Big Soda sponsored 96 health groups – a big conflict of interest, study says
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
Perhaps an independent foundation could work hard at fundraising to become such an escrow but they'd have a heck of a time raising capital to cover the research I imagine.
Theoretically, this would strongly select for products that are safe but for which no one else wants to fund research into the safety of.
They use part of this management fee to invest in their brand, so that studies that don't carry the "neutral-study-guarantee" sticker are treated less seriously than those that do.
You pay in taxes, government dispenses research funds, you don't know where the money is from.
Of course, in reality, the escrow may not be enough to remove the bias, but it's an interesting thought.
so if soda accounts for twenty percent of so of weight gain, what accounts for the vast majority? I would still place my bets on junk foods similar to cookies, chips and such, but cannot discount prepared breakfast and dinners.
For instance, apple and orange juice contains approximately 10 % sugar.
Juice drinks are then another matter; they are juice diluted with water and added sugar and flavourings, thus nutritionally even worse even though the sugar content is roughly similar.
For comparison, Coca-Cola "original" has 26g sugar in 8oz (236ml).
Fruit juices are fruits with lots of the good stuff removed but I still consider fruits as desserts and not very healthy...
http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocuments...
That doesn't mean that they aren't sweet, but the labeling should reliably state the fruit juice content.
Given that the blends aren't necessarily worse than the pure juice nutritionally, I'm not sure what you do for the consumer that can't tell the difference between "100% Vitamin C" and "100% Fruit Juice".
How can they say 100% apple juice with added ingredient (even if it is only vitamin C that they are adding in very small quantity...)
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but why wouldn't fruits as desserts be healthy?
Fruit and vegetable consumption and all-cause mortality: a dose-response analysis http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23803880
Normally you would only eat one orange. A glass of orange juice is equivalent to the juice of several oranges, with little or none of the accompanying fiber to slow down sugar absorption. Sure it's nutritious, but it's also a fructose bomb in a cup.
Fruit and vegetable consumption and all-cause mortality: a dose-response analysis http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23803880
Did I just blow your mind?
It may be interesting to note that I am a vegetarian so I am far from opposed to eating lots of fruit.
I cannot say the same for random sugar-like-but-not-really-sugar chemical of the month.
You could just call them sweeteners, non-nutritive sweeteners, or even artificial sweeteners. There's nothing more chemical-y about aspartame (for example) than sucrose, glucose, fructose, etc...
Where in nature do humans or animals eat aspartame?
Now that doesn't necessarily mean they are bad, but it does mean they are unproven. You can find enough studies that show negative effects (in weight loss, gut bacteria, etc), that you should at least QUESTION your use of making your food sickly sweet without nutrition.
Logically if your goal is to eat less sugar, again it seems counterintuitive to make everything you eat sickly sweet. Your body doesn't need to have sugar on everything, or in every beverage. Rather than substitute sugar (known bad) for fake sugar (unknown bad amount), you can just.. you know... drink water and eat better?
Are you suggesting aspartame is supernatural? :)
I'm not arguing against any of what you said. I'm just suggesting the way you use the word "chemical" makes it sound like you think some things we consume are not chemicals.
The health groups, on the other hand, seem to have a big conflict of interest. They should either stop taking industry money OR stop commenting on industry issues.
To play devil's advocate, one reason you might want to exempt "natural fruit juices" from a "soda tax" laws is that the laws are designed to make the product more expensive, enough to scare off consumption into healthier alternatives. But natural fruit juices tend to already be much more expensive to begin with (because you have to actually grow the few pieces of fruit), so they already have a kind of built-in deterrent to overconsumption.
That's like naming your bad guy Darth Funsies.
What they are doing is no different from the various operations Big Tobacco did in the past to misinform, dissuade or deflect the conversation on cigarettes.
I understand the health costs of sugary drinks, but personally I want to live in a world where I can have one if and when I want to. I don't drink a lot of soda (maybe one a week), but there are certain situations where I find them really enjoyable. I don't want them to disappear.
I think the quality of life will go down if we get rid of all junk food in the world. I know we do a poor job of eating and drinking in moderation, but I don't think the solution is to just have it not be available.
Step 2. Argue against strawman.
Everyone should be free to consume whatever they want, so long as they know what they want is killing them, and there are no distortions by the purveyors of such products that they are anything other than what they are - namely bad for you.
You want to smoke? Go ahead. You want to get obese and severely shorten both your life and its quality by consuming caloric dense nutrient deficient drinks/foods? Go right on ahead. It's your life to screw up.
But don't you dare stand there and tell me that letting these corporations that profit from the damage people do to themselves be free to run around going "OH NO cigarettes are totally fine! OH NO diet isn't the issue - just exercise more - here have a coke". Kids are literally dying because of this shit, and I frankly won't stand by it.
What I am against is systematic and dirty propaganda operations that directly harm the national interest for trivial sums of profit by lying to the population through their teeth and in turn inflicting untold amounts of misery on millions of our citizens.
That isn't what your statement I replied to said... you said there was NO way for them to win.
So the commenter claims "they can't win". That means that even if they stopped all the PR work defending sugar, they still wouldn't win and they would still be on the wrong side of history.
If they have no way to win, then the only thing they can do is stop existing at all.
If the commenter supports their right to exist as a company making sugary drinks, then there IS a way to win.
He never once mentions what they could do to 'win'.
Sugar and caffeine are addictive. We are given these things from a very young age and have very little say in whether we are addicted to them (not to mention, massive amounts of marketing).
The fewer foods I eat, the better I feel. So many people are hooked on this stuff and aren't even aware that it is poisoning them (obesity, diabetes, heart disease, as well as headaches, mood swings, nasal congestion).
I wouldn't want to be a dictator and deprive people who are making a conscious choice, but I would get rid of it in order to give the people who are trapped the opportunity to experience life without it.
Where would it stop, then? Almost everything there is has some people that are addicted to it and use it too much; television, video games, social media, etc. Do we implement global bans to protect the people who are unable to control themselves? Or do we need to do something different?
They are not contributing to public health, they white-wash their image related to the health damage their products do.
If they want to contribute to public health, they should do it with their products.