A QUESTIONABLE TAX Olly Munro & Kerry R Tyack www.foodtechnology.co.nz 13 Purchasing my goods, I braved the cutting wind outside and got into my car, still reeling at the sight. Parked alongside me was his mother’s car, with the little boy and two younger siblings sitting in carseats in the back. All three were gulping from those two-litre bottles of Coke, wiping their hands across their mouths as she drove off. The smallest one, no more than two, dipped a dummy into the liquid and sucked on it. I have to admit my heart sank. When anyone talks about Coke even today, I remember that sight. And don’t get me wrong – I gulp down Diet Coke with the best of them and I’ve let my kids drink limited fizzy drinks all through their lives. But there’s something inherently wrong with that mother thinking soft drink was a suitable beverage for very small children with terribly decaying teeth early on that Monday morning. Or any morning, for that matter. So what do we do? Ask Dr Lin Mei Tan, an associate professor of taxation with Massey University, if a sugar tax on sugary drinks will work here, and her answer is quick. “No,” she says, “not as a stand-alone move. When you look at the United Kingdom’s proposed tax, it’s estimated that passing around 18 to 24p per litre onto consumers may still make it affordable to consumers. “There are a variety of measures such as pricing, education, marketing and nutrition labelling that are possible initiatives to curb soft drink consumption. However, there is no robust evidence on the effectiveness of these interventions on the consumption of soft drinks and health outcomes.” Sugary drinks, Tan says, are somewhat of a scapegoat because they are easier to target than unhealthy or junkfood that’s more difficult to define. But it’s important that people are made aware of the detrimental effects of excessive consumption of soft drinks. “The Government should continuously fund educational campaigns towards healthy food diets, encourage people to reduce sugar intake and increase physical activity. There is also a need to change people’s perceptions, especially those of the lower socio economic group, that healthy food is always more expensive.” What I ask is: who living in New Zealand today with even half a brain still thinks that ‘liquid candy’ is the best choice of beverage for children? When the Government’s top child health expert Dr Pat Tuohy calls for schools to go sugar-free, does he honestly believe kids will get the same support at home? Professor Rod Jackson, an expert on epidemiology at the School of Population Health at the University of Auckland, says there’s a famous and obscene quote from a tobacco executive in the 1960s that goes: “We don’t smoke this s**t, we just sell it. We reserve the right to smoke, for the young, the poor, the black and the stupid. “I don’t for an instance believe that people who consume too much sugar are stupid, but they tend to be young, they tend to be poor (because high sugar foods and drinks are the cheapest calories available) and Mãori and Pacific peoples have higher levels of obesity and diabetes than almost anyone else in the world,” he says. “A sugary drinks tax alone won’t reverse New Zealand’s ‘diabesity’ epidemic or cure tooth decay but the best available evidence suggests it will be one of the most effective strategies.” When you consider that the mother of those three little children outside that dairy on that frosty Monday morning willingly gave each of her most precious things in the world 52 teaspoons of sugar in one hit, is it any wonder that sugary drinks – whether fairly or not – get the proverbial fingers pointed at them. Calls for the taxing of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) in New Zealand echo similar appeals in other countries and, as in those other jurisdictions, it’s a demand the local non-alcoholic drinks industry cannot support. There is no substantial evidence that tax intervention (or so called ‘sin taxes’) is effective as a means of convincing consumers to permanently alter their buying patterns or lifestyle choices in the medium-to-long term, although there are some indications of a short-term decline in purchasing the taxed product (but consumers usually revert to initial buying behaviour). A six- month field study of a 10% tax on sugar-sweetened beverages in 113 US households found an initial small reduction in sales which disappeared after three-to- six months. To suggest this pattern will be any different in the case of SSBs is unconvincing. There are four other sound reasons to reject this impost: It’s unfairly biased: There is no reason why a single product should bear the brunt of responsibility for a health issue that has as many causes as there are consumers making individual lifestyle choices – particularly when consumed as intended. It is accepted science that we get our kilojoules from a range of sources - SUGAR COMES IN MANY FORMS: Glucose…sugar in the blood which fuels the body and brain (found in fruit, veges, honey and cereals) Fructose…found in fruit and veges, but also a component of sucrose Sucrose…made up of glucose and fructose (the white granular form we commonly call sugar, mainly from sugar cane and sugar beet) Lactose… made up of glucose and galactose (found in milk) Maltose… made up of two glucose units joined t o g e t h e r (found in malt products and barley) Other sugars… include honey, golden syrup, maple syrup, corn syrup, treacle, molasses and high fruitose corn sugar. Continued on page 12 >>
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