A sugar tax is a good thing, right? It’s a significant step to resolve obesity and type 2 diabetes pandemics? Public-health experts want you to believe that. Their message leaves a sour taste in mouths of medical nutrition experts globally. Australian GP Dr Joe Kosterich is among them.
Kosterich reminds us that it was not the food industry that introduced low-fat dietary guidelines in the absence of evidence in Australia in the early 1980’s. It also was not Big Pharma, Big Sugar or Big Food. It was Public Health.
A sugar tax needs to be broadened to include total refined carbohydrates and grain-based foods. Below, he takes aim at the premise on which public health experts support a sugar tax. – Marika Sboros
By Joe Kosterich
A recent TV Program in Australia has again raised the issue of a sugar tax. All the usual public health suspects were, of course, in favour. They also bemoaned the influence of industry whilst complaining that they do not get enough funding and lack clout.
It is difficult to know where to start. Public Health is generously funded by government and is not particularly accountable.
Let us be crystal clear. It was not the food industry that introduced low-fat dietary guidelines in the absence of any evidence in the early 1980’s. Nor was it Big Pharma or Big Sugar or Big Food. It was Public Health.
Whilst pretending to be small and powerless, the reality is that Public Health leverages the power of Big Government. This shows up in trials of doctors such as Gary Fettke in Australia and Tim Noakes in South Africa.
There, elements in Public Health used the power of government regulators to seek to enforce their view of the world. Big Food and Big Sugar cannot overtly seek to silence or penalise doctors.
Processed food makers jumped on board.
It is also in the public domain that the Dieticians Association of Australia and Heart Foundation seek support from the food industry and promise increased sales in return. Not surprisingly, processed food makers have jumped on board.
Investigations have revealed that the WHO has accepted $50,000 from Coca-Cola, $150,000 from Nestle and $150,000 from Unilever. The same WHO wants us to limit saturated fats in our diet to less than 10%. None of the above-listed companies makes foods with much saturated fat content.
The other Public Health push is for us all to eat more grains. This is despite no scientific evidence to support either of these ideas.
Food sales show that the public has listened to poor, meek underfunded Public Health. The result is the increase in obesity and type 2 diabetes we see since, guess what, the introduction of low-fat dietary guidelines. But somehow, this is all the fault of “Big Sugar”. And a tax of 5c on a can of soda will solve the problem.
Click here to read: Sugar conspiracy a sour figment of your mind? Lustig weighs in!
It won’t. The problem is total refined carbohydrates (including sugar) and grain-based foods.
It’s not difficult to identify sweet foods as being high in sugar. Low-fat (high-carb) foods with four- and five-star ratings which are not sweet less so. The “health halo” of a tick star or elephant stamp from Public Health makes this worse.
A tax on sugar will provide more money to government, which, through its endorsement of the ideas of Public Health, has been far more the problem than the solution.
Sugar tax not so smart?
I urge you to watch this interview with Nina Teicholz about how Big Government backed bad science and made Americans fat. You can substitute Australians and a host of other peoples.
Rewarding governments with more money is absolutely not the answer. Of course, a taxpayer-reliant Public Health likes the idea of more tax.
In summary, before the introduction by Public Health and adoption by the public of low-fat dietary guidelines in the early 1980’s we did not have major problems with obesity and type two diabetes. However, Public Health blames everyone and everything and refuses to accept it was wrong.
Click here to read: Taubes and case against sugar: sweet and sour
It now wants (perhaps surprisingly) to bite one of the hands that feeds it. This is likely safe in the knowledge that there are enough other hands and a belief that sugar tax money will somehow flow back to it.
You genuinely could not make this stuff up. I have wondered how to put a lighter touch to this. So, with sincerest apologies to Shaggy here is a rework of his 2001 hit, “It wasn’t me”:
Singing to a different tune
Renegades came in and caught us red-handed
Creeping with industry next door
Picture this we were both exchanging
Favours on the bathroom floor
How could we forget that there is
Now transparency
All this time they were standing there
They never took their eyes off us
How you can grant the public access to your dealings
Trespasser and a witness while you cling to your dollars
You better watch your back before they call in the lawyers
Best for you and the situation not to call the regulators
To be a true player you have to know how to play
If they say a low carb, convince them to say a grains
Never admit to a word when evidence disproves what you say
And you tell them: Baby, no way
But they caught us taking money (It wasn’t us)
Saw us promoting sponsors (It wasn’t us)
We even had meetings at their offices (It wasn’t us)
They even caught us on video (It wasn’t us)
They saw the increase in obesity (It wasn’t us)
Followed the low-fat diet that we told them (It wasn’t us)
Heard diabetes numbers getting larger (It wasn’t us)
Our ruling days might be over
Gonna tell the public that we’re sorry
For the increased obesity that we caused
We’re going to listen to actual science
Our advice makes no sense at all
We should tell the public that we are sorry
For increased type two diabetes that we caused
We may think that we are clever
But we’re completely lost
- This blog first appeared on Dr Joe
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Wait for the litigation to start when the vultures ( lawyers ) pick up on it. It is so much worse than the tobacco companies pedaling something that was clearly wrong, all the doctors, dieticians & clever experts had all the science available to them long before the 80s guidelines came into effect so how did it take so long to join the dots once everyone started getting diabetes, cancer along with obesity.
Shame on the establishment to be still resisting to admit that they were wrong, how many lives have they ruined & ended.
A front page item in this morning’s UK ‘The Times’ featured comments by Susan Jebb, a prominent nutritionist who advises Public Health England. Jebb was quoted as saying that one of her top ten tips in her talks was that people should pay for their petrol at the pump and not enter the shop. She believes this would reduce the temptation to buy sugary junk displayed at the till. She admitted that this could only play a small role in ‘combating’ obesity, but rather forlornly commented that there were no big things to do that worked.
This is how desperate the standard nutritional paradigm now is. So called experts like Jebb have almost given up any pretence that their ‘solutions’ can work.
I wonder what tip eleven is?
Stephen, What Ms Jebbs has blindly stumbled across is… Service Stations make more and/or higher % profit from ‘incidental purchases’ than from the fuel sold.
Well put.