Your right it’s cheaper to buy yellow food in boxes absolute crap food in tesco than it is to buy your vegetables fish, meat dairy it’s cheaper to buy a party box of spring rolls and a large pizza local farmers market is the way to go

Yep, this is the key…should be comparable reductions in the tax on ‘healthy’ competitive products…lets say bottled water, real fruit smoothies etc.
If not then this is just a revenue earner.
Also, the types who feed their newborn babies fizzy drinks wont pay any attention and continue to spend on these products…poverty is an attitude as much as a quantity of money.

Bringing in a sugar tax will make healthier food cheaper when compared to more heavily processed food so it still has the same affect. At present high sugar food is far far too cheap which makes it attractive.

Healthy food suck as fruit and veg isn’t expensive, but when somebody seems some cheap high sugar thing for 89c and some veg for 1euro they are going to opt for the quick high sugar fix because this is what are minds are programmed to do.

Barry you’re talking pony mate.

Coz it doesn’t bring in the €€€.
They could give a damn what we put into ourselves, it’s what they can get out of us they’re interested in. Otherwise I wouldn’t be smoking this delicious cigarette!

Spot on Peter , why is it that when you go into a shop all the sugary crap is being sold on the cheap and the good food are 3-4 times more expensive , they talk about cheap booze and blaming it for the drinking culture . What about the obesity culture ????

Truth hurts some people I guess Cian Doherty,

I’ve no fear of junk food being made more expensive, it only makes sense because the fact its so cheap makes iot the easy option for people.

Like it or not our brains are programmed to go for the high sugar option, this is proven in research

What research Barry? Can you provide links to said studies?

A bag of spuds doesn’t cost much and there are always deals on veg. I wonder is it more about buying something that’s quick to prepare rather than any issues with cost.

Ye where are these studies mate? Sure if our brains are automatically programmed to go for the sugary option then the cost of the sugary product is irrelevant as we will buy it regardless because we are “programmed” that way!

Eoin Gildea, its a proven fact that our brains crave calories which high sugar foods provide more then anything else. This is basic basic stuff so I won’t be doing your homework for you as I was even thought this stuff in school and thats going back abit.

From a evolutionary stand point it worked well for us and helped us to develop as a species over thousands of years because our brains wanted calories but wanted to do the least amount of work to get them. We are programmed this way.

This sadly is also the downfall of our species in more modern times, our brains still want calories but most of the population doesn’t do anything near the level of exercise we used to even 100 years ago and high calorie food is easily available to everyone…infact too available.

In short the only solution is to make all the high sugar foods less available and for people to get off their lazy arses and do more exercise.

Cian Doherty, sigh
Its not as simple as that its a lifestyle thing because our culture has changed massively.

We are now in a part of our history where never before have we had such easy access to high calorie food and so cheaply too, if we take no action to deal with the problems this can cause we are condemning our species to an ever growing health issue

yes Pieter
i agree with you 100%
but why are healthier foods dearer is the question we should be asking if there is less addidtive,s,less sugar and so on

James,

I think that’s a myth that healthier food is more expensive. Meat, fruit, veg, eggs ect are not dear.

Prepared ‘healthy’ alternatives may be expensive, but making your own food from raw produce is reasonably cheap.

A bit of education and a bit more effort is all that’s is required

Barry is spot on..fair play for not linking to research, this is a well known fact, let them google it themselves…

because that wont make any more money Pieter, thats what happens when economists make the decisions. Nothing good will happen unless they can make more money in taxes.

Obviously that would be the sensible and proactive way to tackle this issue. But when have any Irish government been sensible and proactive.

Except I wouldn’t want healthier foods made cheaper at expense of succumbing to GM foods or ripping off farmers as big supermarket chains often do !

Exactly my point

Drink tap water.

You’ve to pay for tap water in most places

Go smoke a joint then……….

I agree Kerry. When I worked as a Bartender in America I thought it was a nice touch that Designated Drivers got their soft drinks free. Otherwise I have no problem with ‘Fizzy Drinks’ being taxed higher. Perhaps healthier juice drinks could be reduced to encourage people to make better choices. Personally, it turns my stomach to see very young children guzzling fizzy drinks on a regular basis.

the price of minerals is crazy.
and its all down to greedy publicans.
has anyone questioned the price of fruit juices (in most pubs its E2.80 for a mixer size bottle it would take 3 to make a pt) either i think not.
greed pure greed.
and what about the price of bottled water its cheaper to buy a gallon of petrol & litre of oil than a gallon of water

Damn greedy publicans closing all the the time.

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/1000-pub-closures-since-2005-2914729.html

Hey guy. God bless copy and paste.

Exsqeeze me?

Your tax rebate for loosing weight is a better lifestyle, healthier body, more energy and you are going to live longer with less health issues. Its not all about the money.

But if you want it to be about the money, you can likely expect insurance companys to start upping policy costs for overweight people in a few years if they’ve not done so already

I wasnt being serious Barry. :)

In fairness, that’s just pubs being greedy and not thinking ahead. Nothing to do with taxes.

Keith
as a person who likes a nonalcoholic drink as much as a pint i think your 100% correct if not a little bit generous on the publican side with your price of E3.00 and i dont believe non drinkers should be punished because they chose not to drink.
but i get the feeling that we are in a nanny state that has the mantra punish everyone alike so your dammed if you do and dammed if you dont.

To be fair in a shop a coke can cost 1.50, a beer 2.20 maybe that’s a 70c difference. In a pub you would be getting it for 1.50 cheaper.. What more do you want? It’s not greed it’s just the way the world works?

Chris, it depends on what quantity you are looking at. Assuming a pint of beer costs €4.50, the 200ml bottle of minerals at €3 is far more expensive. A rock shandy in a pub will cost €6 and it has not got as much as a pint of beer. To compare like with like 3 bottles of minerals contains just over a pint, yet it is double the cost of a pint of beer. That is the crux of my argument.

I was roughly comparing bottle with bottle. You may be right though I think mineral bottles are smaller than beer bottles.

I still think that they have the same overheads regardless of the drink you buy. The cost of the initial drink to the owner is probably only a fraction of the final cost

I agree with you about overheads Chris, doing business in Ireland must be a nightmare with the high costs and that is something that the government needs to tackle. I was just making a comparison purely on the sizes of the drinks and their costs

Or a dick head tax. He’d owe a fortune.

unbelievable cheek of someone who looks like reilly to preach about food, the state of the man

It’s ALL to do with finance

And the only people their financing is themselves and the bankers at the people,s expenses.

First of all how on earth would u think that they would reduce price on healthier foods, seriously in 2014 we,ll be charged for drinking water which is a natural right and also one of the healthiest things for you to drink and herein comes another problem because the government have fluoridated the water which is dangerous to pregnant women, young children and people in not the best of health!

Make the rich richer and the poor poorer is their plan.

2016- Famine 2- caused by Fine Gael & Labour coalition.

And they will not pay for the wreck they will have our country in by that time, their term will be up and they will have their pensions.

Prepare for things to get a lot lot worse than tax on sugary drinks.

http://www.change.org/petitions/supporting-the-irish-nation-step-down-from-government

The price of fruit and veg??? Have you been to Aldi, it’s nearly impossible to spend money on the fruit and veg offers. 69c for a tray of apples etc.

It’s not more expensive to eat healthy, it’s just a lot more effort

Its where I do go. I go to 3 supermarkets every week. You must mean 69 cent for one apple. A tray of 6 is €2.99. 1kg bananas,which also equals 6 is €1.25. Tomatos = €2.99 kg also aprox 5/6. 1 small bag of clementines = €1.99. 1 4pk of probiotic l-casei drink (own brand) €1.40. I have to do another shop later at a market stall for cabbage (1 day only) carrots and parsnip (same), potatoes, brussel sprouts, lettuce, spring onions, garlic. The list goes on but nothing above are even the quantiities for even one person, never mind a household for one week. And I believe in getting the recommended dosages to try and stay healthy, given that there is not going to be any money there to help any of us in our old age.

“Sugar is in almost everything”

The proposal is to increase tax on fizzy drinks, not on everything that contains sugar. Onions are packed with sugar but few people get fat from eating them.

Then we can also watch the soft drinks companies alter their ingredients to avoid this sugar tax.

Sarcastic comment I hope

To be very sure!

Hardly fair on horizontally challenged people. Not only can i not see my toes but now in the higher tax bracket too.

What further incentive would you need to debloat yourself?

How i feel after a daily 5k run is incentive enough without handing away more cash.

Fully agreed! Sugar is the least of our problems.

Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer…they are the least of our problems???

I’m not gonna even get into this….

Nope! tax the parents who are either (a) stupid or (b) can’t say no. And concentrate on cigarettes and booze. Nobody has died, been killed, destroyed lives, abused, fought, rowed, puked all over the place, been sent to jail, suffered or casued great pain and hardships from fizzy drinks yet. The spanners!

Ye that’s correct. Parents are issue here, always wanting someone else to take responsibility.
What happened to patents telling their kids what’s good and bad?
Worked up till now didn’t it, what’s changed?

“Tax the rich” – said every idiot ever

Taxing the rich is a terrible idea, its not a difference of opinion, its a fact

a high blood glucose level earlier on in life increases the chances of nearly every autoimmune disease, blindness, cardiovascular diseases, and theres some evidence it increases the chance of cancer too. If they increase the taxes on sugary brinks then they should reduce the taxes on healtier drinks too.

Stephen, the French decision to tax the rich was an excellent idea from the perspective of the UK Exchequer.

Paul and Aidan

It clearly hasn’t worked until now!!!?? There are so many links between excessive sugar consumption and obesity and serious disease. Diseases which have cause thousands to die every year, destroyed lives and caused incomprehensible pain and hardship for many many more every year.

I do agree that it should be down to the parents, but clearly they can’t even look after themselves!! We have a ridiculously high rate of obesity here (better than many other countries but still nothing to be proud of). I am sorry but not everyone are such prime examples of human beings as ye (thank god..)

I don’t know anyone my age with with any sugar related disease. We all had parents from different backgrounds. They all thought us moderation.
Stop looking for excuses. Kids that aren’t given these sugars don’t develop problems. Educate, don’t restrict and tax.

No Eamon Gilmore already said to the government that he wants the people on more than 500,000 to take a tax of 10 pc, however b4 Halloween the government decided to raise their pays but not up as far as they would be eligible for this tax tho. €497,500 is what they will get also paid by us! Anyone on over €100,000 should be taxed very highly, as the people i see every day work from 9-5 Monday to Friday and barely make it out with €25,000 a year!

Does Man V Food count?

Man v Food, while it’s a hideous travesty on the face of the earth, is not IMO a cookery programme. It’s more a food based reality show.

It does serve a purpose to show what sorts of foods make people hideously fat.

YES

I think It’s actually the opposite. Because of a lower life span the morbidly obese put a lower strain on the health service overall. None of those old age illnesses to look after.

Sean you think wrong. Sure they may not be around as long but while they are here they have far more health problems.

Sorry cooper, I should have mentioned that it was the conclusion of a scientific study. Lifetime health costs for the obese were found to be lower than healthy people.

Do you have a source Sean? That would be an entertaining read.

Sure here’s a few

http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050029

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9359212/Obese-and-smokers-less-of-a-burden-on-the-NHS-than-the-healthy-who-live-longer-report.html

http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml

Wouldn’t mind reading that myself

It is important to look after the health of our nation and any initiative is welcome. But the Government is comming up with these ideas at a time when they really need to increase the States revenues, which suggests to me that our health is not the governments number 1 priority here. Just look at the new Junior Cert proposals. I think its a good idea to reduce stress at exam time and allow for more project related learning. However, the government have pointed out that there is a significant reduction in costs to the Dept of Education. Why couldnt the government come up with all these ideas in the boom years?

That would involve banning everything except water and oil.

So you think that the couple who are feeding their kids pizza and coke every night are now going to have a complete lifestyle change and start eating like fitness models because Reilly stuck 20c on a bottle of coke? Hopeful? Not so much.

It’s considered bad form to call them “fatty” or indeed “wobble bottom”, “size challenged”?

Yeh, Self inflicted size.

“You cant call them that”. Never mind the P.C. nonsense. If your medically obese, your obese. Its not someone’s opinion, its a fact.

Or maybe my phone/app is just messed up, because now it’s back to normal

I feel silly :(

Seriously…. A sugar tax??? He’s some donkey!!!!

The only option I can think of is tap water. Unless you’re talking about store brand!

Fresh air is next!

Carbon and water taxes, already done!

it’s in most of the food you eat so directly or indirectly you would be taxed

The fat makes you fat thing is a misconception based upon the dual use of the term. Fats are oils and animal fats. They are where you get vitamins A, D, E and K, they also include essential fatty acids – your omega 3, 6 & 9. Fats do have more calories in them per gram, but take longer to digest (they are digested in the intestines, and absorbed into the lymphatic system via the Peyers Patches) and so are considered slow burning. They are required to keep your skin and hair healthy, they are the brains preferred source of fuel and what important parts of your body are made from (eg your brain, blood vessels, lymph etc).

Carbohydrates are fast burning fuel – digested either in the mouth or stomach (or in the case of fructose, the liver), unless they are complex carbohydrates – these are digested by bacteria in the colon. Simple sugars that are not burned for energy are stored as fat, either in the adipose tissue (body fat) or in the liver (glycogen). The body turns carbs into body fat, when you eat very fatty food you tend to get oily excrement. Excess dietary fat is not retained as easily.
Think about burning paper vs burning wood vs burning oil, in terms of generating heat over time, which is best?

And a heads up, many drinks can make you fat, most notably alcohol. Just because you do not chew it doesn’t mean your body treats it any differently. It still processes the constituents of your food regardless of whether they were liquid or solid when you swallowed them. Otherwise people on liquified diets would waste away!