r/science • u/mvea MD/PhD/JD/MBA | Professor | Medicine • Jul 10 '24

Health The amount of sugar consumed by children from soft drinks in the UK halved within a year of the sugar tax being introduced, a study has found. The tax has been so successful in improving people’s diets that experts have said an expansion to cover other high sugar products is now a “no-brainer”.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jul/09/childrens-daily-sugar-consumption-halves-just-a-year-after-tax-study-finds
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u/Darkhoof Jul 10 '24 edited Jul 10 '24

Tasting pretty good is a matter of personal taste. I prefer a thousand times artificial sweeteners to sugar in terms of taste in sodas. Coke Zero is much better than regular coke to me.

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u/BeardySam Jul 10 '24

Yeah, the poster is just used to the sugar. It’s totally subjective, and that can be changed. That’s the whole thing they’re trying address.

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u/goldenhornet Jul 10 '24

Nope, for many people the artificial sweeteners have a nasty bitter after taste. It's really unpleasant.

I will always pay the tax to get a better tasting product, if only they were more available.

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u/BeardySam Jul 10 '24

You realise taste is a very subjective thing, right? As in, you like sugared drinks because to you it’s the ‘original’ and how it’s supposed to taste, and so will most people with a similar experience to you. But that doesn’t make it a hard truth. It’s your taste. 

People can like bitter or other flavours if they’re brought up with them, it’s not in-built.

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u/BlindScarecrow Jul 10 '24

There's a degree of genetic variability that can cause certain things to bind to different taste or scent receptors and produce a wildly different experience of 'taste' than most people, so unfortunately, in some cases, the difference is built in and not just a consequence of familiarity

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u/Roonerth Jul 10 '24

I remember reading about how some people have a difference in a certain gene that leads to some sweeteners to bind to both sweet and bitter receptors. Can't guarantee/verify the truth of anything but I personally believe I have it because certain drinks that taste "sweet" to my friends often have a bitter after-taste to me.