alphacyberrangerThe amount of sugar consumed by children from soft drinks in the UK halved within a year of the sugar tax being introduced, a study has found.
IcyToesAnd increased amount of aspartame and asulfate k, that can have an even worse effect on blood sugar than sugar can.
Remind me when they tried to cut CO2 by pushing folk to diesel…
But yeah, only Coca-Cola is really drinkable now.
Don’t know that I agree with your spin that this news is negative in any regard. Also, aspartame is one of the most studied food additives of all time and has been repeatedly proven safe.
Your claim that it “can have an event worse effect on blood sugar than sugar can” has also been proven false. See “Metabolic effects of aspartame in adulthood: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials” by Santos et al from 2017.
Among other conclusions, the study found that “aspartame consumption was not associated with alterations on blood glucose levels compared to control or to sucrose and on insulin levels compared to control or to sucrose.”
There are studies either way, and it’s worth considering where the scientists funding came from.
This summarises some of the risks. While my accuracy wasn’t great, the conclusion that aspartame is safe is highly questionable. If you’re promoting it like it’s a great thing, it’s a very bizarre take to have.
www.bhf.org.uk/…/are-artificial-sweeteners-safe
Sugar is rubbish, but doesn’t make artificial sweeteners good.
Understood and completely agreed with your sentiment. Obviously any time of sweetened drink is going to be less healthy than water. It is also undeniable that our corporate funded research papers have frequently resulted in and continue to result in biased and often completely non-credible conclusions.
I still assert that “safe” is a relative term, and one issue I have is the lack of nuance associated with certain headlines. For example, the IARC Group B classification that the WHO cites is the same risk for cancer as “engine exhaust or occupational exposure as a hairdresser.” So yes, excessive aspartame consumption is definitely objectively bad for you compared to drinking water, but the cancer risk is not extensive compared to many other things we are exposed to on a regular basis.
“JECFA concluded that the data evaluated indicated no sufficient reason to change the previously established acceptable daily intake (ADI) of 0–40 mg/kg body weight for aspartame. The committee therefore reaffirmed that it is safe for a person to consume within this limit per day. For example, with a can of diet soft drink containing 200 or 300 mg of aspartame, an adult weighing 70kg would need to consume more than 9–14 cans per day to exceed the acceptable daily intake, assuming no other intake from other food sources.”
Also I very much appreciate the great discussion on this!
Very much so, and apologies if my last sentence was a bit heavy. I’m a bit too used to reddit and the astroturfing that goes on there.
I agree with most of what you said here but do take exception to point about the risk not being extensive compared to other things we are exposed to. I think we should not accept hazardous materials because we are subject to them elsewhere. I’m not a hairdresser, but risks to their health should be eradicated. Harmful particulate should be eradicated, and aspartame too. Let’s take bullets out of the chambers handed to us in this corporate run game of life Russian Roulette.
VeganPizza69 ⓋThere are lots of Americans online who believe that artificial sweeteners are great and technology can fix anything, such as replacing the evil of sugar with something else and keeping the nice consumer product.
Most people don’t even understand blood sugar levels and are afraid of a line going up. It’s pointless to talk to them, they don’t want to change and will reject anything that actually means change.
WATER, motherfuckers, water
NegativeNullWord. Soda should have sugar, not artificial sweeteners, and if you get too much sugar from soda you’re simply just DRINKING TOO MUCH SODA. Stop it and drink more water.
Fish fuck in water.
Yep, and all our pop now tastes like ass with the vile sweeteners so fewer people drink it.
Drink water.
The choice between sugar and aspartame is the choice between diabetes and cancer.
Just give it up. Pop ain’t worth it.
Fuck this, people should be able to drink soda if they want to. We’re on a dying planet, this just penalizes poor people and takes away their choices. Let people have a moment of pleasure. You can drink soda and drink water.
You can drink soda and drink water.
No, you can’t. You’re not an open pipe.
This comment was sponsered by coca-cola
I’d be happy to tax the coca cola corporation, but targeted sales taxes are regressive … meaning they disportionately impact the poor.
You argue as if water was more expensive than soda.
You’re not understanding the argument.
Flying SquidTelling someone they should give up something that’s bad for them is not stopping them from doing it.
The person you replied to is not stopping anyone from drinking soda and, as long as you have an extra 25p, no one is stopping anyone in Britain from drinking a litre of the most sugary of sodas.
no one is stopping anyone in Britain from drinking a litre of the most sugary of sodas.
The soft drink companies stopped us. With the exception of Coke, after the sugar tax came in, all the manufacturers replaced most of the sugar in their products with sweeteners on the presumption that consumers would not pay more for sugar. So the choice was taken away from us - you can’t buy the sugary versions any more!
They can. They just need to pay a little more. We’re talking 25 pence per liter at most compared to no sugar tax. Higher sugar intake is correlated with obesity which means more health problems which is more expense for the NHS. It’s like a train ticket or gas taxes or taxes in general, some percentage of usage that causes the problem needs to pay for the thing that deals with the consequences or expenses that solve it.
It’s the companies who have decided that they would rather sell shit soda, and consumers who are probably unwilling to pay anything except the cheapest price possible - wealth inequality and poverty problems aside because that’s a different social policy that should not be addressed through a sugar tax.
Well, wealth inequality can’t be set aside until it doesn’t exist. This is a regressive tax.
Drink water.
Like animals? I rather have beer.
🥴🙄Aspartame doesn’t cause cancer
A lot of people don’t seem to mind it, but to me it really tastes terrible. Even if I got it for free I wouldn’t drink it.
Has it improved health or reduced obesity, though? That’s kind of the interesting thing, here. What has happened to overall calorie consumption?
I’ve seen a lot of suggestions that artificial sweeteners are no better than sugar. They fail to mention how the decrease in sugar consumption will correspond with an increase in artificial sweetener consumption, which have also been linked to obesity, diabetes, and gut problems caused by damage to the microbiome. So there is no guarantee this has improved public health.
Great, now all the undernourished kids with poor parents are going to drink water instead and lose weight to dangerously unhealthy levels.
According to The Guardian (same source as this article), the number of children in food poverty in the UK is 4 million. 15% of UK households went hungry in January. Now, soda isn’t the smartest source of calories in a kid’s diet. It’s expensive and low in other nutrients. But kids aren’t always smart. A poor kid thinks “I’m hungry, I have a few pounds, there’s a vending machine, problem solved”. If the soda is too expensive, that doesn’t mean the kid is going to go to Aldi, buy some potatoes, and roast them for a cheap and nutritious meal. They’re a kid! It means they’ll pay more or go without. Which means you’re making the poverty and malnutrition problem worse.
First of all, the tax is 18-24p per litre. No one is denying their children sodas because they can’t afford to pay that.
Secondly, there are a vast number of exceptions. These kids could be getting the sugar you seem to think is necessary for their lives from juice or powdered drinks, which can be just as sugary, if not more so, than sodas. And the latter are usually cheaper.
Holy shit. Parents should be really embarrassed about this. It wasn’t Timmy buying deadly sugar solution because it was the cheapest thing that’s not water.
That’s the only logical conclusion from the correlation with tax, right?
The other conclusion could also be, that Timmies parents just do not have enough money anymore to spend this on a daily basis on that sugar bombs. Lack of money and lack of education often going hand in hand.
It is heartbreaking to see that some parents should never had become children. If they endanger their kids BC/ they are not able to distinguish between information and advertising on that level. I think we’re doomed as a society for exactly that reason. These are exactly the people voting for brexit, Trump or Nazi scumbags in Europe.