#Soft drinks

Santa Cruz, a college town on the California coast south of San Francisco, has a ballot initiative to tax sugar-sweetened beverages (Berkeley has one too but its vote is expected to be so favorable that the soda industry isn’t even bothering to fight it). But the soda industry is sinking a

The Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI) has issued this new report.  It’s well worth a look. By now, soda taxes are well established to decrease consumption and raise revenues that can be used for social purposes.  As you might imagine, the soda industry does not like such taxes.  As the

The World Health Organization has issued guidelines for taxing unhealthy foods: Fiscal Policies to Promote Healthy Diets. On the basis of current evidence, the WHO recommends: Taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) Consideration of policies to tax unhealthy foods Consideration of policies

Susan Greenhalgh. Soda Science: Making the World Safe for Coca-Cola.  University of Chicago Press, 2024. This terrific book picks up where I left off with Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (and Winning) (2015) and Unsavory Truth: How the Food Industry Skews the Science of What We Eat (2018).

The UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) has long led efforts to tax unhealthy products, starting with tobacco. WHO describes its health tax efforts here. It recently issued Global report on the use of sugar-sweetened beverage taxes, 2023. The report finds that 108 countries have some kind of