I would recommend you read Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes
everynametaken Send a noteboard - 14/11/2012 06:04:42 AM
Unlike cigarette taxes, where there is no benefit whatsoever from smoking and harm from even small amounts of cigarette smoke, sugar is, quite simply, energy for the body and, if taken in the right amounts, helpful to the body's proper functioning. A tax on fats is even more ridiculous, as the notion that "eating fat makes you fat" has been so thoroughly disproven as to be laughable. Fats, proteins and carbohydrates (i.e., sugars) are all needed for our bodies to properly function.
Oh, I don't know about this. Looking at the 10 leading causes of death in the Unites States, I'd say that half of them are linked to excessive intake of saturated fat. Some fats are essential (our brain is mostly fat!) while others are just harmful. I would also claim that we have no physiological need to ingest pure sugar. Not that it's necessary a bad thing, eating sugar. Just, you know, try to keep the amount reasonable.
If these substances are abused by some, that is their own problem. Of course, this is one reason why I have issues with the entire socialized medicine concept, because it gives the government reason to stick its nose into people's eating habits. That aside, however, the solution would seem to me to be a surtax on the obese.
Obesity is most definitely a public health issue. And it's staggering how prevalent it's predicted to become. It's like we're swimming in fat.
He absolutely obliterates the myths associated with cardiovascular disease, cholesterol and fat intake. He does an especially good job at laying out how many of our current issues with obesity, heart disease and sickness in general are more correlated to the intake of refined carbohydrates than fat. It is probably one of the most well researched pieces on the subject I have ever read. The book as fascinating from beginning to end and I recommend it to everyone I see or hear talking about this subject. I am actually planning a reread of it over December because I would like to take a second look at the info in it because there is just so much he goes over.
But wine was the great assassin of both tradition and propriety...
-Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings
-Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings
Sin taxes on fat and sugar. What do you think?
- 13/11/2012 09:19:33 AM
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Sure. Revenue's got to come from somewhere. But only after we end corn subsidies and the like. *NM*
- 13/11/2012 01:52:01 PM
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I think they are stupid ideas.
- 13/11/2012 02:11:14 PM
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Re: I think they are stupid ideas.
- 13/11/2012 03:28:59 PM
471 Views
Yeah you're right
- 13/11/2012 03:52:09 PM
438 Views
Yes, that is exactly what I meant
- 13/11/2012 03:59:00 PM
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I would recommend you read Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes
- 14/11/2012 06:04:42 AM
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Palm oil? They want to tax shampoo?
- 13/11/2012 11:03:44 PM
410 Views
No, the tax is only for foodstuffs in which palm oil is an ingredient. I should've clarified that *NM*
- 14/11/2012 11:53:30 AM
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A palm oil tax is potentially a much more complex issue than you suggest
- 13/11/2012 11:12:24 PM
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Re: A palm oil tax is potentially a much more complex issue than you suggest
- 14/11/2012 05:25:15 PM
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