Sugar, Sugar, Sugar
This is just dumb. Unenforceable.
You know what isn't dumb though? Taxing sugar. Taxing it in the same way we implement other "sin taxes" on alcohol and cigarettes, because make no mistake too much sugar in the diet causes just as many health problems as those other two long time offenders.
That said, I've had to do a LOT of label reading in the past 2.5 years working at a grocery store. Chicago municipal law requires that I do -- it's how I know whether a product should be placed in the grocery or soda tax categories in the system (or rather, whether it's a food or straight up sugar water). And what I've found is shocking. Let's just talk about fruit juices. According to the law, any fruit juice which contains less than 50% real juice is classified as soda and taxed at a higher rate. Some fruit juices which are offenders in misleading labeling:
Honest Tea's Honest Kids line of fruit drinks. Let's take a look at those labels... oh wait, we can't, as they don't show the full label on the website. Look at your labels, folks, because most of the Honest Kids juices, which are marketed to parents for their children, state that their juice bags contain anywhere from only 5% to 30% real fruit juice. The rest is filtered water and pure cane sugar.
Again, it's not that HFCS is bad, it's that it's in EVERYthing, causing an aggregate effect of too much sugar in the diet and a degradation of one's palate to tolerate less sugary foods.
Aw look at that. It's even in their name! Purity. Organic. What could possibly be wrong with that?
I'd show you, but again, they don't post their full nutrition labels, the ones that say "contains 5% real fruit juice" I think the highest one is their apple juice at 100%, but it's also the least nutritious, along with grape, of all fruit juices.
Tropicana. I've had lots of moms buying the Trop 50 Pomegranate Blueberry juice, go ahead and clicky on that little "nutrition facts" link on that page. What does it say, I'll wait. Back? Yeah, even after diluting the two main selling point juices with apple juice concentrate, and grape juice concentrate, it's still only 42% real fruit juice.
Read your labels. And read them again.
Because even if a product label states 100% juice, you could end up with this. Apple juice.
You know what isn't dumb though? Taxing sugar. Taxing it in the same way we implement other "sin taxes" on alcohol and cigarettes, because make no mistake too much sugar in the diet causes just as many health problems as those other two long time offenders.
That said, I've had to do a LOT of label reading in the past 2.5 years working at a grocery store. Chicago municipal law requires that I do -- it's how I know whether a product should be placed in the grocery or soda tax categories in the system (or rather, whether it's a food or straight up sugar water). And what I've found is shocking. Let's just talk about fruit juices. According to the law, any fruit juice which contains less than 50% real juice is classified as soda and taxed at a higher rate. Some fruit juices which are offenders in misleading labeling:
Honest Tea's Honest Kids line of fruit drinks. Let's take a look at those labels... oh wait, we can't, as they don't show the full label on the website. Look at your labels, folks, because most of the Honest Kids juices, which are marketed to parents for their children, state that their juice bags contain anywhere from only 5% to 30% real fruit juice. The rest is filtered water and pure cane sugar.
Again, it's not that HFCS is bad, it's that it's in EVERYthing, causing an aggregate effect of too much sugar in the diet and a degradation of one's palate to tolerate less sugary foods.
Aw look at that. It's even in their name! Purity. Organic. What could possibly be wrong with that?
I'd show you, but again, they don't post their full nutrition labels, the ones that say "contains 5% real fruit juice" I think the highest one is their apple juice at 100%, but it's also the least nutritious, along with grape, of all fruit juices.
Tropicana. I've had lots of moms buying the Trop 50 Pomegranate Blueberry juice, go ahead and clicky on that little "nutrition facts" link on that page. What does it say, I'll wait. Back? Yeah, even after diluting the two main selling point juices with apple juice concentrate, and grape juice concentrate, it's still only 42% real fruit juice.
Read your labels. And read them again.
Because even if a product label states 100% juice, you could end up with this. Apple juice.