<p><a href=“Approval Of Soda Tax In Berkeley Is Scary Precedent For Food Industry”>http://www.forbes.com/sites/nancygagliardi/2014/11/05/berkeley-makes-history-on-the-soda-tax/</a></p>
<p>Consumption taxes worked on reducing smoking particularly in young people. This will work too. </p>
<p>No one is banning sugary drinks, but just saying you’re going to pay more, since eventually you’ll cost the rest of us more in treatment for diabetes and other obesity related ailments.</p>
<p>Oh, what a great idea - I am so for it!! Go Berkeley, bring down the Goliath. </p>
<p>Haha – has ever been a tax that the Bay Area did not like? </p>
<p>This said, this is not a novel idea. Mexico is the country with the highest consumption of soft drinks (mostly Coke) in the world, and that goes hand in hand with an atrocious child obesity rate. </p>
<p>The government first limited the amount of beverages sold in school. The answer by the bottlers (again, they are among the largest in the world by a fair margin) was to introduce … smaller bottles. Then came a prohibition in the school. Of course, as can be expected, there are plenty of street vendors to sell the liquid gold in close proximity. </p>
<p>Fed up, the government, all the while balancing the need to protect their own with heavy limitations on the type of corn syrup or sucrose distilled to the poor US consumers, reverted to impose “sugar taxes.” </p>
<p>See the impact:
<a href=“Survey Shows Mexicans Drinking Less Soda After Tax - WSJ”>http://online.wsj.com/articles/survey-shows-mexicans-drinking-less-soda-after-tax-1413226009</a></p>
<p>To put things in perspective, in a counry where a typical workers’ lunch is 1 liter of coke and a gansito (look it up) this is akin to add a one dollar tax on a gallon of gas for the US gas-guzzling 12 cylinders trucks. But is has worked … kinda. Will it curb the obesity in Mexico? Not until people can afford better quality food! </p>
<p>They’re following the excellent principle of taxing what you don’t want-- pollution, children guzzling soda. Note that as I read it, the tax is on all sugary drinks, so sports drinks are also taxed.</p>
<p>I think the sugary Starbucks drinks would be taxed also. Not sure about milkshakes. Are they a drink or a dessert? </p>
<p>Calorie wise, they count as 2 meals! :)</p>
<p>Sugar is a drug not a food. They should tax processed carbs like white bread and pasta too. It’s all just sugar to the body</p>
<p>I guess I am the only anti tax person left. :)</p>
<p>This tax is voluntary. Don’t want to pay it. Don’t buy sugary soda. Easy.</p>
<p>I can buy candy?</p>
<p>dstark, eat cereal. It is about 50% sugar. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.foodpolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/CEREALSewg_press_cereal_report.pdf”>http://www.foodpolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/CEREALSewg_press_cereal_report.pdf</a></p>
<p>:). </p>
<p>BunsenBurner, Doesn’t wine have sugar in it?</p>
<p>Ok… I see sugar is not a big factor in most wines.</p>
<p>I do eat special k occassionally.</p>
<p>Very little, and unlike in soda, it is not added sugar. I haven’t seen the definition of “sugar-sweetened beverages”, but I bet sugar has to be added, e.g. in the form of sucrose or HFC. So wine and freshly squeezed OJ would not be taxed. </p>
<p>Ok… </p>
<p>I don’t drink very much soda except for an occassional grapefruit soda. For some reason I like grapefruit soda.
Rarely drink anything with sugar.</p>
<p>A chocolate tax would be bad for me.</p>
<p>BunsenBurner, do you eat or drink a lot of products with processed sugar?</p>
<p>Sugar substitutes are ok so diet sodas are not taxed?</p>
<p>“BunsenBurner, do you eat or drink a lot of products with processed sugar?”</p>
<p>I avoid them like the plague. 
But the sad truth is that sugar is being snuck in into many things that you would not normally associate with high sugar content! Like ketchup, salad dressings, breads, yogurt, etc. This was done to compensate for the bland taste due to lack of fat (when the fat became the evil)! </p>
<p>That is good that you avoid processed sugar. :)</p>
<p>Why drink fully sugared sodas? The ones with the sugar substitute taste just as good. </p>
<p>“Mexico is the country with the highest consumption of soft drinks (mostly Coke) in the world.”</p>
<p>When I was a high school exchange student in Mexico my “father” was the President of Coca Cola Mexico. I lived in the most gorgeous house with tens of maids, cooks, chauffeurs, etc. And the parties that the kids in the very wealthy suburb (Pedregal) were I lived were out of this world. Those kids knew how to party. </p>
<p>But getting back to the subject at hand. I love the idea of taxing surgery drinks and was all for it when NYS proposed it but the Beverage lobby spent millions and enlisted anti-tax groups and that was the end of that. No chance of passage.</p>
<p>“But the sad truth is that sugar is being snuck in into many things that you would not normally associate with high sugar content! Like ketchup, salad dressings, breads, yogurt, etc. This was done to compensate for the bland taste due to lack of fat (when the fat became the evil)!”</p>
<p>Yup. it’s in every processed food. </p>
<p>Water is very refreshing and hydrating. </p>
<p>Yup. My favorite drink is water, (horrors tap water) with tap water ice. Cheap and refreshing with no added sugars.</p>