• Carighan Maconar
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    6524 days ago

    I wish Germany would bring its sugar tax that we abolished in 1973 back. To be fair a lot of people are agreeing it has to come back by now, so chances are good that we’ll soon have one again.

    • @[email protected]
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      724 days ago

      I think with Lauterbach as minister we have quite good chances. I was honestly kind of surprised to read that they are attempting to ban supervised drinking. Didn’t think the CSU of all parties would support that

        • @[email protected]
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          724 days ago

          In Germany teenagers between the age of 14 and 16 (which is the legal drinking age) may drink beer, wine and pearl wine in public places such as restaurants as long as they’re supervised by their legal guardians. Obviously in a “reasonable” manner

            • @[email protected]
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              24 days ago

              What nodiet said, sorry about that. Thought I had heard or read it before

              Edit: I do find some uses. A few wine sellers use it, for example this Spanish one

              Also dict .cc list it as a rare noun

    • @Danquebec
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      524 days ago

      Why was it abolished?

      • Flying Squid
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        323 days ago

        Not being German, I maintain I am still accurately guessing that it’s because corporations waved money under politicians’ noses and their brains turned to mush and they said, “yes, masters.”

  • @[email protected]
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    4924 days ago

    That’s not because the sugar tax was enough.

    It’s because the drink manufacturers mostly just stopped selling the full sugar versions, which kind of sucks for anyone who hates the taste of artificial sweeteners. Even squash like Robinsons became undrinkable. It tastes like battery acid.

    There’s only really Coca-Cola left that tastes the same as it did before. Lemon and lime drinks like 7-Up or Sprite almost cover the taste of it, so they’ll do in a pinch. Otherwise I just drink water and cider. Apparently alcoholic drinks don’t need to tell you how many calories are in them either, so I’ll assume it’s none and carry on looking confused when I get on the scales.

    • @[email protected]
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      4424 days ago

      It’s because the drink manufacturers mostly just stopped selling the full sugar versions

      Which was a result of the sugar tax. They didn’t just suddenly drop the sugar content for no reason.

      • Liz
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        123 days ago

        The sugar tax didn’t include artificial sweeteners? That’s an oversight. Those things are bad for you in ways that are different from digestable sugars.

        • @[email protected]
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          23 days ago

          They’re nowhere near as bad as consuming a huge amount of sugar.

          They only cause issues for a vanishingly tiny amount of people that have pre-existing genetic conditions.

          • @[email protected]
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            023 days ago

            That’s highly debatable. It’s swapping one set of side effects for another, especially when drunk at high volumes.

            • @[email protected]
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              23 days ago

              It’s not highly debatable, it’s been studied to death. Sweeteners have existed for a long time.

              There were rumours they cause cancer, this has been proven false. There were rumours they cause headaches, this has been proven false. There were rumours they cause infertility, this has been proven false. There have been rumours they stimulate your appetite, this likewise has zero scientific backing.

              Aspartame, the most common sweetener, does cause issues for people with phenylketonuria, a rare genetic disorder, because it contains stuff they can’t metabolise. But so does a long list of foods people eat every day.

              Some polyol sweeteners have a mild laxative effect if consumed in very high quantities, but the same is true for stuff like tea, coffee, most fruits, etc.

              Sugar is far worse for your health.

    • @[email protected]
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      3924 days ago

      So now people are avoiding sweet drinks not because they cost too much in taxes, but…because they taste like battery acid.

      That’s still achieving the overall goal.

      • Flying Squid
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        523 days ago

        Give people options and let the market decide

        Who do you think is not giving people options? Because it isn’t the UK government. They didn’t make the drinks illegal. They put a pretty modest tax on them.

        So I’m not sure what you want, a law to force Pepsico to sell drinks with sugar in them? Because I think the market wouldn’t be deciding there.

          • Flying Squid
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            23 days ago

            Oh look, you took a post I wrote entirely out of context.

            I’ll fix that for you.

            That was in response to this:

            Which was a response to this:

            In this thread: https://lemmy.world/post/17453467

            I’ll assume that was an honest mistake and you aren’t just trolling and definitely won’t get banned like in the many, many other communities you’ve been banned for trolling people in, so you’re welcome.

            Edit: I suppose the alternative is you believe in such a thing as an “Artificial Intelligence Supercomputer,” but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt there.

    • @[email protected]
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      224 days ago

      In fact, the only ones that do tell you seem to be the ones aimed at calorie counters who still want to drink, mostly hard seltzers like WhiteClaw, Truly, etc.

      White claw smaller can at 5% is 100-110 calories a can.

    • @[email protected]
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      123 days ago

      I said this in another comment, but trying to find drinks that don’t use sweeteners is painful nowadays. I can no longer drink most squashes, and my soft drink options are pretty much limited to coca cola (normal pepsi now has sweeteners), sainsbury’s high juice, or rose’s lime cordial…

  • @[email protected]
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    4324 days ago

    It worked so of course they didn’t extend it to other things with more hidden sugars (things like pasta sauce, flavoured yoghurts etc)

    • @[email protected]
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      24 days ago

      gtfo of here with sugar in my pasta sauce. It makes no sense and tastes bad.

      And boxed macaroni and cheese, hamburger helper, etc. NoW wItH AdDeD SuGAr! Get all the way out of here with that nonsense. Stopped eating it a while ago, but people depend on cheap easy meals.

      • @fruitycoder
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        624 days ago

        I like sugar in some pastas it cuts the acidic down for me.

        • @[email protected]
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          623 days ago

          Add a tiny bit of bicarb to cut the acid down. Sugar just makes it sweeter and doesn’t actually do anything about the acid.

        • @Croquette
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          424 days ago

          Sugar is added because the tomatoes used aren’t that sweet and are really acidic.

          If you use sweeter tomatoes (san marzano for example), you just need a bit of salt and you are good to go.

          • @fruitycoder
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            223 days ago

            Ill have to see if I can find some and make a little homemade sauce and see the difference

            • @Croquette
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              423 days ago

              My recipe is as follows :

              -100ish grams of onion,carrot, celery and olive oil.

              • two big cans of san marzano (about 3liters)
              • 10 g of salt
              • basil to your taste.

              I pulverize the onion,carrot and celery with the olive oil until it makes a yellow paste. The goal is to have the same consistency as the grinded tomatoes.

              I cook the paste until the water is evaporated.

              I use a small hand grinder to grind the tomatoes in the can, then add it to the paste.

              I let it cook uncovered for about 45 mins to an hour. I do the white plate test where you take a small spoon of sauce, put it in the plate and angle the plate. If you see water running down the plate, then it still need some cooking.

              Once the sauce stick to the plate and the water doesn’t run down, then I add the salt and cover the sauce. I let it simmer for another 30-40 mins.

              After that, I cut my basil in big chunks with my hands and put it in the hot sauce. Add basil to your taste.

              This is my favorite recipe i’ve found so far.

              • @fruitycoder
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                223 days ago

                That sounds delicious. Post saved!

        • @[email protected]
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          223 days ago

          If something was too acidic I’d probably add a sprinkle of MSG, or Parmesan if you don’t have that.

          • @[email protected]
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            223 days ago

            Parmesan makes sense, it’s a bit alkaline so will act to help neutralise the acid. You could also put a small amount of bicarb in.

      • @[email protected]
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        423 days ago

        I add sugar when I make pasta sauces all the time, also to stews and stir fries. It’s a nice dimension.

        • @[email protected]
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          1223 days ago

          If you’re doing it yourself you’ve got control over how much you’re adding. It’s the pre made sauces they are the problem where they use it as a cheap way of masking how shit the tomatoes they’re using are.

    • themeatbridge
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      4324 days ago

      Philadelphia has a “soda tax” that is effective, but the sugary beverage lobby has spent millions in attack ads and disinformation campaigns. I can’t imagine the shit fit they would throw if it were attempted federally.

      • @[email protected]
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        2324 days ago

        Don’t forget the agricultural lobbies, which are huge but rarely talked about. They’ve lobbied for massive subsidies for corn and as a result corn syrup is cheap and used everywhere as a sweetener. A bill restricting it would never make it through the corporatist Congress.

    • @[email protected]
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      1924 days ago

      Cook county tried it in Illinois a few years back, and it really made no sense.

      It didn’t apply to juices (even though juices are loaded with sugar) and it taxed sugar free sodas the same as their sugar sweetened versions. They charged 1 cent per ounce for the tax. It was repealed 4 months after initiating it.

      • @[email protected]
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        23 days ago

        So they didn’t try a sugar tax, like Finland didn’t try basic income because opposing politicians sabotaged the trial in the planning stage to make the results worthless.

  • @[email protected]
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    1923 days ago

    With my ADHD just cutting on sugar seems to be the best diet change in my life period. I mean, of course there’s sugar in lots of things, but at least not putting it into tea and not eating Snickers improves everything.

    • The Menemen!
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      1023 days ago

      Once you stop taking sugar in coffee and tea you’ll also notice that both tast so much better without sugar. :)

      • Amju Wolf
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        122 days ago

        I mean, that’s somewhat dependent on the coffee/tea. But yeah, if you have good quality, then the taste doesn’t get masked by sugar.

        • @[email protected]
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          122 days ago

          I still like some sugar. A qube, maybe two if I’m feeling frisky. But i definitely enjoy my earl grey more when i can actually taste it

  • @[email protected]
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    323 days ago

    Cough Cough… Now follow suit America. I am sick of seeing people being so unhealthy and addicted to this drug.

  • @[email protected]
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    -2023 days ago

    As someone with an intolerance to artificial sweeteners, I’ll never forgive Jamie Oliver for pushing the sugar tax, alongside his insistence on “improving” school meals that resulted in mass outsourcing of school food to the lowest bidder.

    Kids aren’t drinking less soft drinks than before, the drinks themselves have just replaced sugar with chemicals and byproducts that aren’t particularly healthy themselves…

    • @[email protected]
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      1323 days ago

      replaced sugar with chemicals

      OH NO, NOT SCARY CHEMICALS!!!111

      Sugar is a chemical, ya dolt. So is water. So are most of the components that make up you.

      Man, education has really taken a nose dive…

      • @[email protected]
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        -17
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        23 days ago

        Maybe leave the cuntery back over at Reddit…

        This community is supposed to be for uplifting news.

          • @[email protected]
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            -623 days ago

            Then call it out, but maybe not be such a cunt about it. It’s an embarrassment for the fediverse that someone can’t be civil to what is a fair comment, even if it’s not factually accurate. Even on cesspools like Reddit you wouldn’t see this kind of toxicity.

            • Echo Dot
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              823 days ago

              It’s an embarrassment for the fediverse that someone can’t be civil to what is a fair comment

              It wasn’t a fair comment though was it it was an attempt to spread utterly false information. Also I’m sorry, but I completely do not accept this premise that somehow Lemmy is better than Reddit.

              • @[email protected]
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                -123 days ago

                It was absolutely a fair comment.

                The quoted part of the comment makes it seem like “chemicals” is the subject of the assertion. It’s not. The comment goes on to describe what chemicals and why they’re a concern.

                Yes, it’s not a great comment, it’s not eloquent, it could be more concise… but that doesn’t mean it’s appropriate to make disingenuous misrepresentations about the authors intended meaning.

                • Echo Dot
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                  23 days ago

                  Okay well I will challenge the content of the comment and you can make arbitrary and utterly unfounded comments about my assessment.

                  But apparently I’m not allowed to call out insanity wherever it appears because that would be rude. God save me, I was rude to an ass wipe.

    • @[email protected]
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      923 days ago

      The point that should be taken from your comment is not that they replaced the sugar with something else because we dont yet know if the aspartame is better or worse than sugar, though we do k ow that sugar is bad in large quantities.

      What should be noted is that the study found that sugar consumption has halved, which seems to be a no brainer as the majority of soft drinks either contain half the amount or no sugar. I belive in the UK at least pepsi has half the sugar and almost everything else has no sugar. Coke is the only one that still has the full sugar content it had before. But they sell coke zero at such a low price now and push it with alternative flavours that it is being consumed in higher quantities than ever.

      The point being, yeah, the tax stopped drinks makers using sugar so the sugar consumption dropped.

      Like i stopped using salt to season my food and i found that my salt intake lowered… wow. Thats crazy.

      • @[email protected]
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        -223 days ago

        True, and in typical UK fashion, the costs didn’t go down, but up despite using a cheaper amount of sweetener to get the same sweet effect.

        I’m not really sure why, but it felt like a huge surprise at the time that basically all sodas and squashes just switched sugar out almost overnight. For those with diabetes or intolerances, it was quite a tricky switch, and I’ve had a few friends that relied on drinks like Lucozade look for alternatives (and struggle).

        Fully agree that the amounts are concerning. Removing sugar will have obvious health benefits, but drinking a lot of anything is likely going to be disastrous.

    • Amju Wolf
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      222 days ago

      Have you considered drinking unsweetened stuff? Either plain water, or “flavoured” water. Basically soda without any sugar or sweeteners. It’s surprisingly tasty, and pretty much as healthy as pure water.

      Alternatively there are tons of different sweeteners. Some like stevia should be fine even if you have issues with, say, aspartame.

      • @[email protected]
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        222 days ago

        Sadly, Stevia doesn’t agree with me either, although I don’t feel as ill as if I have drinks with aspartame, which is what most drinks in the UK use.

        I recently bought a soda stream for just this, since I now mostly drink sparkling water. There aren’t many cordials here that don’t use a sweetener, and many of my previously favourite kombucha brands now use aspartame - but there’s enough to have some choice.

    • @[email protected]
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      5224 days ago

      They do have their place- just that place isn’t “something you can just drink every day without thinking about”

      • @[email protected]
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        324 days ago

        Unpopular opinion: The really bad ones, not talking about orange juice here, should be treated similarly to energy drinks. Banned for under 16 and taxed high.

          • BougieBirdie
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            624 days ago

            I have this argument with my wife a lot. She says that because the OJ is natural sugar it’s okay.

            But the high-fructose corn syrup used in a cola is also natural sugar in the sense that it was grown on a farm. There even happens to be less of it in your average soda than in juice.

            And I’m not really saying that you should drink soda instead of juice because it’s healthier, but somehow fruit juice is one of those things people think is good for them.

            • @[email protected]
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              1024 days ago

              I’d argue that natural non filtered orange juice is healthier because you drink it with all the fiber from the fruit, making the sugar absorption slower. A non filtered OJ is closer to eating a fruit than those industrial ones that finely filter everything to be just a colored sugary water.

            • @[email protected]
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              24 days ago

              Something I like in some of Europe is that food just has a rating on it. Not only are they stricter about food pretending to sound healthy it will just straight say this juice is a D.

              In the US every company spends millions to make their sugar appear more healthy and it works.

      • xep
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        -124 days ago

        I tried for a while to think of their place but there’s nothing I would say is absolutely necessary. What is their place?

        • @[email protected]
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          1624 days ago

          They’re a dessert, treat them like you would ice cream or a chocolate bar instead of treating them like water

    • @[email protected]
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      2024 days ago

      There’s nothing inherently wrong with sugary drinks. It’s just how often you have them.

      Some people don’t like sugar free and sweeteners come with their own problems.

      • themeatbridge
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        -224 days ago

        There is something inherently wrong with them. It’s liquefied nutrition that’s been designed to create an addiction and provide nothing but calories. It’s marketed as a companion to meals, or as sports drinks, or as a convenient “pick me up”. It’s marketed to children, to poor people without alternatives. They are inherently predatory and harmful to your health.

        • xep
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          324 days ago

          Consuming sucrose or fructose also results in fat being generated in the liver. It’s like alcohol and less than ideal.

    • skye
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      1024 days ago

      then you’ll probably end up with a black market of sugary drinks, and people will go to great lengths to get it.

      It’s almost as if this happened before with something else

      • xep
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        It’s more nuanced than that. In the case of sugary drinks however, since they are really easy to make, you won’t even need a black market.

      • @[email protected]
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        -724 days ago

        Just ban the sale and don’t enforce it on the black market. That would cover like 90%. It’s not like soda would be banned entirely, so it’s not like any other example. Just drink Coke Zero (or your flavor preference)

        • @[email protected]
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          224 days ago

          I have no idea why, but I get horrible heartburn from Coke Zero and Pepsi Max. I don’t get that from almost nothing else.

    • credit crazy
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      624 days ago

      It’s people like you that we can’t have nice things. oh some Germans in Germany has started genociding Jews out of existence, so that must mean that all Germans are evil Nazis. you only consider moderation when their is a obvious utility. like oh you don’t need alcohol to survive, but because some people get addicted to alcohol. we must ban alcohol, so no one will get addicted ever again. we seriously need to learn moderation and nuance. we really need to collectively agree that I’m not your mom and neither is the government. Otherwise we will be asking ourselves, what is the point of enjoyment? People who are miserable breath just fine, and if you enjoy something too much you might get addicted.

      • @[email protected]
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        424 days ago

        I agree completely with your comment but I think you probably shouldn’t have brought the Holocaust into it really!

          • threelonmusketeers
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            meh. Godwin’s Law.

            welcome to 1990.

            Perhaps, but I feel like a second level comment was too early to invoke it. Also, there’s also the common corollary that whoever invokes Goodwin’s law definitionally loses the debate…

  • @[email protected]
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    -5323 days ago

    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.

    • Echo Dot
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      Food poverty is a problem in the UK but drinking Coke isn’t the solution. If you look at the nutrition information on the can of your average soda it’s basically either sugar or artificial sweeteners and nothing else. No calories in that there’s no proteins in that you can’t live off it so who cares if there’s less sugar in it?

      Also food banks exist, they absolutely should not have to and it’s a disgrace that they do, blame Cameron and his big society nonsense, but they do exist and in large numbers. I don’t think there’s anywhere in the country that you couldn’t get free food if you needed it.

      • Flying Squid
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        This person said the same thing in news and they didn’t even look up how much the tax penalty was. It’s 18-24p per liter depending on the sugar content and there are a lot of exceptions. Poor people are not denying their kids (apparently necessary) sugary sodas because they can’t afford an extra 24p.

      • @[email protected]
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        -323 days ago

        I think the stupidest thing about food banks is they give the same random bags of food to poor and homeless people, so I often see carrier bags with tins of beans or dry pasta just dumped by the roadside because what the fuck is a homeless person going to do with 600g Aldi penne pasta?

        • Echo Dot
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          I work in a food bank and that is not what they do. We have a different food bags for different people, typically they are divided into people who have no way to cook food, people who only have access to a microwave, and people who have access to a proper kitchen.

          Tin food gets given to people who have access to a microwave and if they need one they can even get a tin opener. Although we seem to give 10 openers to the same same 12 people again and again I have no idea what they’re doing with them but we have hundreds of the damn things.

          Once they’ve picked up that bag they can then go to the tables and pick up extras that they like. The bags will contain things like tin soup and pasta, assuming they have access to cook it, and then they can put in fruit and vegetables as they like. There is no point giving vegetables to people who won’t eat them, it’s just a waste of food, so that’s why it’s done like that.

          We have very few people who come to the food bank who literally have no way to cook food because the local church has a few microwaves that I believe they can come and use whenever they want. There’s always the odd person who’s just awkward though, so they get bread and peanut butter, crackers and a bit of cheese. It is rather hard to accommodate them but they are accommodated when they turn up.

          • @[email protected]
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            -123 days ago

            The one near me either doesn’t do that, or maybe they only have the “access to kitchen” bags by the time the homeless get there.

            • Echo Dot
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              223 days ago

              Which food bank is this because they’re supposed to be registered on a list and they’re supposed to behave according to a set of rules. Now there are random churches who decide to “be Christian” but do it badly. Nothing can be done about them. But if they are on the list of approved food banks they’re supposed to operate according to approved rules.

              • @[email protected]
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                122 days ago

                I assume it’s a Trussell Trust one, but they are all in churches round here, so it could be as simple as an 80 year old volunteer giving out the wrong bags…

        • threelonmusketeers
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          110 days ago

          If I were homeless, I’d take beans over Coca Cola any day…

    • BugKilla
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      1623 days ago

      What source can you cite that shows that children in poverty primarily source their calories from soft drinks/soda and now will be at greater risk of nutritional deficit specifically as a result of this tax?

      Food poverty is clearly related to cost of living issues and social inequity all greatly exacerbated by Brexit, not a tax on sugar.

      This site provides data and resources for more information.

      https://foodfoundation.org.uk