Tag Archives: Sugar

Sugar Tax

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Thanks to long-term lobbying by Jamie Oliver (pictured below in celebratory mood) and others, the UK Government has announced a tiered tax on soft drinks containing more than 5% sugar.  The most popular fizzy drinks are more than 10% sugar.

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The tax will not start until 2018 and HMG has not told us what the tax rates will be, but according the CNN “Government documents suggest the tax rate could be equivalent to £0.18 ($0.25) and £0.24 ($0.34) per liter, depending on the sugar content.” This would add a pretty solid percentage to the retail price and yield revenue estimated at £520 million per year.

The policy is supported by an excellent report by a Government agency called Public Health England.

I’m in favour of letting people make their own decisions, good or bad, but I’m also in favour of pricing things to reflect the full cost of their production and consumption. Since excessive sugar consumption imposes enormous costs on society in the form of health care and lost productivity, I consider the Old Country’s sugar tax a partial correction of a market imperfection.

Actually, Mexico has already done it and the evidence suggests that it’s working as intended.  So well done, Mexico. But – unfairly perhaps – people are likely to take more notice of what the UK does, and perhaps emulate it.

Corporate Shame

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When I heard the news story about Volkswagen and its ‘defeater’ system designed to cheat US emission testing, I thought I must have misunderstood it. Directors and managers have a duty to maximise shareholders’ profits, but Google’s motto “Don’t be evil” attracts laughter because it’s just too obvious to require formal expression. In any case, the damage that discovery of an offence like VW’s is bound to wreak upon the company would surely be so great as to deter any board from allowing it.

But cast your mind back. Remember the revelations about LIBOR fixing by major banks? Remember Goldman Sachs’ complicity in Greece’s fraudulent entry into the Euro Zone? Remember the tobacco industry’s persistent denial of the harm for which its products were responsible? The list is much longer than this. I invite you to add your own recollections.

Now allegations are being made about similar malpractices by the sugar industry. It’s too early to use words like “crime” or “criminal”, and perhaps in the strict legal sense no crimes have been committed. But there is plenty of evidence that the food manufacturing industry as a whole has a pretty casual attitude to its customers’ wellbeing.

My first ever post was about dieting. I wrote about Mrs SG’s success with the 5+2 diet and I offered 8 rules to follow for a healthy diet compatible with a modern lifestyle. Here they are again. Numbers 6, 7 and 8 will not make me popular with the food industry:

  1. Consume 1,100-1,300kcal/day normally, but no more than 500kcal on 2 days per week (the ‘fasting days’).
  2. 1,300kcal/day is less than the normal maintenance level for an adult, and it may be exceeded on special days when we entertain guests or go out to eat.
  3. Consume 30-50 grams of protein every day, including the fasting days.
  4. Every day consume less sugar than protein.
  5. Eat small amounts of a wide variety of things.
  6. Don’t buy anything without reading the nutritional data and comparing with other products.
  7. Always eat unprocessed food in preference to processed.
  8. Prepare meals in your own kitchen as much as possible. You don’t know what’s in a restaurant or take-away meal.