Thread: NYC Soda Ban Overturned

Its good to see that there are some sane people with a brain by overturning this idiotic ban. remember, Soda doesnt cause bad health choices. its the CONSUMER! Oh and this trhing called PERSONAL RESPONCIBILITY. But i say good for that judge for making the right choise by not restricting the freedom of the citizens of NYC.

Originally Posted by TheMissingno.

Originally Posted by Shinobu

While it's easy to think that, reality is that larger cup sizes actually do cause us to drink more. That's the reason why soda cup sizes have become so big.

I don't know about that, I think they have become so big so companies can charge a ton more money for something that barely costs them any money.

It's both of these things. It's pretty well known that large portions influence people to eat/drink more. Whenever some one has to refill a beverage it makes them feel gluttonous (or they just never think about getting a refill). Making large drink cup sizes was the way to get customers to drink more.

Originally Posted by Shinobu

Whenever some one has to refill a beverage it makes them feel gluttonous

I don't. But maybe that says more about me than anything else.

Originally Posted by Goodbye Blue Monday

People wanted bigger cup sizes

snrrrk

On one hand, I think the "controversy" about this was overblown; I think it says a lot about our society and its entitlement that people were acting like it was a huge attack on their freedoms not to be able to buy sugary drinks over 16 ounces.

I think it was overblown as well, but I can see where they were coming from with the argument. It was an attempt (and a very, very poor one at that) to limit our freedom of choice to ruin our bodies and health. It wasn't an issue of entitlement to that 20 ounce big slurp, it was an issue of entitlement to that choice between a 20 ounce big slurp and an 8 ounce big slurp.

I'm glad to see the ban overturned. It's not a big deal, but it sets a precedent and starts moving things down a slippery slope. Banning large sodas isn't really that bad, but once politicians start getting it into their mind that they can get away with banning things like that, they start moving onto legitimate rights and privileges.

Edit: Now that I think about it, this is only going to come back up once the monstrous costs of the new healthcare law start to come to light. I can just bet that there's going to be (at least attempts at) blanket bans of unhealthy junk like huge sodas and bags of chips. Why pay for peoples' bad health, their poor choices and their stupidity? JUST BAN POOR CHOICE! :D

Also, since I usually carry my water in a huge 20oz bottle, I do find myself drinking more and more often than any of my family members. Even when I'm without that big bottle, I'm constantly running downstairs to refill my cup, more so than I *ever* did before I got that thing. Perhaps there is a bit of credence to that theory.

Originally Posted by Caitlin

I'm glad to see the ban overturned. It's not a big deal, but it sets a precedent and starts moving things down a slippery slope. Banning large sodas isn't really that bad, but once politicians start getting it into their mind that they can get away with banning things like that, they start moving onto legitimate rights and privileges.

See, I think when it comes to something like this, that it's really a misuse of the slippery slope, and the reason the argument is so often treated as a logical fallacy. People don't say this about laws requiring you to wear seatbelts (okay, maybe they do in New Hampshire), they don't say this about laws restricting the purchase of cigarettes to people over 18. I don't see why this is any different from those things, how it implies a loss of freedom more than other unsafe or unhealthy things. I just don't think the right to a giant soda is all that essential, and while I think this law is stupid for other reasons, it's not an overreach. It's about time we start treating some of these drinks as as bad for you as other things.

Originally Posted by Shinobu

Originally Posted by TheMissingno.

Originally Posted by Shinobu

While it's easy to think that, reality is that larger cup sizes actually do cause us to drink more. That's the reason why soda cup sizes have become so big.

I don't know about that, I think they have become so big so companies can charge a ton more money for something that barely costs them any money.

It's both of these things. It's pretty well known that large portions influence people to eat/drink more. Whenever some one has to refill a beverage it makes them feel gluttonous (or they just never think about getting a refill). Making large drink cup sizes was the way to get customers to drink more.

[citation needed]

They don't care how much you drink, they care how much you pay them to do it. Soda is pretty much any fast food company's most profitable item, it costs them pennies on the dollar that they make. In that context it's quite obvious why they sell large cups. Also with a large cup customers think they are getting more for their money when they are really not.

Originally Posted by TheMissingno.

[citation needed]

Look up Brian Wansink. He could be considered the pioneer in the idea that larger portions influence people to eat/drink more. Although fast food companies actually figured that out before he did.

Originally Posted by Goodbye Blue Monday

Originally Posted by Shinobu

“It applies to some but not all food establishments in the city,” Justice Tingling wrote. “It excludes other beverages that have significantly higher concentrations of sugar sweeteners and/or calories.”

This is my problem with the law. Nutritionists will recommend to never drink juice, yet juice isn't facing the social problems that soda is. Reality is that beverage companies have done a good job at portraying juice drinks as healthy and ~*all natural*~, and they just can't do that for soda anymore.

Are they excluding juice though? The exemption, from what I read, seemed to be for drinks with a lot of milk - which would apply more to coffee drinks than it would to juice.

Also, my nutritionist never told me never to drink juice, but maybe she just assumed that I wasn't drinking a lot of it anyway. Diet soda tends to be my poison. When I want fruit, I'll usually make a smoothie with real fruit and some milk or whatever.

Not all juice is bad. 100% no sugar-added juice is certainly healthier than 3% drink from concentrate.


And with the law itself- it wouldn't work because it was only a city law. People could just leave city limits and get a large drink there, especially in the outer fringes of the Bronx or Queens. I could have decided to buy my own big drink in NJ, carry it on the bus, and drink it with the food bought in the city.

@UnovaCastaway; I think you quoted wrong. I wasn't the person who said juice was bad.

My mistake, I deleted the wrong part of the quote by accident. Stupid iPad. Fixed.

Originally Posted by UnovaCastaway

Not all juice is bad. 100% no sugar-added juice is certainly healthier than 3% drink from concentrate.


And with the law itself- it wouldn't work because it was only a city law. People could just leave city limits and get a large drink there, especially in the outer fringes of the Bronx or Queens. I could have decided to buy my own big drink in NJ, carry it on the bus, and drink it with the food bought in the city.

Regarding juice, not as bad doesn't mean good. Even unsweetened juice is still not something you should drink gratuitously. Juice has a lot of sugar. It's also not good for your teeth, although this can be mitigated by using a straw. Most of the nutrition from fruits comes from the pulp, which is typically left out of commercial juices. The main differences between juice and soda are the price and the marketing.

Getting around the law is actually easier than what you posted. The law only applies to restaurants. People would have been able to buy a case or a two liter bottle of soda.

The law would've actually been very effective at what it was planned to do, preventing major restaurant chains from supplying these huge amounts of soft drinks which contain some seriously strange stuff, and are one of the major causes to the obesity epidemic.

Sure there are loopholes, but they don't mean a thing. The point is to make it inconvenient. What's inconvenient, you simply tend to avoid. It's basic psychology.

Also, the point isn't to reduce "consumer freedom". It's to reduce the overall cost of healthcare; if less people are obese, there are less health problems that occur because of obesity and therefore the average citizen doesn't need to pay as much for healthcare. Healthcare is provided, usually, by companies who pass the extra costs of obese people's health problems to the other consumers.

@GliscorMan; I mostly agree with you, but I think it would have been one of those things that would have been a deterrent initially, and then people would have gotten around it eventually.

Also, I don't know that anything can be said authoritatively as "one of the major causes to the obesity epidemic." I mean, certainly, soda is not good for you, especially the high-calorie kind. But we don't really know that anything specifically is a "major cause" of the obesity "epidemic" yet, if you look into the real findings on it as opposed to the pop science types of stories. There are so many possibilities of what is causing it and no one is completely sure. It could be our more sedentary lifestyles, it could be soda, it could be food, it could be that we have less smokers (which causes weight loss), it could be something genetic, it could be something completely different. It could be any combination of the above, and likely is.

@Goodbye Blue Monday; I think people of the younger generation would probably do their best to ignore it, or find loopholes. Because that's what we do. Older people, however, would probably just go with the flow. Most of the time, you do what's easiest. However, this is really good for them. The older you are, the slower your metabolism is. It's harder for you to break down the excess amount of sugars, so you don't break down the fats in your diet as easily because there's always a ready supply of sugars.

I'm not blaming soda for all our problems, sorry if it came out that way. The majority of the problems stem from what is put into the soda, not the carbonated water itself.

For example, high-fructose corn syrup. There's been studies that show that it is metabolized differently, due to the fact that it is 55% fructose, as opposed to the 50/50 ratio found in regular table sugar (sucrose). Fructose is broken down in the body earlier, so it is theorized to bypass satiation. Basically, you'll eat more and drink more if it has extra fructose in it. (There was a really nice study on this, but I can't seem to find it. I'll keep looking.)

There's other stuff, too. One of the key ingredients in USA Mountain Dew is actually a flame retardant, which is used to make the citrus flavoring mix with the water.

Soda bought from other countries is generally healthier, because it contains none of these things. Regular sugar is cheaper than HFCS, so they use that. The flame retardant is actually illegal in most European countries, too.

There are other factors which lead to obesity, sure. It isn't just one thing. But if we haven't even started to cut back on the easiest things to manage, how can we even begin to get people into a healthier lifestyle?

Originally Posted by GliscorMan

@Goodbye Blue Monday; I think people of the younger generation would probably do their best to ignore it, or find loopholes. Because that's what we do. Older people, however, would probably just go with the flow. Most of the time, you do what's easiest. However, this is really good for them. The older you are, the slower your metabolism is. It's harder for you to break down the excess amount of sugars, so you don't break down the fats in your diet as easily because there's always a ready supply of sugars.

I'm not blaming soda for all our problems, sorry if it came out that way. The majority of the problems stem from what is put into the soda, not the carbonated water itself.

For example, high-fructose corn syrup. There's been studies that show that it is metabolized differently, due to the fact that it is 55% fructose, as opposed to the 50/50 ratio found in regular table sugar (sucrose). Fructose is broken down in the body earlier, so it is theorized to bypass satiation. Basically, you'll eat more and drink more if it has extra fructose in it. (There was a really nice study on this, but I can't seem to find it. I'll keep looking.)

There's other stuff, too. One of the key ingredients in USA Mountain Dew is actually a flame retardant, which is used to make the citrus flavoring mix with the water.

Soda bought from other countries is generally healthier, because it contains none of these things. Regular sugar is cheaper than HFCS, so they use that. The flame retardant is actually illegal in most European countries, too.

There are other factors which lead to obesity, sure. It isn't just one thing. But if we haven't even started to cut back on the easiest things to manage, how can we even begin to get people into a healthier lifestyle?

Your posts with that sig give off a tremendous sense of irony. :P

The problem with your reasoning is that given the way U.S. law works, trying to regulate behavior in the way you are describing is extremely difficult, and for a number of reasons. Enforcement is impossible without Congressional law. Attempting to force the issue gets libertarians screaming at their loudest. "Who is the Government to tell us what we can and cannot eat!" "Nanny state!" "Big Brother!" and "If I want to die at 45 instead of 85, then so be it!" are the general things said. Even if you explain that you are limiting, not banning, a certain item, the people opposed view it as essentially the same thing; the "Nudge" before the shove, slippery slope, whatever you want to call it. So, it is opposed with the same amount of fervor that a ban is opposed. People would rather determine their own quality of life, including their diet.

Truth be told, in order to make something like that tenable, the U.S. would need a different form of government or a constitutional amendment. And even then, you'll still have problems with people drinking soda because soda is easy and cheap to make. Prohibition comes to mind; it accomplished nothing beyond making gangsters rich. The only way to truly regulate soda will be by governmental control that is far, far greater than people are comfortable with in this nation.

You're not going to make people healthy by law.