Today in the New York Times we learn that, out of the goodness of their hearts, major soft drink manufacturers have agreed to cut the number of calories we drink by one fifth over then next ten years. They are not admitting that drinking calories this way is causing any kind of problems, but, because we asked so nicely, they are going to take ten years, and through a combination of “marketing, distribution and packaging” they are going to eliminate our ability to drink twenty percent of the calories we drink now.
I can’t wait to see how Marketing can reduce the calories we drink. That would be commercials and product placement in schools, right? Maybe they are going to stop putting sugar in soft drinks at school. NO, that would be a recipe change, and a change in manufacturing. They didn’t list either of those in the announcement.
Distribution changes effect the calories we drink in what way? Maybe that means no more sugar sweetened drinks shipped to the inner cities, where “sugary sodas may account for a half or more of the calories a child consumes each day. Sugary soft drinks account for about 6 percent of the average consumer’s daily calories.”
Finally, changes in packaging could mean that they won’t sell any more sixty four ounce drinks at the convenience store, right?
The best news here is that the soda makers are starting to feel the heat, like the cigarette makers did in the 1960s. This effort is like putting filters on cigarettes, like creating the ‘lite’ cigarette. “Full Flavor, Half the Tar and Nicotine!” Meanwhile, in Congressional testimony, the tobacco CEOs were still voicing full-throated denial that their product was even addictive. We are near the point where the sugar-industry CEOs start saying that their product is likewise not addictive. In their future is a courtroom where they convince juries that they kept selling their dangerous product in reckless ways to children, knowing that it was harming their health. There will be multi billion dollar payouts to the states for the increases in health care costs directly caused by them. Read your tobacco company settlement history. It’s repeating itself.
I have created a new page for this Blog for people that are trying to detox off of sugar. 21 Day Sugar Detox Journal is all of the blog entries by my from the month of April, 2014 as Karen and I eliminated the sugar fix from our daily lives. It details the journey to a place where we could tell what it felt like to not be high on sugar. It is a journey that is easy, while being hard, and it is incredibly worth while. Take it with us.
One Small Change at a Time 
A pop is not so bad if you’re not drinking it everyday with every meal and with free refills.If you are at least 50 yrs old you grew up most likely having a soda was rare and a treat. Like going out for pizza with the entire family was a treat or maybe staying up late watching home movies or a movie having popcorn a soda, lastly maybe staying at your Grandparents house and having your Grandpa making a root beer float while Grandma was fussing being the bad cop all for Grandpa’s benefit. These days of simple pleasures are gone all of our childhood treats are today’s childhood reality. I believe we as human beings as much to blame for the exploited habitual habits of sugary sweetness in our life.. Let’s pullback the slack and ultra-convenient ways of 21 century living and live more within our true means.
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Wonderfully stated. Sugar as a luxury is the way nature intended it. Getting high on sugar ought to be the night cap and then it’s not harmful. Getting half of your daily calories that way is like food alcoholism.
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