Tax one-penny per net-carb.
 

Googling Tax one-penny per net-carb is what brought me here. Several cities and th U.K. now tax sugar. Really taxing net-carbs would be more effective at making more low-carb choices available, especially in fast food.

Anyways I live on a remote Island where low carb choices are very very limited. It's a US Protectorate so a national tax on net-carbs would apply.

Tax one-penny/N per net-carb
 

Taxing carbs is a great way to fund health care and will encourage food manufactures to innovate by adding fiber or cutting carbs while keeping low-carb products price competitive.

N could be any number from 1-20 and change each year to give food makers time to adjust. The price should show on store shelves, and restaurant menus rather than tacked on at the sales-register. Applying the tax to ingredients at the wholesale level may simplify the process.

N = 10 means a product would be taxed 1 cent for each 10 net-carbs. :agree:

Well, it could work. But would it be the best solution?

One common argument I get when discussing this with people I know is that the costs of administering such a tax could be greater than the amount collected, and certainly if the tax wasn't set at a suitably meaningful amount to begin with, that could be true.

Just a few days ago I watched an interview of Robert Lustig on dietdoctor.com where they were discussing the subject of a sugar tax. He went to some lengths to emphasise that first and foremost, he is in favour of reducing sugar consumption regardless of how that might be accomplished.

I thought Lustig made a really good suggestion that would bypass the tax question altogether: cut the government subsidies that encourage such high levels of sugar production in the first place. All at once, you're simplifying the administration rather than adding to it, you're reducing supply through having reduced the incentive to produce it, you're increasing prices as a consequence of that reduced supply, and you're reducing consumption through higher prices. The same higher prices you'd get by imposing a tax upfront, except that now you're allowing market forces to play out across the board.

On this argument, Lustig was less inclined to favour a tax while Eenfeldt joked that he'd still be fine with it anyway. :D But it was a really insightful discussion that served to remind me about what exactly what it is that we're trying to solve here, and that while the idea of a tax might seem to have some merit on the surface, we shouldn't discount the possibility that other ideas could be just as effective, if not more so.

With cigarettes, it's pretty certain that the cigarettes are the primary cause of disease much of the time. I don't think it's that simple with carbohydrate--it's fairly easy to demonstrate that once somebody has certain diabetes or insulin resistance, carbohydrate restriction will be effective, but a fairly high carbohydrate diet doesn't seem to cause much in the way of diabetes or insulin resistance outside of our modern diet and lifestyle. Plus, make carbohydrate too expensive to eat--and everything else gets a little more expensive as well, there's more competition for the avocadoes and bacon. This is one reason I want more study into various types of intermittent fasting, like Dr. Fung says, everybody can afford it.

Targeting sugar and corn syrup is a little less problematic, whether it's enough to decrease obesity or not (I suspect it will help) it should contribute to health. But I don't really want to be taxed into compliance, when you get down to it.

I don't think the tax has to be all that high, though--all the noise around a tax might be enough to raise awareness of the problems with sugar.

An alternative to taxation would be removal of the government subsidies to growers of corn, sugar beets, wheat and other carbage that make them cheap to begin with. First we'd need to get governments to believe that carbs are not good for people.

That would be the primary objective, and the most difficult to achieve given today's belief's.

As long as our food pyramid & doctors keeping pushing hclf to people this epidimic will continue. I am in same boat with teaser in that I am against being taxed into compliance. When it comes down to it each of us make choices. Each of us here made choices to try and find a better way to eat that ultimately lead us to this site. On a basic level each person has got to really want to change before anything has a chance of working. This woe although can seem easy at time is still hard & takes commitment to be part of 2-5% and that are successful long term. So many want quick fix of surgery with no commitment to changing underlying issues that got them in that shape in first place.

I think this is a far better idea. Why should we taxpayers pay them to make more sugar, then charge the taxpayers who want to consume it?

Let them, like the tobacco companies, find another line of work.

A couple of posts have just been removed from this thread. This is because we do not permit discussion of politics here. Please read the following post (found as a sticky in the Comments Box and Technical Questions forum) to understand: Why politics, religion and other contentious debates are not permitted here.

Net carb? Lustig doesn't have a problem with net-carbs. Just sugar. I know of no study that says net-carbs are the cause of what we are seeing today.

"Several cities in the UK now tax sugar"

Please explain this. Local councils can only raise money via the Council Tax. There has been discussion about the UK government putting a tax on sugary drinks, but so far nothing has come of it.

Come to think of it, I think we are being trolled.

More and more I get the feeling that as the true health impact of sugar is exposed, it will be handled in the way tobacco and alcohol are handled. Health warnings on labels and additional taxes in whatever form. I agree with the health warnings and labels, not sure how to best approach the social and health cost that it causes, as it needs to become an impact on those who make the decision to consume. When we review how much diabetes and obesity cost alone, and then we factor in the cost of the general symptoms of insulin resistance/metabolic syndrome, it becomes staggering! I've always felt that freedom of choice has a wide range as long as the impact is limited to the one making the choice. This is not an easy problem. Then, add in the massive influence from the sugar producing lobby, and you have an issue that becomes tied up with misinformation in the promotion of a healthy balanced diet. Balanced? It's tough for addicts to embrace balance.

I think it was brilliant (was it Taubes?) to call it "the new tobacco." Same insidious long term damage, delayed societal recognition, skepticism, and pushback.

I agree that handling sugar the same way is the best solution.

I also think most sugar addicts don't realize that is what they are. If self-awareness spreads among the population, they can then be more conscious of their intake.

We don't still have tobacco subsidies right? All that's left is the labels and taxes. Whereas on the sugar side there are still government policies promoting production at taxpayer cost through subsidies.

So the idea is, all of us pay to make excess sugar and starch, pay taxes for consuming it, and pay for health care when it makes us sick. What a racket!