar in various forms. The sugar lobby are powerful people who have shaped government recommendations on sugar intake both here and in the US. This makes me doubt the efficacy of the government's recommendations on sugar intake. It might be interesting to find out how much the sugar industry funds the government both directly, via donation, and indirectly through personal investment.

The sugar tax has been scrapped. Personally, I don't think it would have made much of a difference, except to government coffers perhaps. Education would be a good idea but, as mass education requires government sponsorship, it would mean the government would be promoting something that would be, or I would hope would be, against the interests of the sugar lobby. A potentially tricky one for the government.

I don't know if sugar replacements are any better for your health than sugar, but we've all got to die of something, so pick your poison.

 

Why hasn't nobody twatted Jamie Oliver yet? Its his feckin fault. The pratt gets us taxed on yet another commodity and he does a victory dance? I suggest we tax those with a lisp and those who make a living by cooking their tea on television.
Fat kids are fat because they don't play out anymore. They sit gaming or watching TV, probably watching some prick with a lisp earning thousands from a corned beef hash.
When I was young we climbed trees and set woolworths on fire.

 

You have lost me there. What "sugar tax" has been scrapped? Where? When? By whom?
No idea what you're on about, sorry.

 

Caffeine tax is next. It's deadly.

 

Fizzy drink tax makes sense. Why? Because there is an obesity epidemic and massive amounts of diabetes around. This all costs a lot of taxpayer money before people keel over.
So you don't like taxation. That is sort of the idea. It's meant to modify your unhealthy behaviour.
Why fizzy drinks? Because they don't fill you up. They are entirely empty calories and no one needs them. If you had a fizzy drink from time to time, it wouldn't be a bother for you. You wouldn't get fat from it, and even with a tax, not a lot poorer either.
But if you want to guzzle them all day, guess what? It's not good for you and you'll turn into a fat bastard.
"Oh but it's Nanny State-ish to tell me what I can and can't eat/drink."
No one's stopping you, but it just got more expensive. Like alcohol. You will, of course, be expecting the Nanny State to swarm around your bedside with doctors and nurses and prescribe you free drugs to nurse you back to health when your sugar-drink guzzling has its nefarious effects.

Will it change behaviour? Probably not.
Will education change behaviour? Probably not. People are already educated about this. But they don't care.
What will change behaviour? Peer pressure. You can look askance at smokers, no problem, but criticise the overweight and you are fattist. It's not their fault. They can't help it.

What you need is the clear "teaspoon of sugar" labelling. Then put it on everything to which sugar has been added. I can't see much point on putting it on orange juice or apples. Just don't expect the Food Industry to like it.

 

Oh, and I forgot to mention the bullshit excuse:
"The poor have to eat and drink shit, because they can't afford anything else."
People have never spent so little of their wage packet on food. And if they're that poor, they can cut Coke and Fanta straight out of their diet. They are treats, not staples.
If they're that poor, they can stop changing their mobile phones every couple of years.

 

I work for Coke, and we seem to make more diet products these days so I think the population are gradually coming round to the fact that full fat drinks are not as healthy

 

Sorry, I read somewhere that Cameron had rejected it but it was actually something pre-budget that I came across post budget. Sorry for the misleading old tosh.

 

Not as healthy as what?
Or just not healthy?

I don't want to be a killjoy. There are a few times every year when a Coke really hits the spot. But I couldn't say I like it "as much as the next man" as I clearly don't. I probably drink about a couple of litres a year. Max.
Gin and tonic isn't healthy either, but for the few I drink, it's not really a problem. I did once have a diet tonic in it, and it was so foul I had to pour it away.

 

Doesn't matter what you eat or drink, someone somewhere will have an opinion that something about it is unhealthy. At the end of the day, whatever you eat or drink, if its taken to excess then it will be harmful. Sugar tax is just the latest buzz tax. If people got out and did more exercise there wouldn't be the problems we have today with 'fat kids'. My kids are healthy, play sport (ones at Uni doing sport Science) they both played gaming machines, but they also went out to play alot. I think alot of today's problems stem from lazy parents can't be arsed to make their kids stop vegetating in front of a PC screen and take them outside and live a little !

 

As a mixer try flavouring fizzy water with fresh herbs. I'm not a drinker but I get through stacks of sparkling spring water. Its cheap as chips, much nicer than flat tap water and my palate adjusted to the lack of sugar long ago. A summer favourite is a good sprig of lemon balm and a couple of basil leaves in a pint of chilled fizz.
You could get pleasantly hammered in your garden on a summer evening experimenting with a bottle of gin, some chilled sparkling water and a load of fresh herbs. All good healthy consumer research.

 

We drink a lot of G&T in the summer, and my favourite is with cucumber. I'll give the fizzy water a try

 

try it with mango and papaya juice. its the only way i can handle it. a couple of my mates introduced it to me like this last year. i no longer find it strange that they are both single.

 

Grow some Borage and add a sprig of leaves to each glass. Its got an intense cucumber-like flavour. To be arty farty drop in a couple of the blue flowers as well (though its the young leaves from the tip of the plant that have the most flavour).
Attractive plant too and bees love it.

 

My girlfriend will be joining this forum just for the Gin recipes

 

Mere small of a G n T makes me want to honk! During my full blown Alcoholic days (sadly in the past?) my preferred poison was Arthur Daleys fave tipple the large V a T! When my doctor informed me that I wasn't actually suffering from chronic back pain - it was in fact my liver and kidneys failing, I changed to a "Jimbo Slice " - a cocktail of between 1 and 4 shots of Vodka in a tall glass with crushed ice and filled with cranberry juice! Didn't really help