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.
‘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.
It is not about “sugar-free”. It is about added artifical sweeteners. Not that one thinks they would add sugar tax to e.g. sparkling water…
why is that rational but 100% pure milk is ok?
the milk that we’re sold is for fucking cows. how much more ‘unnatural’ can you get? would you go cuddle a cow and drink from its tit?
i don’t even buy any of the dangers of artificial sweeteners. can you even create a study where someone is indulging in aspartame and also not eating/drinking one of the other 34983048304834 chemicals we’re taking in on a daily basis?
even if it is bad on some level, fruit juice is worse strictly going by sugar/calorie content unless it’s squeezed straight from the fruit, which nobody is doing, other than weirdos.
would you go cuddle a cow and drink from its tit?
Is that really something you want these people to answer?
Some of the more stupid Americans are actually proud of drinking raw milk. A rather dangerous hobby, especially with the state of medical insurance in the US.
I would definitely not drink milk directly from a cow. That is something I leave to conservative idiots in the US.
As for artificial sweeteners, there are dozens of peer-reviewed studies on the dangers, and some of those chemical have already been taken off the market. Biological / pharmaceutical research has mastered to single out threats from single components long ago, so if they come to the conclusion that aspartame or others are bad, they have good reason to believe it actually was that components fault.
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.
If you drink 3000+ cans of diet a day you will approach the lower limit of what’s considered safe.
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/
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.
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.
I asked chatGPT and it said not to believe you because your links won’t even open
The links open, champ.
Nope I just tried again, chatGPT said they won’t open
