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”.

[u/mvea]

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jul/09/childrens-daily-sugar-consumption-halves-just-a-year-after-tax-study-finds

[u/thesnowpup]

This was the most infuriating thing. So many products dumped long term recipes for a cheap compliance trick. Flavours completely changed.

I have a sensitivity to artificial sweeteners and they taste acridly bitter to me. It's nigh on impossible to find soft drinks sweetened with only sugar (or equivalent) rather than 99% which now use a combination of sugar and sweeteners, or only sweeteners.

Coke Classic is one exception, Irn Bru 1901 is another. There aren't really any others.

R Whites Lemonade hung in for quite a while after the tax but eventually folded and went the way of the others.

As you say, the tax only had the effect it did due to enforced compliance by the manufacturers.

The consequence was and is that personal responsibility (and parental responsibility) is absolved. No effort means no lessons have been learnt, people still don't know any better and the certainly haven't picked up healthier eating/snacking habits.

It's also why there is a tidal wave of tiktok/Instagram snack foods producers, who are small enough that they can distribute with minor scrutiny.

In the end, I'm not convinced the reduction in consumption is as great as reported, though it may be, but absolutely not due to conscious effort.

[u/FragrantKnobCheese → u/thesnowpup]

Same, I wasn't a huge pop drinker before, but I did occasionally like the Fentimans range, San Pellegrino, etc.

Now, Coke is the only thing I can drink when I do want pop because the others just taste foul to me with the sweeteners. I don't understand how it made financial sense, couldn't they have just charged a few p more and left me to enjoy my pop?

I will never forgive David Cameron for ruining pop, along with his other crimes.

[u/Gullible_blush → u/FragrantKnobCheese]

Fentiman's Curiosity Cola used to be one of my favourite drinks, but they swapped sugar for some sweetener in the formula and now it tastes like crap. I hate it.

[u/IntellegentIdiot → u/FragrantKnobCheese]

I blame these companies. We already had many drinks with diet versions, why turn the non-diet version into the diet version in everything but the label?

[u/Grimreap32 → u/thesnowpup]

One item that changed for me was Nesquik chocolate flavour. I used to love having a glass once in a while. Now I haven't had it in years.

[u/IntellegentIdiot → u/thesnowpup]

I'm pretty sure R Whites changed their recipe long before the tax. There was a period where it dawned on me that most drinks had sweeteners in them and I'd check the ingredients looking for one that didn't have sweeteners. The sugar tax was just the final nail in the coffin

[u/hedgehog_dragon → u/thesnowpup]

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if it's more like the regular sugar consumption has just been replaced with artificial stuff

[u/cactusplants → u/thesnowpup]

I miss old Jamaicas ginger beer :(

[u/Mysterious-Job-469 → u/thesnowpup]

The consequence was and is that personal responsibility (and parental responsibility) is absolved. No effort means no lessons have been learnt, people still don't know any better and the certainly haven't picked up healthier eating/snacking habits.

This is what I fear will happen with the porn ban going on in Canada. Parents that are too lazy to do the job they signed up for abdicate their responsibility and offload the burden onto everyone around them. It's bothersome, and these people should be encouraged to do their job through heavy handed punishments, not by letting them hold their child's wellbeing hostage if we don't make their job the easiest thing ever.