Artificial sweeteners are arguibly often worse than sugar

EDIT: people, learn to read. I never said "All are worse", I said "arguibly often", meaning there is alot we don't know and some of the artificial/ultra processed sweeteners show terrible things in studies. Just use the safest one like aspartame and don't risk with weird unknown substances. For fucks sake.. If you read a study that has found that using something has increased brain aging by 38% in humans and you still focus on some rat study insead of real human data as an excuse for all other studies being invalid, then I have a bridge to sell you.

And the fructose in fruit juice isn't "healthy" in any way. Even though it doesn't hit insulin, it does the liver, and the caloric impact is the same.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/abundance-of-fructose-not-good-for-the-liver-heart

Why do all these bills always amount to "fuck whatever it is poor people eat"?

100% fruit juices would remain exempt

Why?? Shit’s sugar. You’re not getting most of the nutritional benefit from juice, all the fiber has been removed.

My guess is because it's unsweetened, and that the tax applies to drinks with added sugar or sweetener.

If you drink 3000+ cans of diet a day you will approach the lower limit of what’s considered safe.

‘We should reduce sugar and sweetener consumption, let’s not tax this drink that’s almost pure sugar because it’s natural’ is asinine. Apple juice has virtually identical sugar content to a soda.

Weird comment knowing how little we know about artificial sweeteners and it's long term impact on the body. Actually, quite dangerous comment.

But you can start here; https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/sugar-substitutes-new-cardiovascular-concerns

Or here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40902134/

Or here; https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10465821/

Also fun fact about sorbitol; https://source.washu.edu/2025/11/alternative-sweetener-sorbitol-linked-to-liver-disease/

Because like all laws, corruption came into the process to make it miss the goal entirely.

Last I remember it lowers the body's tolerance to sugar which increases how much food people eat overall.

Not all artificial sweeteners are the same, so it's borderline meaningless to say we "know so little" about them.

Hell, aspartame is literally the most studied food additive in the history of the FDA, and has never been shown to have any adverse effects in any reputable study.

Why not tax the actual apples then?

Because apples aren’t apple juice, metabolically or nutritionally. The fiber slows down how fast you absorb the sugar and it’s good for your gut.

and has never been shown to have any adverse effects in any reputable study.

Again, dangerous comment. Please actually spend a minute looking around before making such bizzare claims.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8373935/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23097267/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24700203/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35324894/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36638072/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39547074/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41765137/

There are like 30 other studies showing negative effects in mice and rats.

EDIT: Accidentally gave one bad study (see comment below), removed it. Rest seem valid.

Taxing almost all sugary drinks including artificial sweetners but not 100% juice is not "missing the goal entirely". That's still hitting the unhealthiest and most marketed beverages.

I motion we tax Catoblepas for being too starchy.

Fructose is worse than sugar

The problem is that companies will figure out whar artificial sweeteners get around the tax.

Oh come now, none of these articles even address the risk of sand mites or magnetic resonance.

Yes that's why I wouldn't tax them extra, however you seem to be advocating for a tax on anything with sugar. So why the change? You say yourself they've still sugar in it so why not tax them according to your logic?

To put another way, if the presence of sugar isn't enough to justify the tax on its own, as long as the form is somrwhat different, then why not accept the difference between added sugar and no added sugar? That's just as meaningful a difference.

I have no idea what you’re trying to advocate for here, but a dietitian isn’t going to tell you that apple juice and an apple are the same, because they’re not; a single serving of apple juice isn’t even made from a single apple. Fruit is healthy to eat, juice is not a health drink. If you’re taxing for health it makes sense to tax the unhealthy things and not the healthy ones.

The UK has had this for a while. I will be honest in that I still miss the taste of full sugar drinks, that's definitely a downgrade, however after so many years of having these other drinks available I've lately found full sugar to be just... Too much.

Some artificial sugars do a number on my gut though. Been drinking more healthier things as a result, though overall I suppose the sugar tax has had a positive effect?

I asked chatGPT and it said not to believe you because your links won't even open

Hypocrisy is hypocrisy regardless of its intentions.

The links open, champ.

Nope I just tried again, chatGPT said they won't open

I just opened up the last link and it took me 5 seconds to find this:

Rats that had received aspartame (1000 mg/kg b.wt.)

One liter of coke zero has 240mg of aspartame.

https://juiceradvices.com/how-much-aspartame-is-in-coke-zero/

1000mg per kg would mean, in a human with, let's say 80kg, we'd need 80000mg to replicate the study case.

Since we - usually - don't eat pure aspartame, that would mean you'd need to chug 333.33 liters of diet coke per day to replicate the aspartame intake of the rats in the study.

These studies are so far off of reality that I barely know where to begin.

The comments here are insane

Why would ChatGPT even enter into the picture?

The fructose isn't, but fruit juices contain a bunch of other important elements. Moderate intake of orange juice (1/2l per day) has been proven to be beneficial.

Today I learned y’all dumb as fuck. What’s wrong with the comments?

That's not true, the tax apply to unsweetened milk alternatives.

I'm not using it to make pictures I was using it to fact check

So if we added some vitamins to Coca Cola, should we drop the tax?

Why would my comment lead you to believe I was accusing you of using it to “make photos”?

Why would you use ChatGPT to fact check?

Are you using it to make these comments too?

You're the one who brought up entering pictures buddy

I always use chatGPT to fact check. It's for my health...

Nope I type perfectly good so I don't need it for that

It's a shame TherapyGary decided therapy wasn't working and went for the lobotomy.

If only they'd been able to open a PubMed link to see it doesn't work.

Am I on reddit?

Um I did actually I had chatGPT try all of them and I can tell you for a fact none of them open

I'm not really advocating for anything other than pointing out that your argument is inconsistent. Is it about the sugar or not? If not then you've already accepted that there are different definitions and clearly juice is a different definition than a soft drink. Your arbitrarily deciding what's okay and not okay from what I can see of your argument. Adding healthy is even worse. That's an extremely subjective argument.

What about grapes? They're extremely high in sugar and relatively low in fiber. Is that okay? Do you see what I'm saying? There's no consistency to go on here.

Next a savory tax?
Or
Euros taxing flavor because it frightens and confuses them.

Not sure why you are getting downvoted, it's established science that fructose is worse than glucose. People freak out at high fructose corn syrup, but when it's "natural" juices it's completely fine I guess

Don't get me wrong, they probs should tax it but wouldn't that just push people to make their own juice instead and probs not change much?

There is no evidence that sugar substitutes are unhealthy and in fact have proven over and over again to increase weight loss compared to full sugar or telling people to "just drink more water".

I'm not really advocating for anything other than pointing out that your argument is inconsistent. Is it about the sugar or not?

I literally just explained to you why the sugar in an apple is not identical to the sugar in a serving of apple juice, if you don't want to acknowledge it I can't make you.

What about grapes? They're extremely high in sugar and relatively low in fiber.

Find me a dietitian that says grapes are bad for you 🤷‍♂️ Rules lawyering how biology works doesn't actually work, the soda is still worse for you than fruit even if you go "ah ah ah, but you both have sugar!!"

I doubt it, making juice is annoying and you have a lot of apple mush to deal with.

They’re not the same types of sugar. Your body uses glucose differently than fructose.

Huh? Those natural juices are glucose. They have some fructose still, but it’s nothing like sweetened drinks.

There shouldn't be a tax in the first place.

wtf are you talking about. Soda costs more than juice. At my local store it’s literally DOUBLE the cost of soda.

These bills are taxing things that people are addicted to that are demonstrably bad for you. There is nothing good for you about soda. Juice is at least partially good for you. It has glucose and nutrients you actually need. Not high fructose corn syrup.

The sugar in soda contains fructose (it is in fact 50% fructose). Soda with HFCS isn’t actually that much higher in fructose than plain sugar soda, ironically; the ‘high’ just means ‘higher than white sugar’.