Sugar Tax
Food products should be taxed progressively according to their sugar content, as excessive sugar consumption has been linked to numerous health issues according to countless studies. Implementing a sugar tax can help reduce these risks and encourage healthier food choices.
All kinds of sugars should be taxed.
Example of Taxation
0-5% sugar (by weight): 0% extra tax
5-10% sugar: 50% extra tax based on the product’s selling price
A tax on sugar might, in fact, increase the use of high fructose corn syrup as a sweetener, which is worse for the body than sugar, or artificial sweeteners, equally as bad. And, unfortunately, with addictive substances, like sugar or cigarettes, increasing taxes doesn’t much affect demand.
Have you considered a mandate keeping candies, sodas, etc. away from cash registers to reduce impulse purchases? I like the idea of a separate aisle, far off to the side, for sweetened items, such as cakes, cookies, ice cream ,sodas & sweet drinks, and pre-sweetened cereals, so that parents could avoid it and their kids wouldn’t be fussing for Coco Puffs or M&M’s.
Stevia is generally considered healthier than sugar, especially for people managing weight, diabetes, or cardiovascular risks due to its lack of calories and its minimal impact on blood sugar levels.
Europe has much stricter laws on what is okay and what is not okay to have in the food, and that’s a good thing.
Perhaps only tax certain kinds of unnatural sugars? So, organic cane sugar gets a pass, as do stevia and other low/non-carb sweeteners derived from plants, but high fructose corn syrup and other hyper-processed junk like that gets the tax ax.
There is no long term research on how healthy stevia or sugar substitutes are. In fact I would argue that natural sugar is the healthiest. The problem is food companies are adding several grams of extra “added sugar” on top of the sugar content that the food has.
While, I understand wanting to reduce sugar consumption, taxes are killing us. So I disagree with a sugar tax. Maybe declaring amount of sugar and high fructose corn syrup used in product on front side labeling.
From what I know of processed foods, that won’t do much because most people who buy it are either too neglectful or too poor to really care. It’s why the government had to outright ban trans fats and partial hydrogenation before companies stopped adding it to their products.
There is an active sugar cartel in the world, just like the oil cartel and they wield extreme power. That is why 73% of all foods in the grocery store contain added sugar. I used to love snack crackers when I was working and I bought some recently and they are so sweet they are like candy. The sugar cartel funded the research that killed the saccharine sweetener in the USA. It is still available in Europe. They have funded several studies and guess whose favor the studies found; that’s right the sugar industry.