Well, Sip & Savor has spent much time this week and prior weeks talking about the flaws in arguments and data presented by advocates who want to raise taxes on your groceries, including soft drinks, juice drinks and other non-alcoholic beverages.
Today, we came across an interesting perspective from a neutral source that’s worth sharing. This is an anecdotal piece of writing, but it’s one with relevance that we think most of us can relate to on some level.
Now, we present this not to suggest that there’s no childhood obesity, or that we shouldn’t focus as a nation on reducing it. But in order to address childhood obesity, we must put the issue in its proper context. Not the sound-bite context that advocates and some in the media choose. The sensationalism. And we must seek comprehensive solutions based on education, balanced diets and exercise in order to effectively deal with the problem. Taxes don’t make people healthy.
As we’ve always said about soft drinks. Yes, regular soda has calories; at about 140 per can that’s not an inordinate amount of calories…but regular soda does have them.
But let’s keep things in perspective. Soft drinks are a refreshment beverage meant to be enjoyed. And you can be a healthy person and enjoy regular soft drinks. Tens of millions of Americans are proof.
Jack Cashill, an Emmy-award-winning writer and producer based in Boston, adds to this perspective in his column. Click on the hyperlink and enjoy.
August 8, 2009
Soft drinks are a refreshment beverage meant to be enjoyed. And you can be a healthy person and enjoy regular soft drinks
February 12, 2010
Your position is delusional, and the American public can see through it.
It would be much more reasonable, and you would gain more trust, if you all to change your position to saying that soda is a treat or a desert, much the way that a cookie or piece of cake is a treat.
It’s not at all healthy to consume soda on a regular basis. By the way, I’d love to hear what your definition of a “regular basis” is.
At 140 calories per can, once a day, that’s 980 excess calories a week. At that rate of consumption, it would take less than 1 month to drink 3500 calories worth of soda, which equals 1 pound of body fat. Would you like to gain a pound a month? Or 12 lbs a year?
From studies, we know that the average American consumes roughly 533 cans of soda a year (50 gallons, 6400 oz, whatever). That’s 74,620 excess calories, devoid of nutrition. That’s 21 extra lbs. of fat on every American’s body.
And let’s not fool ourselves, there’s zero nutrition in soda. Humans weren’t built to drink liquefied sugar (more accurately high-fructose corn syrup). We’re not hummingbirds. Stop trying to pretend like soda is anything more than a desert, which should be enjoyed rarely.
June 17, 2010
The fact remains that calories are calories, regardless of their source. And if you eat too many calories from anything – soda, cookies, cake, even apples – without burning them off, you will gain weight. If we want to focus on reducing obesity in this country, we need to look at comprehensive approaches that look at total diet and physical activity – not demonize one food, beverage or ingredient and assume that eliminating it from our diets will solve the problem. That is simply not the case.
It’s also important to point out sugar-sweetened beverages account for only 5.5 percent of total calories in the American diet, according to government data. So if we focus solely on these products, we’re failing to look at the remaining 94.5 percent of calories which come from other sources.
Our industry supports healthy and active lifestyles – and we are doing our part to help reduce obesity. We continue to innovate to meet consumer demand by providing more low- and no-calorie beverages, as well as smaller-portion options. In fact, since 1998 there has been a 21 percent reduction in beverage calories available in the marketplace. We’ve successfully implemented national School Beverage Guidelines that remove full-calorie sodas from all schools and replace them with lower-calorie, smaller-portion options. And we have committed to clearly label the calories on our containers, vending and fountain machines so that consumers will have calorie information at their fingertips at the point of purchase. Clearly our industry is doing a great deal to be part of the solution.