soda is not food

[handmade34]

I would even argue that most bottled juice is not food.
**YES** to taxing soda and juice (to help pay for health care)

http://www.nofoodtaxes.com/ads/

[here_is_to_hope]

1. Dude, I'm stoned and even I know that!

Oh wait, taxes and stuff.
Yeah, I am with ya.

[Cronus Protagonist]

2. The juice I drink is 100% fruit juice - why not tax smokes instead?

I mean tax 'em more!

[Mopar151]

29. 'cuz it has MORE sugar than soda!

Read the labels.....

[WillowTree]

50. You do know what 100% means, right?

[Ignis]

52. This juice goes to 11!

;)

[eShirl]

84. yes, 100% juice is high in sugars

read the labels if you don't believe it

[Cronus Protagonist]

57. Well, the orange squeezing machine doesn't have any visible labels this side of the counter

But I watch every orange that goes into it. They never add sugar or HFC.

[Mopar151]

60. It is still sucrose, fructose, or glucose

And regardless of the source, it affects your body EXACTLY the same way. If you eat the fruit instead of juicing it, the fiber, slower intake, and likely lower portion size mitigate the sugar hit to the bloodstream.

[Iris]

65. sugar is food

[Mopar151]

70. Correct!

Everybody otta go to diabetes education - You NEED blood sugar for your brain to function. It's lack of insulin that allows blood sugar levels to get too high.
The reason for avoiding refined sugar in a diabetic diet is that it hits the bloodstream very quickly, raising havoc with control. Protiens and fats break down into carbs slowly, making them easier to manage. Complex carbs ai'nt so bad - but "After 2 hours, carbs is carbs"

[Kalyke]

63. Why tax cigarettes more?

Haven't you heard of the point of diminishing returns? Keep taxing smokes and people will either give it up, purchase it online (tax free) or purchase it on Native American reservations (also duty free).

Then there won't be enough taxes to cover ANYONE'S health insurance.

Think, people, think!! Cigs are already taxed too much.

Tax HFCS, instead!

[Obama2012]

68. Yep

[laureloak]

93. Why not have a separate tax for sodas and unhealthy foods. n/t

[walldude]

95. How much more do you want to tax them? State and Fed

combined this year raised the price of myu organic smokes to $70 dollars a carton, up 16 dollars from last year. If you want to use tax money from cigarettes to pay for health care then making them un-affordable isn't very bright is it?

[timeforpeace]

3. Who consumes more soda and juice? Regressive tax on the poor and middle class?

[Curtland1015]

5. Rich people drink diamonds.

:P

[handmade34]

7. your point is well taken

but... soda and even most bottled juice is not good nutrition and we collectively can encourage more healthy eating.

[timeforpeace]

8. I've always believed that soda pop is the number one cause of obesity, both regular (sugar) and diet

(too much sodium, water retention). How to change behavior though?

[handmade34]

16. information, choices, encouragement

Soda (pop) is terribly unhealthy, consumed excessively by most and very expensive. I am not of the mind normally to dictate behavior and would fight any inclination to do so. Soft drinks are huge money makers because of successful marketing and we can fight back by marketing healthy drinks... water and tea are two of the best and the cheapest (and if people need sweetner, at least regular sugar is much better than high fructose corn syrup).

[immoderate]

30. I like the bubbles. I drink seltzer.

No sugar. No sodium.

Sometimes I mix it with juice, which is often too sweet by itself. Yum!

But most of the time, it's seltzer. Bubbles!

--imm

[handmade34]

35. my favorite drink has become

plain iced Thai tea. I found an Asian grocery store where about 1/2 lb of the tea was only $4.00. Seltzer mixed with a little fruit juice is good.

[Sebastian Doyle]

18. It's not the sodium, it's the high fructose corn poison.

At least with the non-diet version. Actually, I've heard that a side effect of some artificial sweeteners is that they make you hungrier for more carb-loaded food.

The nutra-sweet and Splenda models, that is. I'm sure stevia is much safer, though not widely used yet.

Now countdown to an invasion of this thread by MonSatan's employee of the month........ 3.......2.........1........

[bvar22]

36. Sugar?....

...or High Fructose Corn Syrup?

Obesity in children wasn't really a problem until they switched over to High Fructose Corn Syrup.

[handmade34]

41. Food, Inc. does a great expose on HFCS

[Kali]

81. I am leery of HFCS too, but the truth is

it began when we switched over from drinking plain water. Remember that stuff? Now a quart of soda is a normal beverage for a lot of people - it don't matter whether that is cane sugar or corn syrup - you live on that for long you will get fat.

[Critters2]

88. Exactly. When I was a kid, pop was an occasional treat. Now, people drink it constantly.

Hell, at this rate, if you were sweetening it with D-mannose, it'd kill your liver!

[Kali]

96. NEVER got it at home

Grandma would let us have a 6 oz bottle of coke on Fridays, when we spent the summer with her.


My kids don't believe that story:rofl: they also don't get soda at home very often unless they buy it themselves. (then I make them give me some:P )

[Obamanaut]

28. Stop consuming soda, drink water instead. As for the juice that

many people drink, it is actually a juice beverage, and states this on the container. Labes on the container on many of them shows 'juice from concentrate' as the third ingrediant with water and high fructose corn syrup being numbers one and two. Leave these alone as well. Problem with so-called 'regressive tax' solved.

[csziggy]

4. I agree with their points about not taxing 100% fruit and vegetable juice

But tax the heck out of soda and flavored drinks without nutritional benefit. I started to say "sugar added" drinks, but I am not sure the alternative sweeteners are any better than sugar, so I'd hate to exempt them.

Tax the heck out of plastic bottles, while you are at it, or require deposits that can be redeemed (that would make a good school fund raising tool!).

[PSzymeczek]

19. Anything containing HFCS

But not on consumption - on PRODUCTION!

[handmade34]

21. I am surprised that not all states have bottle refunds

...they all should and I do think all plastic bottles should be tax.

[dionysus]

27. wait a minute here. i drink tons of diet pepsi. so i should be penalized for it?

that's wrong man.

[Thickasabrick]

33. +1

[handmade34]

40. sorry, man...

I feel your pain. But, just a proposal at this point.

[otohara]

55. Your Health Will Suffer

with or without the damn HFCS - Your bones will suffer, the fake chemical sugar isn't healthy - it's toxic brown liquid.

Kidney stones, osteoporosis, etc....

Why drink something so worthless and dangerous to your health at all?

[Gormy Cuss]

6. "Juice drinks" aren't very good as food either.

Juice drinks aren't juice -- they're sugar water with a small amount of juice for flavor.

That said, I'm against taxing any food items other than prepared restaurant food. Let's start with abolishing sales taxes on food in the states where that's the law then think about whether drinks like soda should be considered food.

[Kali]

92. hell, even 100 real fresh made at home JUICE is high sugar!

eat the fruit and drink water or tea with "junk" as an occasional treat.

[tomreedtoon]

9. The hell it's not! CAFFEIN is food!

It is the food we need to stay awake at school, or at jobs (when we have them) or when you're trying to drive home. It is absolutely necessary for life. What nonsense is this "not food"?

If you insist on not making it food, you will have to make amphetamines free.

[stevedeshazer]

10. A tax on high fructose corn syrup!

Give me real sugar. And legalized hemp.

[handmade34]

20. yes-yes-yes

legalized hemp, big taxes on HFCS and if it has to be sweet, make it real

[onehandle]

11. Tax funders of anti-tax organizations.

Make them think twice.

[izzybeans]

12. Only tax sodas if you want to decrease consumption, it won't raise revenue enough to be meaningful.

At least that has been our experience in Chicago with the bottled water tax. Same with ciggypoos.

[SoCalDem]

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[iris27]

22. Juicy Juice is 100% juice.

The least like sugar water any juice can be. Of course whole fruit is better, but suggesting that "a glass of orange juice" is superior to Juicy Juice is like saying 'cream cheese' is superior to Philadelphia. They're the same thing.

[SoCalDem]

49. Okay, it's "juice", but it's certainly got to be pricier than plain ole

treetop frozen concentrate or welch's frozen..

[handmade34]

23. marketing is powerful stuff

[BuddhaGirl]

39. it only has 16mg of DHA!

wow - that's nothing...the DHA is listed way at the bottom of the ingredient list.

A DHA supplement would be better.

[Curtland1015]

14. Oh, and not for nothing, but when Gov. Patterson suggested doing that in NY, his popularity...

...dropped like a stone.

I don't see it as a terribly bad thing really. It would net some extra cash for the state, and even encourage people to make healthier choices at the grocery store.

But people HATED it.

[ejpoeta]

17. i do not support a 'fat tax' on soda... but i didn't support the taxes on cigarettes either.

but it was an easy sell for the cigarette taxes... they are an easy group to kick because no one can defend them. but I tend to think that a lot of people that were gung ho about the cigarette tax are the same ones bitching about a tax on pop. I say, well, if it's good enough for smokers, then it should be good enough for the rest of us. But why stop there!! we can start taxing everything that is deemed unhealthy... and that is a slippery slope indeed.

[handmade34]

26. the point here is that soda and juices

have gotten a free ride (tax free, because they are 'food'). My contention is that they are not nutritionally based food and therefore could be taxed

[ejpoeta]

59. i hear what you are saying, but there are plenty of things that fit in that category.

it does tick me off when i see commercials for Sunny Delight.... couldn't i just drink orange juice?? i prefer it. uggh.

[handmade34]

24. I know, this and other issues

I heard someone today talking about people often voting against their own best interest (usually lessor educated conservatives)

[nc4bo]

15. Anyone remember the story about Mountain Dew Mouth in Appalachia?

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=6863173&page=1

Tax it and maybe it will help prevent so many dental problems in kids.

Soda is not food.

[noamnety]

25. Better: Stop government subsidies of HFCS

It's absurd that we're discussing taxing it - when the government is funding production of it. Instead of taxing the poor while the government uses those taxes, in effect, to fund the corporations causing the problem, just cut the subsidies to begin with, let the price naturally rise to the real cost of production.

[handmade34]

31. excellent point.

Although soda and other sugary beverages don't all contain HFCS (though most do). HFCS is not only detrimental to our health but the excessive cropland put into corn production, yes, subsidized by the gov't, is very detrimental to the environment.

[Kali]

97. missed it last night but THIS is a very important point

there is a reason that crap is in so much processed "food"

[Thickasabrick]

32. What about coffee, mayonaise (who needs that extra fat), salt (we

eat way too much salt), broccoli (50% of the country hates broccoli - tax it!).

How about taxing hair salons, and nail salons? Do you really need all those highlights and why can't people do their own nails?

[handmade34]

38. if my nails ever get done, I do it

As far as I know hair and nail salons are already taxed. Soda is a processed product that really has no nutritional value. You bring up relevent ideas and taxes are always controversial. My post was in response to a marketing campaign by the Food and Beverage Industry protesting the proposed tax on soda. I say it is not food and think it should be taxed. I think broccoli is food, even if some don't like it and salt has been a very important and often crucial to our societies food supply....

[Thickasabrick]

42. I'm sorry, I was just being facetious. You don't think soda or

whatever is food but some people consider it food. The food police would have to be brought in. I don't want the government dictating what I consider food - and that includes my coffee.

[handmade34]

47. now coffee is another matter :- )

ok, lets see if I can rationalize this... Unfortunately we already have the FDA; lets try to interject some commonsense into our regulations. ...commercial soda has become a highly processed non-nutritional food. The components are water, HFCS and flavoring (really - $1.79 for that) I can see not taxing water, nor the flavoring. Maybe an analogy would be taxing ready made coffee, but not coffee grounds? You are correct, there is a fine line here sometimes, but commonsense does not prevail presently.

[Cha]

34. Soda is already taxed in our state, NY, and

so is water, plain, and bubbly.

Candy is taxed too..not so sure juice should be taxed.

[progressoid]

37. And we need to tax country music too.

[handmade34]

44. OH, NO...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rvLeCMTofE

[progressoid]

53. Hank Sr. would be exempt.

...but not Hank Jr...;)

[femrap]

43. Kids and adults

should be drinking WATER anyway. And don't be a fool and buy plastic bottles of it. Get a filter to put on your faucet.

If it's diet soda, there is no tax....but I would use that as a 'treat.' It's really not good for us.

Maybe we should tax ALL processed crap food....chips, candy, etc. It just might change the eating habits of people and lower obesity rates.

[timeforpeace]

45. But but but...bottled water is made of POTWFUS! (plain ol' tap water from unknown sources)

[femrap]

82. That's why I like to put a

filter on my local water source...and stick it in the fridge. I like POTWFUS...may I borrow?

[Fearless]

46. You should see some of the federal rules for what food is and what it isn't.

Ketchup being a vegetable is my favorite, as technically it must be a fruit, yet still clearly isn't.

[handmade34]

48. often it all boils down to what is financially benefical to corporations

in the case of the tomato, it had to do with taxes on the importers

[TlalocW]

51. Yes, but if I can't have my one Pepsi a day for the caffeine

I will hurt people thus driving up health care costs.

TlalocW

[musicblind]

85. lol

:rofl:

[jimmyflint]

54. Yes! tax it.

Tax all that crap. Tax anything with HFCS And fast food. Tax texting,cell phones,and the internet at aggressive rates. And a federal sales tax on all goods sold by wal-mart. And heavily increase the taxes on alcohol,tobacco,and gasoline.

[TheKentuckian]

58. Why tax the hell out of the internet? Trying to create more social castes?

We should be desperately trying to increase internet access and affordability. Without the internet society is left to the mercy of the corporate media for information and the poor kids will get lapped come homework time. The internet is one of the precious few equalizers we have and you want to reduce access?

Nor should actual juice be taxed. I'm not talking the 10% crap that attempts a natural flavor but anything say 70%+ should be left alone.

[hfojvt]

56. nice membership list

coca cola, pepsicola, 7-11

other than anger, soda is probably my main vice, and heck, some of the anger could come from caffeine too. I say tax it, but I am not sure how much revenue it will raise. Seems to me a fair amount since lots of soda is sold.

In Iowa they sort of already do, as they do a nickel on each bottle of soda. I thought the point was to help recycling and reduce roadside trash, but since it seems specific to soda, and not other bottled drinks like water, it is also a little bit anti-soda.

[chrisa]

61. How about taxing

Fast food, alcohol, cigarettes, and making pot legal to tax the hell out of that?

[donco6]

62. Tax NASCAR, American Flags, and anyone watching Lee Greenwood.

That'd solve our problem right there.

[Mopar151]

72. Gee, a Rainbow Bigot... n/t

[donco6]

73. Nah, just clever.

Considering the intense waste of resources NASCAR represents, it's completely appropriate.

[Mopar151]

74. Sadly misinformed, is this one. n/t

[donco6]

83. So NASCAR isn't a waste of resources?

Let's see, wasting gas, burning rubber, for hours on end, all traveling around a track that goes nowhere.

Gotcha.

[Mopar151]

87. Entertaining millions

Leading and advancing automoive development (including all those tires undergoing destructive testing!), educating engineers and mechanics. And it's all stupid 'cuz it's not to your taste?
Gotcha.

BTW - If you hate racing - KICK THE REARVIEW MIRROR(S) OUT OF YOUR CAR! It was invented by the winner of the first Indy 500 (Ray Harroun) to save the weight of the "riding mechanic"

[donco6]

90. Snort. Like we wouldn't have them without race cars.

Brother. Typical lack of logic.

You know, gladiators in the Roman coliseum used to entertain a lot of people, too. Thankfully, people grew up.

[Mopar151]

91. I'm done.

Lack of logic and ignorance of history is all yours, my friend. As for the gladiators, the NFL, UFC,and WWE all seem to draw well. And people have grown up - we leave the lions out of it these days.

[donco6]

94. And another one bites the dust. n/t

[SleeplessInAlabama]

64. I'd much rather start with NO to taxing food, in ALL states. Some of us are still paying it. n/t

[JitterbugPerfume]

66. soda is liquid candy

and it is helping to make us an obese nation

[Regret My New Name]

78. So does that mean candy is solid soda?

[Maru Kitteh]

89. It means they are equally without merit in quantity.

[Shagbark Hickory]

67. True but they should tax food. Fast food and junk food. We need to get care for our fat asses! n/t

[Kalyke]

69. BTW, Tennessee already has a tax on food.

We have no state income tax, so ALL food is taxed.

I think Tennesseans would end up starving unless we did something to off-set this idea for those states that do tax food already.

[greenbriar]

71. NO to taxing soda

no no no

[Seldona]

75. +1

[Strong Atheist]

76. We argue about this in scattegories ... nt.

[Quantess]

77. You can buy soda pop with food stamps.

And about juice not being food, that's silly. Haven't you heard of juice detox diets?

[Regret My New Name]

79. I bought two red bulls last night and they were taxed...

[Initech]

80. Ah man, please dont tax Jøøse!

[and-justice-for-all]

86. I thought soda was on the Nutrition Pyramid?! DRAT! nt