You’re not wrong. But by that logic water based products would be cheaper. Which it sadly isn’t. Often the contrary.
The US very rarely uses price to incentivize good practices and vice versa.
Comment on The price of soda in 2017
superweeniehutjrs@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Hot take - soda is priced correctly in 2026. It’s a luxury and is quite bad for your health.
raze2012@lemmy.world 1 day ago
ulkesh@piefed.social 2 days ago
That’s definitely one take on unfettered corporate greed.
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
I would agree with you If those prices weren’t being set by corporations raking in record profits.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Average American drinks 45 gallons of soda a year. Most don’t even drink water any more.
But microplastics now cause everything.
isyasad@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Most don’t even drink water any more.
Do you have a source for that or even honestly believe it yourself?
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 4 hours ago
We teach our students on family medicine interview to ask if patients ever drink a glass of water. Most students are shocked to hear how many people never drink beverages that aren’t sweetened. This is a North American phenomenon. Then, those patients are in clinic with obesity and eventually type 2 DM. In Europe , water is served with every meal.
If you want to be a FIGJAM, research it yourself.
Most countries teach children in schools how to eat healthy. For years, the FDA has called burger, fries Coke a balanced meal because corporate interests infiltrated government and universities. Harvard told us for decades sugar diets were better than high fat diets, because they were paid to. Candy bars were being sold as low fat healthy options , now people call them sports energy protein bars.
isyasad@lemmy.world 59 minutes ago
I looked it up before making my comment and couldn’t find any info about what % of Americans drink water, only info about average volume of water consumption and average volume of soft drink consumption.
You are right that there is a problem in North America with soft drink vs water consumption and it sounds like you know more about it than I do. I only called out your original statement that “most don’t even drink water” because it seems like a huge stretch beyond what the research I was able to find can actually support. The idea that >50% of people in America don’t drink water regularly or ever still seems absurd to me. I struggle to think you even believe it yourself.
Einskjaldi@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
No it’s fairly common when you include coffee and water in food for people to get by with rarely having just drink a glass of pure water.
raze2012@lemmy.world 1 day ago
If we only drink soda, 45 gallons sounds disastrously small. Since we’re supposed to drink at least 64 Oz of water a day (or a gallon). We can’t possibly be that dehydrated.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 4 hours ago
64oz a day hydration is junk science debunked years ago. Drink water when thirsty.
YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 2 days ago
JFC! No wonder my doctor is surprised I don’t have type 2 despite a family history. Mfers need
Jesusto hydrate.
makeshift0546@lemmy.today 2 days ago
So it’s doom scrolling on Lemmy 🙄
It’s like your want to lose elections and have sure fascism is king.
Just mind your own business, Jesus Christ.
lokalhorst@feddit.org 2 days ago
This comparison is so ridiculous that in the end I decided not to argue against it. I can’t believe some people.
makeshift0546@lemmy.today 2 days ago
Yes, social media has never ever made anybody believe shitty things or make shitty decisions.
But I know, taxing social media use is unfathomable because it would cost you money despite the obvious social rand mental health risks.
No, Facebook, tiktok, Reddit, fediverse, blue sky, all without consequences or effects at the personal or socialital levels.
Incoming triade about how thoer algorithms are unique because they only follow easily exploitable hottest and popular models and this place definitely isn’t just the most displaced small populations of progressives, anarchists, and trans community members with their own biases and immediate fuck you’s to anyone who doesn’t wholly agree with their objectives.
Pick your battles. I very much think having a megaphone to the Internet has been more problematic to my life than fucking Coke.
jerkface@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Scientific misconduct and regulatory interference by the Coca-Cola corporation has resulted in the loss of many millions of years of human life. It isn’t just that they happen to sell a product that has sugar in it. They have calculatingly committed grave crimes for trivial reasons, and no one seems to give a fuck or somehow even to know about it.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
He’s addicted to soda. His diabetes and obesity are gEnEtIc mIcROpLaStIcS.
makeshift0546@lemmy.today 1 day ago
175 , mostly lean. I’ll do 260w on the bike in an hour and this afternoon I’ll do 14k lifting.
I’ll beat most nearly every one of my peers in age and I’d be more than happy to put up a nice bet, based on my odds here on charity that I’d outperform your mouthy body in a general athletics competition.
But alas, permanently online fatty and scrawny nerds get to hide anonymously, screeching at anybody who makes any unoptimized decisions never having to admit they are unpopular and making it easy to usher in shitty over zealous policy.
Increasing the price of soda was unpopular 10 years ago as it would be today. It’s stupid policy and not worth dying on that hill.
jerkface@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Nobody is coming for your soda. Put down the baseball bat.
makeshift0546@lemmy.today 1 day ago
Nobody in the US has ever tried to single or soda. Never not even once. And I’m definitely not directly responding to a call to action on the topic. Definitely not 🤣
Jesus Christ 🤣🤦♂️
raze2012@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I think you jumped the gun when you tried to compare this to losing elections. You kinda lost your ground to be sarcastic about how you’re responding to some dude making a hot take.
hoch@lemmy.world 2 days ago
If only they were able to create soda with zero sugar…
superweeniehutjrs@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Hotter take - Diet soda is even more of a luxury because it has practically zero nutritional value. There are some people who benefit from the sugar in soda as it’s calories that sustain life. Of course that’s not most people.
raze2012@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Ehh, it’s still liquid at the end of the day. We going to call beef a luxury because chicken or tofu has more nutritional value (I do not know if this is true. This is just a random theoretical).
sanitation@lemmy.today 2 days ago
Yes. Agreed
Rooskie91@discuss.online 1 day ago
Yeah but what about corn subsidies?
vogi@piefed.social 2 days ago
I just wish the reason would be a tax on sugar which is then used to subsidise more healthy options. But I don’t believe that to be the case here. :(
Zephorah@discuss.online 2 days ago
That’s not a bad idea. It is addictive. Tax it like alcohol and tobacco. I’ve watched a subset of diabetics scream that they need sugar no matter what healthcare tries to say about it. Tears. More often, anger and spiteful overconsumption in reaction to being told no. (A subset, not all.)
Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 2 days ago
If a diabetic has low blood sugar, then they literally DO need sugar, and fast!
AVincentInSpace@pawb.social 13 hours ago
Which is true, and a good argument in favor of diabetics having easy access to sugary things – not having them when they’re needed can literally be life-threatening. It is not, however, am argument for everyone having easy access to them – corporations bet on people getting addicted to them, and sugary drinks in particular give a sharp increase in risk for developing diabetes.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
That’s hypoglycemia, not diabetes which is hyperglycemia
slemptastrophe@piefed.social 2 days ago
I was one of those people who knew my lifestyle was unhealthy, and turning it around was always just one week away. The diagnosis of type II felt like a loss of agency. Like it was no longer my choice to cut back on, or to cut out sugar.
Once the initial shock of diagnosis and grief over all the foods I’d lost settled down, the truth was clear. I had made the choice. The choice to open every single one of those sodas, the choice to go with convenience over health. The choice to kick the can down the road, and I still had the choice to diet, or die slowly.
Not gonna lie and say my diet is perfect now but, according to my NP, my labs paint the picture of someone successfully managing diabetes. I know I still have some work to do though.
Zephorah@discuss.online 1 day ago
Not easy, you’ve done well.
brb@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
That’s what we are doing in Finland. Sugar free drinks are taxed at 20c/l but other drinks can go up to 59c/l depending on the sugar amount
Just checked prices from one grocery store and coke zero 24-pack is 15.50€ while the regular one is 19.50€
ThanksForAllTheFish@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Overall, Coke is most affordable compared with minimum wage in England, especially when Coke Zero is on offer, then Helsinki; in the US it takes the most minimum-wage work to buy a litre, and because regular and sugar-free cost exactly the same, there’s no price incentive at all to choose the sugar-free one.
In England for a 24 pack (330ml?), sugar is £15 (€17.5, $20 USD), sugar free is £12 with a deal for £8.50 (€10, $11.5 USD), no deals for the sugar one! £12.71 is minimum wage here (€14.86, $17.21 USD). In US Walmart I see 24 pack of sugar and non sugar for $15.37 USD (12 OZx24) and US minimum wage is $7.25 USD (£5.40, €6.30).
dmir@gehirneimer.de 1 day ago
Does that include artificial sweeteners? I have some sort of prejudice against them that I couldn't substantiate with research, but one thing is certain: none of them felt good to me.
I am much happier with drinking less sweet beverages overall, but made with regular sugar. Actually tend to spend less that way, even if I pay more for less - I just happen to be buying that much less frequently that way.
Buckshot@programming.dev 1 day ago
UK introduced a tax on high sugar drinks a few years ago. Most drinks changed their recipe to be under the threshold and taste weird now. Coca Cola was the only one that didn’t. I just looked and a 24 pack of cans is £15.25 for original where diet and zero are on sale at £8.50. The tax is only about £2 on that though so no idea why it’s so much more.
I pretty much entirely stopped drinking all of them though because I can’t stand the taste now so I guess the tax worked. They are lowering the sugar threshold again in a couple years so I imagine more recipe changes are coming.