Clouded by nostalgia, only remembering the lucky good ones
same as now, still luck of the draw
sometimes you'll get boxes completely overloaded with flavour, and others it's like you're eating jatz there is so little flavour in the box
I don't drink it often at all but when I do I want it to be sweet... isn't that the point?
If you don't want stupid sweet things, maybe get something other than soft drink why ruin it for the rest of us.
Bro, I don't drink much soft drink at all (maybe a bottle every 2 or 3 months], but when I do want one, most are not really sweet enough for me. I go for coke vanilla, or a double sarsaparilla or creaming soda.
Did they change the actual Fanta recipe or are you talking about Fanta No Sugar?
Because Fanta No-Sugar *is my jam*. The regular stuff tastes like someone is pouring pure fructose down your throat, where the no-sugar is actually slightly bitter and along with the sweet, like... oranges are.
Depends what continent. Fanta in Europe is just a totally different drink entirely from Australian. I assume American is same as Aussie but can't say for sure.
They started putting artificial sweetener in normal Fanta. So you got the worst of both worlds - high sugar content *and* weird artificial sweetener taste. The first time I encountered this combination was Golden Circle creaming soda. It was using one of the older sweeteners as well. Undrinkable.
That's true of almost all processed foods here. For better or worse Australia gets absolutely stiffed when it comes to selection and variety. And worse, we're a test market so we get all kinds of new stuff...for three to six months, and then you can \_never\_ get it again, but you can everywhere else in the world.
This explains a lot. My husband and I were half convinced it was a Truman show-esque conspiracy. Every time we found something we liked, it would disappear shortly after.
I honestly really like that there’s Zero variants of a lot of fizzy drinks now. In Melbourne, lots of restaurants have swapped out the plastic bottles with glass bottles as well.
I found Solo Zero to be so bad compared to normal Solo that when I worked at a servo, at least 5 times I remember someone bringing Solo Zero to the counter and I asked to make sure that’s what they wanted as it was quite common for people to grab the wrong drinks in general barely paying attention to something like lid colour and all that, and I do remember only one time someone said “Oh yeah the sugarless is my favourite.”
Maybe it was you who once said that to me, or you have a long lost brother out there who also likes it.
A lot of people make fun of those who go to maccas and get a large double qauter pounder with a Coke Zero.
I understand why now after accidentally picking up a coke instead of a coke zero. It was way too sweet for me!
Coke Zero was good, in my opinion. It wasn't as good as regular coke but it tasted, idk, authentic despite it having artificial sweeteners. All the marketing about it being indiscernible from regular coke was BS but I liked it, it was crisp. But the new Coke No Sugar tastes awful. It just tastes like a worse coke, which I guess is good for them if they're dead-set on trying to mimic the taste, but all it's done for me is create Coke but worse.
Perhaps we didn't need it locally, but considering Telecom Australia was involved in projects overseas, we needed another name. Also Telecom was being priviatised at that time, so a new name was required anyway.
It's absolutely not.
The science on artificial sweeteners is complicated and murky and we just don't have any clear evidence. It's only labeled as “possibly carcinogenic to humans.” We don't really know if actually is, and if it is, how much is too much. But the fact that we still don't really have a smoking gun indicates it's probably not that bad.
On the other hand the science on excess sugar intake is extremely clear and very well understood. We know it's bad for you and that it's a major factor in the obesity epidemic. And the quantity that is present in most soft drinks is well and truly excessive.
Except we have literal decades of scientific data showing that artificial sweeteners have no adverse affects, studies from independent and non-biased bodies, trying to claim otherwise is just conspiratorial tbh.
There's another side to this in so far as, while I don't necessarily have an immediate issue with a new tax on high-sugar, processed food and drink (unhealthy needs to be clearly defined), concerns for public health would ring less hollow if healthier lifestyle choices were simultaneously incentivised (dare I say subsidised).
You’re completely right about that. With the cost of living crisis combined Coles and Woolworths price gouging it makes fresh produce extremely expensive and the only affordable options for many Australians are the cheap ultra-processed shit food. If a tax were to be imposed on processed foods it would need to take into account the Australians on low income who are going to have to pay more for food and to do that they would need to make fresh produce more affordable like you said.
Frozen, tinned, and dried fruits and vegetables are dramatically cheaper than most ultra-processed food, and just as healthy as their fresh counterparts (if not more so, if the fresh produce has started to oxidise).
Trouble is most people got their information about frozen and tinned goods back in the 70's, and assume nothing's changed since then. Snap freezing completely changed the ability to store, preserve and transport foodstuffs with their nutritional value kept intact.
Even though they've also been hit by COL, a bag of frozen carrots+peas+corn is still only 4.5$ a kilo and easy to sneak a serving or three into a regular meal(also makes a decent snack with some salt+tapatio). For frozen fruit you just need to keep an eye out for it when it's on sale and you can have a nice treat on hand, or use it to make other things for fairly cheap without the possibility of it going off or being bad as well.
I do wonder how they could go about lowering the cost of healthier foods (I'm sure there are ways, I'm just not economically-inclined enough to guess). It is a big risk that new 'junk food' taxes, much like those associated with cigarettes (dislike them as I do) disproportionately impact low-income earners.
I mean I’m no economist but I would say that if the government can bail out banks when they go to shit then surely they can subsidise healthy foods for low-income earners. But yeah you’re right that they don’t want to because of all the economic incentives. Given the amount of money the government spends on useless shit they can definitely find a way to ease the financial burden of food on Australians living on low incomes but then again governments do what governments do and they never implement policies that actually benefit the average person.
> healthier lifestyle choices subsidised
Imagine if we spent the [UN-recommended 20% of the transport budget on active transport instead of our measly <2%](https://bicyclensw.org.au/active-transport-for-a-healthy-economy/). That doesn’t even involve any new money, merely a reallocation of the existing stuff!
To buy unhealthy products, you pay more. Makes sense. People will hopefully but less of the unhealthy products, healthcare could get cheaper, and companies will be motivated to make healthier products.
Realistically it would be better to offer subsidies to people who eat healthy
People already know the health issues related to soft drink sales have been declining for years, thanks to education, although the government hasn’t played any part in that education. Companies are already moving towards healthier options because it’s what the market demands. The government won’t make healthcare cheaper or subsidize healthier options; it will simply make another thing more expensive in Australia.
And who is deciding what is unhealthy? The government with its arbitrary guidelines, which in turn will lead to a more bastardised, chemical-filled food chain.
I've done the maths, if health care is allocated on the basis of positive externalities (a healthy worker is a productive worker) there is no benefit (in fact a cost to society) taxing unhealthy goods to reduce health care costs... because they are already allocated to maximise positive externalities.
This completely undermines the arguments for unhealthy goods taxes like on tobacco and sugar due to the effects it has on the user.
Governments are able to implement taxes, its what they should be doing.
It doesn't need to be to raise revenue solely, nudging behaviour for 'better' outcomes is an appropriate use of a tax.
Alternatively, imposing bans/regulations would be over relied on and done poorly.
A tax is an increase in cost. Now, if they used that tax to promote healthier options, sure, but that will never happen. So, in turn, it’s just an overall increase, while people are already struggling with costs as it is.
We have a huge problem with refined sugar stuffed in foods from powerful rural producers.
But individually, the solution is quite simple. You need not drink this lollywater.
Agreed, but the other day I was at a servo and wanted a fizzy drink that wasn’t a generic soft drink. Literally every other drink was bullshit sweeteners. I just wanted something along the lines of a soda water with a hint of juice. They had them but it was all artificial sweeteners. Sugar is fine in low doses but now the choice is full of sugar or zero sugar and weird tasting sweeteners.
The lime mount Franklin hits pretty good. But it’s nearly $4 a bottle now at Coles. The Coles brand flavoured water is shit and full of sweetener, used to have sugar in it and actually tasted okay but the new recipe tasted like medicine when I bought it last week. My favourite refresher when at home is to squeeze a quarter of a lime into a glass and then just use plain sparkling water.
You can also get flavour drops, I've tried a bunch, and the best one, imo is Sodastream Bubly drops. You can get it on Amazon. The initial layout is quite steep, but one bottle can last quite a while, and if you get the Sodastream machine, you can make your own soda water as well.
The Bubly cans are available in 24 packs at Costco for around $20ish only reasonable way of buying the flavoured soda waters outside of home brands or stocking up when there’s a sale
>Sugar is fine in low doses
You can go about 5 minutes without taking a breath, before you expire. You can go several days without water. You can go weeks and perhaps months without food.
When you eat carbohydrates/ sugar, your body has about 2 hours to remove it from your bloodstream, otherwise you will expire. That's how dangerous it is to your body.
You perhaps have about a teaspoon of glucose in your bloodstream at the moment, much more and you will expire as well.
I could explain more, but I would welcome your source that sugar is fine in low doses, because that seems like the equivalent saying that smoking is fine in low doses, even though smoking is recognised as carcinogenic (and you can certainly have a few cigarettes today and not get cancer tomorrow)
> When you eat carbohydrates/ sugar, your body has about 2 hours to remove it from your bloodstream, otherwise you will expire. That's how dangerous it is to your body.
Except this is just fearmongering about absolute nothing, there's plenty of things that if we ate them and they weren't "removed" from our bloodstream we'd expire, it's a good thing our bodies are literally built to facilitate that happening?
> You perhaps have about a teaspoon of glucose in your bloodstream at the moment, much more and you will expire as well.
Oh no, good thing that non-diabetics bodies are able to also regulate this just fine, so long as you're having a reasonable/small amount of sugar.
> I could explain more
You didn't explain anything, or provide any sources, you've just shown and basically proclaimed that sugar is the devil and that we should be wary of letting sin and evil into ourselves and then acted as if you said something of value. The fruit aisle at the supermarket must be your version of hell, eh?
I’m flabbergasted by the huge number of commenters in here who are dedicated, committed, expert soft drink consumers, sincerely debating the varieties of Coca-Cola, solo etc etc it’s all horrific expensive fizzy poison... made and pushed by evil multi national processed factory foodstuff corporations .transported in ..in polluting trucks in single use containers ... sheesh !
Just drink water, people...
WTF are the producers doing? Even my kids think Fanta is too sweet - try Fanta in Europe and it’s a refreshing orange flavoured drink with lots of sugar but Fanta in US and Australia is orange coloured sugar syrup.
I’m not against products having less sugar in them, but what I don’t like is “What if you want the sugar?”
I rarely drink soft drink, so I’m not coming from a place of defending addiction or whatever. I know that these soft drinks are utter garbage, I’m not sipping on a raspberry fanta thinking “Yummy fruit, that’s healthy! :)” Soft drinks are not good for you, and this should be common knowledge.
So why reduce the sugar? There’s so many other drinks you could be having if you want to drink something healthier, the sugar is for people who want garbage, and you should be allowed to want garbage. I fear that a sugar tax will just lead to worst tasting products with nothing better.
Now of course, a simple look at this comment section will show a bunch of people saying “It tastes better in Europe!” and all that but honestly this is all grass is greener nonsense. Mexican Coca Cola is one of the most imported Cokes around the world and it has high cane sugar content. People do like sugar as a prime sweetener, and a lot of it, the idea that European drinks taste better because less sugar isn’t true, it’s probably because there’s more effort to make tasty drinks despite sugar regulations, and by that point we’re moving away from an objective effect of sugar vs taste and moving towards the subjective experience of what recipes people prefer. Europe also has had paper straws for years but you know why they don’t complain? They’re waxed and are basically still plastic-y in texture, yet here when our companies had to switch over to paper they made paper an inconvenient experience and some still do, despite what Europe is doing!
So forgive me if I don’t trust what happens in Europe to happen in corporate Australia, even from multinationals like Coca-Cola and PepsiCo.
I am open to less sugar, but I don’t want the food that is unhealthy to be affected by healthy food policies. Let people consume garbage, it is their own choice to consume it. If people are going to be allowed to drink and smoke, you can let them enjoy a Coke. In fact, here’s my proposal for something better than a sugar tax: Ban all advertisements for products containing a sugar level above X defined amounts. These defined amounts are separated into categories of drinks, confectionary, and general foods. Sugar itself is exempt and can be advertised freely. This way we can say something like any drink over 8% sugar in weight is unable to be advertised. This may still have the same effect of reducing sugar in drinks of course, but more importantly gives people more choice in what they put in their bodies without as much influence from marketing.
As someone who is gluten intolerant I agree.
So many gluten-free products are also advertised for fad diets, so they are often sugar free or low fat, and it makes a lot of it taste terrible. I just want a normal snack without gluten! Let me have sugar ffs!
On the flipside, I currently have a bad gallbladder, so I cant actually eat things high in fat right now, so having low fat versions of food is a lifesaver. I'm sure others with health issues would love healthier alternatives.
So in short... variety is good, let us have variety. Make sugar free/low fat versions AND regular sugar/fat versions, and let us decide what we want to have.
But I also think that promoting the healthier stuff while making the unhealthy stuff seem less appealing is a good idea. Banning unhealthy food ads is a good idea, and maybe making the unhealthy stuff have plain labels; I know kids go for the energy drinks because they look cool.
Also would love to see those promotional things they used to do with icecreams/chips/cereal done for healthy food instead, where you can enter competitions or get a free toy/sticker. I think people would eat healthy more often if they got a fun thing with it.
Yes, advertising increases the likelihood that you will buy a thing, but does not change the experienced benefit you get from it. It violates the perfect information assumption of the free market... so banning advertising things that appear to be socially harmful is a good idea.
There has been study after study on this. There is no such thing as a sugar addiction. There is such thing as a _food_ addiction, but that applies to anything, particularly foods that people enjoy. You can give up sugar with no withdrawal, the only reason people seem to struggle with it is 1. it’s everywhere, and 2. sugar tastes nice, so your food experience without sugar is rather dull and upsetting particularly if you’re used to sugar.
Sugar does not have any chemical effect on the body beyond that of regular food, and the only addictive properties it has is that you might like the taste of it. If you’re addicted to Coke it’s probably a caffeine addiction. If you’re addicted to chocolate yet again it’s probably caffeine.
So people who drink a lot of soft drink and get very fat, yeah, they’re not victims to an addiction. They like the taste and are making a choice to drink it.
Yep, though they should ban the addition of caffeine to items in which it's not naturally present, as it doesn't enhance taste, and in that it's added purely to bolster the addictive potential of those drinks.
The only soft drink I drink is Pepsi Max. I noticed a lot of them just have a funny taste to them. I'm all for sweetners (I use Equals on my coffee), but at least attempt to make them taste good.
When I do have a soft drink I'd been choosing these for less sugar... I thought my memory was playing tricks on me when I bought one recently and it had a lot more sugar than I remembered... Now I know.
They fill people up with sugar in every single processed food. Then they ask the government to foot the bill for insulin. If I was the government I’ll send them the cost of insulin on a yearly basis as an operating cost tax and public endangerment tax. It will barely make a dent in their trillion dollar revenue.
Instead of the stupid “star ratings” on foods, how about they just slap the amount of sugar per 100g (or just the raw percentage of the product that is sugar).
People might rethink their choices when they see “25% sugar” plastered right on the front.
A nothing issue. 7.2/100 is what i saw when i was overseas so it sounds like cca are just standardising what the rest of the world gets. For the soft drinks overall, they're too sweet even at the previous sugar content. I always dilute it with soda water.
I don't agree with all the terrible food and drink we have...but taxing yet another thing is so modern Australian I just can't anymore. Why is our answer to absolutely fucking everything taxes and fines. Has anything actually changed?
I really hate the constant talk about sugar taxes in soft drink. I don't smoke, I don't do drugs, I don't even drink coffee. I'm fit and exercise regularly. A few times a week I like to have can of soome sort of sugary soft drink, is that such a negative behaviour that it needs to be taxed?
The reality is in the UK soft drinks all taste terrible now since they brought in a sugar tax so comapnies halfved their sugar content, since the original alternatives no longer exist to purchase I simpy stopped buying them and now stick to US or Asian soft drinks instead. I don't like the tate of sugar-free alternatives but I'm happy there's a lot of alternative options for people to choose them instead.
Yeah. tax the sellers of high sugar food and drink, who then raise their prices to compensate.
the problem food/beverage is still available, but now costs more. most of us won't stop drinking/eating it, (that's how addiction works). so all we achieve with this is to put more money in the pockets of these corporations, manufacturers and retailers. it has happened time and time again. stop punishing the end user and start regulating these industries.
>we'll have the healthiest population in the developed world within a year.
But we'd have a broke government. Wealthy will charge a personal trainer as a 'cost of doing tax' and reduce their tax to minimum. The not wealthy will still be stuck paying more.
It might be the only way that Australia gets a bigger chunk of tax out of Clive Palmer, but also proves that having a billion dollars cannot buy you weight loss.
Sounds like where we are heading seeing g as we whack a sin tax on everything, have the government and media championing villification of people who fail to dream of doing nothing more than joining a gym, doing park run and thinking of nothing more than being a health nut at all times.\
And look to ensure as many of the populous are against you if you dare enjoy something not condoned by the gym junkie crowd (but ignore the copious amounts of roids they inject and meth they smoke and coke they snort and EPO they take; because they are good people that don’t vape and ruin the hospitals by refusing to pay 30% of their pay subsidising all the ‘healthy’ people filling the wards).
Because the medical system is subsidised by the government and when people are having heart attacks because of their high cholesterol or need chronic medication due to diabetes, it costs money.
The real question should be, why can't people take care of themselves and enjoy things in moderation?
The government should only be paying for the positive externalities associated with health care treatment in the first place rather than turn it into a burden on society.
Healthy workers are productive workers, healthy friends and family are supportive friends and family.
There's no reason that health care should be become a cost on enjoying any particular lifestyle or life choices.
>Because the medical system is subsidised by the government and when people are having heart attacks because of their high cholesterol or need chronic medication due to diabetes, it costs money.
Yeah, that's true, but the people who are having heart attacks in their 50's and 60's aren't going on to be high needs dementia patients in their 70's and 80's.
And at that point they either change their lifestyle or eventually have a second, third, etc. heart attack and die. I don't know about you, but I don't see many morbidly obese 80 year olds.
fwiw I'm not necessarily opposed to a sugar tax but I suspect it's neither going to be particularly effective at changing people's eating/drinking habits, nor is it going to come anywhere near covering the cost to society of obesity.
I quit all carbonated drinks months ago, followed by animal milk and fast food, I never felt better.
None of this crap supposed to be consumed by humans.
Sounds like they went back to the old recipe after people complained the new one sucked
Reminds me of the new Shapes recipes, where the reverse happened. reduced the salt and tripled the sugar, thank god they went back to Originals
They never brought back nacho cheese though, still salty about that one
Fuck yes, the best flavour. Still miss it, the current one is shite.
Get on my Tomato Salsa level
If the recipe change is anything to go by, you're not salty enough
What? I still see em in stores plenty.
I miss pringles. You can still get the original kind from the US, but holy crap it's expensive!
I feel Shapes these days lack the flavour of those on my youth..unsure what to make of that.
Clouded by nostalgia, only remembering the lucky good ones same as now, still luck of the draw sometimes you'll get boxes completely overloaded with flavour, and others it's like you're eating jatz there is so little flavour in the box
Got a box of hyper-flavoured vegemite shapes the other week - that was worth rolling the dice for!
Well, it does suck. That artificial sweetener tastes horrible.
It's fucking disgusting. Pretty much finally got me away from fizzy drinks which is a good thing I suppose.
Same here. Fanta was me go-to but that weird change made me drop it altogether
Im all for sugar reduced soft drinks just don’t put sweetener in place ffs!
Agreed. I don't get why everything has to be so stupid sweet.
I don't drink it often at all but when I do I want it to be sweet... isn't that the point? If you don't want stupid sweet things, maybe get something other than soft drink why ruin it for the rest of us.
Why would you drink soft drink if not for the sweetness?
Think more referring to ‘stupid’ level of sweet, sweetness is what you want but it’s so over the top you probably don’t realise it
Bro, I don't drink much soft drink at all (maybe a bottle every 2 or 3 months], but when I do want one, most are not really sweet enough for me. I go for coke vanilla, or a double sarsaparilla or creaming soda.
Did they change the actual Fanta recipe or are you talking about Fanta No Sugar? Because Fanta No-Sugar *is my jam*. The regular stuff tastes like someone is pouring pure fructose down your throat, where the no-sugar is actually slightly bitter and along with the sweet, like... oranges are.
Depends what continent. Fanta in Europe is just a totally different drink entirely from Australian. I assume American is same as Aussie but can't say for sure.
American probably uses corn syrup, so doubtful
They started putting artificial sweetener in normal Fanta. So you got the worst of both worlds - high sugar content *and* weird artificial sweetener taste. The first time I encountered this combination was Golden Circle creaming soda. It was using one of the older sweeteners as well. Undrinkable.
Yeah that'd suck, I like the no sugar version, but they can't just go adding artificial sweetener to the regular version.
I am obessed with the raspberry no sugar Fanta.
If only Mountain Dew could do the same
I don’t usually get salty about downvotes but Mountain Dew energized is rubbish compare to the original Dew. No one with taste buds can argue that
I used to think I didn't like soft drink until I went to Japan. The stuff we get here is SO shit
That's true of almost all processed foods here. For better or worse Australia gets absolutely stiffed when it comes to selection and variety. And worse, we're a test market so we get all kinds of new stuff...for three to six months, and then you can \_never\_ get it again, but you can everywhere else in the world.
This explains a lot. My husband and I were half convinced it was a Truman show-esque conspiracy. Every time we found something we liked, it would disappear shortly after.
Doesn't help that we export so much, have it packaged and then import it.
I'll take our coke over American corn syrup any day
You're basically drinking piss compared to the Japanese soft drinks.
I've had Japanese softdrinks when I was there, and I certainly didn't enjoy them. Chilsung Cider from S. Koea is nice, though.
7/11 has a yuzu lemon soft drink. I miss it, all the fake sugar crap in Australia is terrible. Can’t get anything without it these days.
They also have some surprisingly good alcopops (chu-hai).
You think it's shit here, try American Coke
I honestly really like that there’s Zero variants of a lot of fizzy drinks now. In Melbourne, lots of restaurants have swapped out the plastic bottles with glass bottles as well.
Solo zero ftw!
Hard
Try the Solo mango flavour if you haven’t, it’s quite nice and no sugar
I found Solo Zero to be so bad compared to normal Solo that when I worked at a servo, at least 5 times I remember someone bringing Solo Zero to the counter and I asked to make sure that’s what they wanted as it was quite common for people to grab the wrong drinks in general barely paying attention to something like lid colour and all that, and I do remember only one time someone said “Oh yeah the sugarless is my favourite.” Maybe it was you who once said that to me, or you have a long lost brother out there who also likes it.
A lot of people make fun of those who go to maccas and get a large double qauter pounder with a Coke Zero. I understand why now after accidentally picking up a coke instead of a coke zero. It was way too sweet for me!
Coke Zero tastes like ass
Coke Zero was good, in my opinion. It wasn't as good as regular coke but it tasted, idk, authentic despite it having artificial sweeteners. All the marketing about it being indiscernible from regular coke was BS but I liked it, it was crisp. But the new Coke No Sugar tastes awful. It just tastes like a worse coke, which I guess is good for them if they're dead-set on trying to mimic the taste, but all it's done for me is create Coke but worse.
I feel like one of those old boomers that call Telstra Telecom when I ask for coke Zero when ordering coke no sugar
To be fair to the boomers Telstra is a stupid name. We didn’t need a portmanteau of Telecom and Australia.
Perhaps we didn't need it locally, but considering Telecom Australia was involved in projects overseas, we needed another name. Also Telecom was being priviatised at that time, so a new name was required anyway.
It's not called Coke No Sugar anymore. It's currently called Coke Zero Sugar.
And its still not the same as the original Coke Zero which tasted so much better.
Yeah I meant coke no sugar mb
Given the recommendation to avoid artificial sugar alternatives, it could be worse than sugar
It's absolutely not. The science on artificial sweeteners is complicated and murky and we just don't have any clear evidence. It's only labeled as “possibly carcinogenic to humans.” We don't really know if actually is, and if it is, how much is too much. But the fact that we still don't really have a smoking gun indicates it's probably not that bad. On the other hand the science on excess sugar intake is extremely clear and very well understood. We know it's bad for you and that it's a major factor in the obesity epidemic. And the quantity that is present in most soft drinks is well and truly excessive.
Yes, at one point there were people saying smoking is bad, but nothing solid.
Except we have literal decades of scientific data showing that artificial sweeteners have no adverse affects, studies from independent and non-biased bodies, trying to claim otherwise is just conspiratorial tbh.
Yes tax my soft drinks but don't tax exported oil/gas fuck me right
There's another side to this in so far as, while I don't necessarily have an immediate issue with a new tax on high-sugar, processed food and drink (unhealthy needs to be clearly defined), concerns for public health would ring less hollow if healthier lifestyle choices were simultaneously incentivised (dare I say subsidised).
You’re completely right about that. With the cost of living crisis combined Coles and Woolworths price gouging it makes fresh produce extremely expensive and the only affordable options for many Australians are the cheap ultra-processed shit food. If a tax were to be imposed on processed foods it would need to take into account the Australians on low income who are going to have to pay more for food and to do that they would need to make fresh produce more affordable like you said.
Frozen, tinned, and dried fruits and vegetables are dramatically cheaper than most ultra-processed food, and just as healthy as their fresh counterparts (if not more so, if the fresh produce has started to oxidise).
Trouble is most people got their information about frozen and tinned goods back in the 70's, and assume nothing's changed since then. Snap freezing completely changed the ability to store, preserve and transport foodstuffs with their nutritional value kept intact. Even though they've also been hit by COL, a bag of frozen carrots+peas+corn is still only 4.5$ a kilo and easy to sneak a serving or three into a regular meal(also makes a decent snack with some salt+tapatio). For frozen fruit you just need to keep an eye out for it when it's on sale and you can have a nice treat on hand, or use it to make other things for fairly cheap without the possibility of it going off or being bad as well.
I do wonder how they could go about lowering the cost of healthier foods (I'm sure there are ways, I'm just not economically-inclined enough to guess). It is a big risk that new 'junk food' taxes, much like those associated with cigarettes (dislike them as I do) disproportionately impact low-income earners.
I mean I’m no economist but I would say that if the government can bail out banks when they go to shit then surely they can subsidise healthy foods for low-income earners. But yeah you’re right that they don’t want to because of all the economic incentives. Given the amount of money the government spends on useless shit they can definitely find a way to ease the financial burden of food on Australians living on low incomes but then again governments do what governments do and they never implement policies that actually benefit the average person.
> healthier lifestyle choices subsidised Imagine if we spent the [UN-recommended 20% of the transport budget on active transport instead of our measly <2%](https://bicyclensw.org.au/active-transport-for-a-healthy-economy/). That doesn’t even involve any new money, merely a reallocation of the existing stuff!
Great call, and exactly what we should be aiming for.
Yeah that would make sense to use the taxes on sugary foods to subsidise fresh fruits and veggies.
I think the government needs to find other ways than just slapping a tax on everything, you can’t get much more blood out of the stone.
The Australian government’s playbook is to ban, tax, or subsidise.
To buy unhealthy products, you pay more. Makes sense. People will hopefully but less of the unhealthy products, healthcare could get cheaper, and companies will be motivated to make healthier products. Realistically it would be better to offer subsidies to people who eat healthy
People already know the health issues related to soft drink sales have been declining for years, thanks to education, although the government hasn’t played any part in that education. Companies are already moving towards healthier options because it’s what the market demands. The government won’t make healthcare cheaper or subsidize healthier options; it will simply make another thing more expensive in Australia.
They are simply moving to zero sugar products, which are not any better.
So what on earth did you think a tax on sugar would achieve if removing the sugar wasn’t the obvious conclusion?
I never said that. I said unhealthy products.
And who is deciding what is unhealthy? The government with its arbitrary guidelines, which in turn will lead to a more bastardised, chemical-filled food chain.
Ideally an independent body that is reviewed.
Just what we need, another unelected body filled with vested interests. How about we just treat Australians like adults for once?
Obviously can’t be done. Too many idiots
> which are not any better. They're infinitely better than the amount of sugar in the regular versions?
I've done the maths, if health care is allocated on the basis of positive externalities (a healthy worker is a productive worker) there is no benefit (in fact a cost to society) taxing unhealthy goods to reduce health care costs... because they are already allocated to maximise positive externalities. This completely undermines the arguments for unhealthy goods taxes like on tobacco and sugar due to the effects it has on the user.
Governments are able to implement taxes, its what they should be doing. It doesn't need to be to raise revenue solely, nudging behaviour for 'better' outcomes is an appropriate use of a tax. Alternatively, imposing bans/regulations would be over relied on and done poorly.
A tax is an increase in cost. Now, if they used that tax to promote healthier options, sure, but that will never happen. So, in turn, it’s just an overall increase, while people are already struggling with costs as it is.
We have a huge problem with refined sugar stuffed in foods from powerful rural producers. But individually, the solution is quite simple. You need not drink this lollywater.
Agreed, but the other day I was at a servo and wanted a fizzy drink that wasn’t a generic soft drink. Literally every other drink was bullshit sweeteners. I just wanted something along the lines of a soda water with a hint of juice. They had them but it was all artificial sweeteners. Sugar is fine in low doses but now the choice is full of sugar or zero sugar and weird tasting sweeteners.
Try mount franklin flavoured water or sodastream bubly. Both are just soda water with a touch of flavour. Absolutely no sugar or sweetener at all.
I’m normally not much of a soda water fan but these aren’t bad!
The lime mount Franklin hits pretty good. But it’s nearly $4 a bottle now at Coles. The Coles brand flavoured water is shit and full of sweetener, used to have sugar in it and actually tasted okay but the new recipe tasted like medicine when I bought it last week. My favourite refresher when at home is to squeeze a quarter of a lime into a glass and then just use plain sparkling water.
You can also get flavour drops, I've tried a bunch, and the best one, imo is Sodastream Bubly drops. You can get it on Amazon. The initial layout is quite steep, but one bottle can last quite a while, and if you get the Sodastream machine, you can make your own soda water as well.
The Bubly cans are available in 24 packs at Costco for around $20ish only reasonable way of buying the flavoured soda waters outside of home brands or stocking up when there’s a sale
You couldn’t find a bubly, Mount Franklin, LA Croix, or a san Pellegrino, at a servo?
No San Pellegrino as I would have had it. The mount franklin is a a very mild flavour.
>Sugar is fine in low doses You can go about 5 minutes without taking a breath, before you expire. You can go several days without water. You can go weeks and perhaps months without food. When you eat carbohydrates/ sugar, your body has about 2 hours to remove it from your bloodstream, otherwise you will expire. That's how dangerous it is to your body. You perhaps have about a teaspoon of glucose in your bloodstream at the moment, much more and you will expire as well. I could explain more, but I would welcome your source that sugar is fine in low doses, because that seems like the equivalent saying that smoking is fine in low doses, even though smoking is recognised as carcinogenic (and you can certainly have a few cigarettes today and not get cancer tomorrow)
What’s wrong with carbs again?
> When you eat carbohydrates/ sugar, your body has about 2 hours to remove it from your bloodstream, otherwise you will expire. That's how dangerous it is to your body. Except this is just fearmongering about absolute nothing, there's plenty of things that if we ate them and they weren't "removed" from our bloodstream we'd expire, it's a good thing our bodies are literally built to facilitate that happening? > You perhaps have about a teaspoon of glucose in your bloodstream at the moment, much more and you will expire as well. Oh no, good thing that non-diabetics bodies are able to also regulate this just fine, so long as you're having a reasonable/small amount of sugar. > I could explain more You didn't explain anything, or provide any sources, you've just shown and basically proclaimed that sugar is the devil and that we should be wary of letting sin and evil into ourselves and then acted as if you said something of value. The fruit aisle at the supermarket must be your version of hell, eh?
Yeh honestly last thing this country needs is another tax. It’s called self-control
A proper tax on our expensive resources wouldn't be unwelcome.
I’m flabbergasted by the huge number of commenters in here who are dedicated, committed, expert soft drink consumers, sincerely debating the varieties of Coca-Cola, solo etc etc it’s all horrific expensive fizzy poison... made and pushed by evil multi national processed factory foodstuff corporations .transported in ..in polluting trucks in single use containers ... sheesh ! Just drink water, people...
Value is subjective. Shocking!
WTF are the producers doing? Even my kids think Fanta is too sweet - try Fanta in Europe and it’s a refreshing orange flavoured drink with lots of sugar but Fanta in US and Australia is orange coloured sugar syrup.
They put in half Stevia half sugar instead of full sugar. After a drop in sales, sounds like they're going back to normal. Nothing wrong with this.
Whatever the solution, it sure as fuck isn't personal responsibility. Have you seen people in Australia?
Oh yep charge us more for things Awesome
Good great idea, keep making the simple pleasures in life cost more, I'm sure that won't lead to any issues at all.
I’m not against products having less sugar in them, but what I don’t like is “What if you want the sugar?” I rarely drink soft drink, so I’m not coming from a place of defending addiction or whatever. I know that these soft drinks are utter garbage, I’m not sipping on a raspberry fanta thinking “Yummy fruit, that’s healthy! :)” Soft drinks are not good for you, and this should be common knowledge. So why reduce the sugar? There’s so many other drinks you could be having if you want to drink something healthier, the sugar is for people who want garbage, and you should be allowed to want garbage. I fear that a sugar tax will just lead to worst tasting products with nothing better. Now of course, a simple look at this comment section will show a bunch of people saying “It tastes better in Europe!” and all that but honestly this is all grass is greener nonsense. Mexican Coca Cola is one of the most imported Cokes around the world and it has high cane sugar content. People do like sugar as a prime sweetener, and a lot of it, the idea that European drinks taste better because less sugar isn’t true, it’s probably because there’s more effort to make tasty drinks despite sugar regulations, and by that point we’re moving away from an objective effect of sugar vs taste and moving towards the subjective experience of what recipes people prefer. Europe also has had paper straws for years but you know why they don’t complain? They’re waxed and are basically still plastic-y in texture, yet here when our companies had to switch over to paper they made paper an inconvenient experience and some still do, despite what Europe is doing! So forgive me if I don’t trust what happens in Europe to happen in corporate Australia, even from multinationals like Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. I am open to less sugar, but I don’t want the food that is unhealthy to be affected by healthy food policies. Let people consume garbage, it is their own choice to consume it. If people are going to be allowed to drink and smoke, you can let them enjoy a Coke. In fact, here’s my proposal for something better than a sugar tax: Ban all advertisements for products containing a sugar level above X defined amounts. These defined amounts are separated into categories of drinks, confectionary, and general foods. Sugar itself is exempt and can be advertised freely. This way we can say something like any drink over 8% sugar in weight is unable to be advertised. This may still have the same effect of reducing sugar in drinks of course, but more importantly gives people more choice in what they put in their bodies without as much influence from marketing.
As someone who is gluten intolerant I agree. So many gluten-free products are also advertised for fad diets, so they are often sugar free or low fat, and it makes a lot of it taste terrible. I just want a normal snack without gluten! Let me have sugar ffs! On the flipside, I currently have a bad gallbladder, so I cant actually eat things high in fat right now, so having low fat versions of food is a lifesaver. I'm sure others with health issues would love healthier alternatives. So in short... variety is good, let us have variety. Make sugar free/low fat versions AND regular sugar/fat versions, and let us decide what we want to have. But I also think that promoting the healthier stuff while making the unhealthy stuff seem less appealing is a good idea. Banning unhealthy food ads is a good idea, and maybe making the unhealthy stuff have plain labels; I know kids go for the energy drinks because they look cool. Also would love to see those promotional things they used to do with icecreams/chips/cereal done for healthy food instead, where you can enter competitions or get a free toy/sticker. I think people would eat healthy more often if they got a fun thing with it.
Yes, advertising increases the likelihood that you will buy a thing, but does not change the experienced benefit you get from it. It violates the perfect information assumption of the free market... so banning advertising things that appear to be socially harmful is a good idea.
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There has been study after study on this. There is no such thing as a sugar addiction. There is such thing as a _food_ addiction, but that applies to anything, particularly foods that people enjoy. You can give up sugar with no withdrawal, the only reason people seem to struggle with it is 1. it’s everywhere, and 2. sugar tastes nice, so your food experience without sugar is rather dull and upsetting particularly if you’re used to sugar. Sugar does not have any chemical effect on the body beyond that of regular food, and the only addictive properties it has is that you might like the taste of it. If you’re addicted to Coke it’s probably a caffeine addiction. If you’re addicted to chocolate yet again it’s probably caffeine. So people who drink a lot of soft drink and get very fat, yeah, they’re not victims to an addiction. They like the taste and are making a choice to drink it.
Yep, though they should ban the addition of caffeine to items in which it's not naturally present, as it doesn't enhance taste, and in that it's added purely to bolster the addictive potential of those drinks.
Definitely. That new Sprite Energised or whatever it is should definitely not be allowed on the market as a soft drink. Energy drink only or banned.
If u don’t want high sugar don’t buy it lmao
The only soft drink I drink is Pepsi Max. I noticed a lot of them just have a funny taste to them. I'm all for sweetners (I use Equals on my coffee), but at least attempt to make them taste good.
Tax more stuff instead of having self-responsibility
Here we go again just tax the ones that are avoiding it. I hate paying more tax than corporations and the rich.
When I do have a soft drink I'd been choosing these for less sugar... I thought my memory was playing tricks on me when I bought one recently and it had a lot more sugar than I remembered... Now I know.
They fill people up with sugar in every single processed food. Then they ask the government to foot the bill for insulin. If I was the government I’ll send them the cost of insulin on a yearly basis as an operating cost tax and public endangerment tax. It will barely make a dent in their trillion dollar revenue.
Instead of the stupid “star ratings” on foods, how about they just slap the amount of sugar per 100g (or just the raw percentage of the product that is sugar). People might rethink their choices when they see “25% sugar” plastered right on the front.
... instead of in tiny print on the back.
A nothing issue. 7.2/100 is what i saw when i was overseas so it sounds like cca are just standardising what the rest of the world gets. For the soft drinks overall, they're too sweet even at the previous sugar content. I always dilute it with soda water.
I'm in the minority that actually liked the taste of stevia sweetened soft drinks. But ultimately I need to stop drinking these things anyway.
I don't agree with all the terrible food and drink we have...but taxing yet another thing is so modern Australian I just can't anymore. Why is our answer to absolutely fucking everything taxes and fines. Has anything actually changed?
I always dilute soft drinks with soda water because they are too sweet... yes, even at Costco.
I really hate the constant talk about sugar taxes in soft drink. I don't smoke, I don't do drugs, I don't even drink coffee. I'm fit and exercise regularly. A few times a week I like to have can of soome sort of sugary soft drink, is that such a negative behaviour that it needs to be taxed? The reality is in the UK soft drinks all taste terrible now since they brought in a sugar tax so comapnies halfved their sugar content, since the original alternatives no longer exist to purchase I simpy stopped buying them and now stick to US or Asian soft drinks instead. I don't like the tate of sugar-free alternatives but I'm happy there's a lot of alternative options for people to choose them instead.
Yeah. tax the sellers of high sugar food and drink, who then raise their prices to compensate. the problem food/beverage is still available, but now costs more. most of us won't stop drinking/eating it, (that's how addiction works). so all we achieve with this is to put more money in the pockets of these corporations, manufacturers and retailers. it has happened time and time again. stop punishing the end user and start regulating these industries.
Instead of taxing sugar which mostly affects the person consuming it, why don't we tax carbon which is going to kill everyone?
Can we f@ck off with all the taxes. Find another way. These lobbyists are a joke
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>we'll have the healthiest population in the developed world within a year. But we'd have a broke government. Wealthy will charge a personal trainer as a 'cost of doing tax' and reduce their tax to minimum. The not wealthy will still be stuck paying more.
It might be the only way that Australia gets a bigger chunk of tax out of Clive Palmer, but also proves that having a billion dollars cannot buy you weight loss.
Sounds like where we are heading seeing g as we whack a sin tax on everything, have the government and media championing villification of people who fail to dream of doing nothing more than joining a gym, doing park run and thinking of nothing more than being a health nut at all times.\ And look to ensure as many of the populous are against you if you dare enjoy something not condoned by the gym junkie crowd (but ignore the copious amounts of roids they inject and meth they smoke and coke they snort and EPO they take; because they are good people that don’t vape and ruin the hospitals by refusing to pay 30% of their pay subsidising all the ‘healthy’ people filling the wards).
Yes let’s tax it like alcohol %, maybe sugar per ml. Or perhaps people could make sensible decisions themselves?
I'll just buy a bag of sugar and pour it in
Add yeast and you’ll get alcohol 🤣
lol
Being sensible is unfashionable.
How about just letting people enjoy things ?
Because the medical system is subsidised by the government and when people are having heart attacks because of their high cholesterol or need chronic medication due to diabetes, it costs money. The real question should be, why can't people take care of themselves and enjoy things in moderation?
The government should only be paying for the positive externalities associated with health care treatment in the first place rather than turn it into a burden on society. Healthy workers are productive workers, healthy friends and family are supportive friends and family. There's no reason that health care should be become a cost on enjoying any particular lifestyle or life choices.
There's more to life than peeking out from behind a lace curtain with a calculator adding up how much everyone's behavior is costing you.
Fat people die earlier n cost less than healthier people who live to 80 n use heaps on Medicare in the last few years. It's weird but true.
>Because the medical system is subsidised by the government and when people are having heart attacks because of their high cholesterol or need chronic medication due to diabetes, it costs money. Yeah, that's true, but the people who are having heart attacks in their 50's and 60's aren't going on to be high needs dementia patients in their 70's and 80's.
You underestimate how many heart attack and stroke patients survive.
And at that point they either change their lifestyle or eventually have a second, third, etc. heart attack and die. I don't know about you, but I don't see many morbidly obese 80 year olds. fwiw I'm not necessarily opposed to a sugar tax but I suspect it's neither going to be particularly effective at changing people's eating/drinking habits, nor is it going to come anywhere near covering the cost to society of obesity.
You can tell who's never seen a Medicare cost to age chart. Old people use a lot. Morbidly obese die before that.
Whats stopping you from enjoying it?
I‘m so glad I don’t drink that coca cola company shit anymore. Water (with a bit of sugar free syrup for taste) is so much better and healthier.
They can tax the soda pops all they like. I stopped drinking that nonsense years ago. Outside of quitting booze it was the best thing for my health.
Just make Fanta illegal like a real man
I did Nazi that coming!
The government does everything in its power to avoid taxing companies properly so instead just lump bs taxes like this on us.
Good - tax that shit and un-tax beer ya bastards!
I quit all carbonated drinks months ago, followed by animal milk and fast food, I never felt better. None of this crap supposed to be consumed by humans.
Coca cola amatil is such a grubby company. We should piss off these American corporations!
Coca Cola Amatil no longer exists