Raising the price of sugar-sweetened sodas, coffees, teas and energy, sports and fruit drinks by an average of 31% reduced consumer purchases of those drinks by a third, according to a new analysis of restrictions implemented in five US cities.

“What we measured is how consumers change their consumption in response to price changes,” said study author Scott Kaplan, an assistant professor of economics at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

“For every 1% increase in price, we found a 1% decrease in purchases of these products,” Kaplan said. “The decrease in consumer purchases occurred almost immediately after the taxes were put in place and stayed that way over the next three years of the study.”

  • @Potatos_are_not_friends
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    161 year ago

    I’m FOR taxing soda.

    But taxing fruit drinks? Prune juice, carrot juice is good stuff.

    And teas and coffees? Getting weird here.

      • @BloodSlut
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        71 year ago

        fruit juices can also have actual nutrition like vitamins, minerals, and fiber.

        straight up taxation of drinks, carbs, or calories isnt a smart or viable solution. instead we should be looking at taxing highly processed foods and foods with excessive added sugars, stop subsidizing unhealthy foods like corn used for sugars and factory farmed beef, and start subsidizing foods with redeemable nutritional value

        • @[email protected]
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          fedilink
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          71 year ago

          A bit better than soda, but fresh fruits have those elements without it being liquid carbs.

        • @AA5B
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          31 year ago

          Have you read the ingredients on most fruit juices? When’s the last time you had fruit juice with bits of actual fruit? I don’t think I’ve noticed fruit in anything besides orange juice and lemonade, and not most of those

    • @AA5B
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      61 year ago

      “Sugar sweetened”. They’re not talking black coffee, they’re talking venti mocha latte - are they really any different from a milkshake?

      Have you looked at the ingredient list on fruit juices? Most of the cartons in my grocery have water first, then high fructose corn syrup as the second ingredient

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet
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      31 year ago

      Anything to increase taxes! You’re for taxing things you disagree with, well be ready to embrace them taxing things you agree with too, since supporting sin taxes places the government as the arbiters of judgment between appropriate and discouraged, and they have a vested interest in everything becoming discouraged.