“other than 100% fruit juice”
Yeah that’s the bother isn’t it? Refined sugar is easy to tax so that’s the devil, but all other carbohydrates in everything else we chow is not so easy to quantify. Why is the sugar in a fruit juice healther? Hmmm? Kids can ostensibly glug their newly “tax exempt” unsweetened, yet still sweet, fruit drinks as much as they want… hilarious if not so deeply sad.
The so-called 100% fruit juice usually consists of “pure fruit juice and deflavoured apple or grape juice.” Which is the same thing as, erm, sugar. If memory serves, studies have shown that “100% pure” fruit juices are in fact more sugary and more fattening than Coke. They also tend to be quite acidic and I suspect they are worse on your teeth than Coke.
But the war on obesity, like the war on smoking, has a decided component of puritanical moralism to it. Coke and cigarettes aren’t just wrong because they’re bad for you. They are wrong because people enjoy them. Fruit juice, on the other hand, is all natural and contain vitamins, so there. For your own good, you will therefore be forced by government to switch to less immoral eating habits. Despite the fact that the honourable minister of finance looks like he can do with less sugar in his own diet…
Drones… whatch the clip: