Nothing wrong with MSG. My understanding is that the report that the fear of MSG is based on was a fairly racist joke letter sent to a medical journal.
Yeah, there is such a thing as too much of it, but not really at the levels that anyone would eat or put in food.
We should give a long look at taxing sugars for sure.
Is the impossible burger on the dollar menu?
Pretty sure the only things left on that dollar menu are one ice cream cone, two apple pies, seven French fries and a half a bottled water
I don’t eat at McD’s really, but I do eat the dollar menu at Del Taco and Taco Bell and get lunch < $3 fairly often.
Here’s a commentary on one city’s experience with a soda tax, 18 months in:
Drink less soda? The sugar tax is Seattle’s fastest-growing revenue source for 2019
The main point of even having a sugary beverages tax is to blunt consumption of sugary beverages. Seattle’s tax, imposed in 2018, roughly doubles the price for a 12-pack of soda, so the city estimated consumption could logically plunge up to 40 percent.
That doesn’t appear to be happening, to put it mildly.
[ …]
OK. But here’s the thing — now that they know what’s going on, it looks like soda consumption is going only up. The city budget office said revenues will be 8 percent higher this year than last (to about $24 million) and will continue to go up, though at a slower rate, in 2020.This is a major problem for the soda tax, especially if it continues. It’s a fixed 1.75-cent charge per ounce of sugary fluid. So more revenue coming in equals more ounces of soda being sold in Seattle. If the ounces sold is advancing at 8 percent this year, which is faster than Seattle’s population and job growth, it’s difficult to imagine how consumption of soda could be declining at all, let alone by double digits.
I actually work in public health and I’m conflicted about soda taxes and the like. Public health is all about moving “upstream” and making it easy for people to make healthy choices and be healthy, but this kind of tax really doesn’t help with that, and ends up being more of a regressive tax and punishment for lower SES people.
Also, another thing to think about is the perverse incentive/moral hazard involved with sin taxes: supposedly they’re supposed to reduce the behavior by making it more expensive, but once governments build these taxes into their budgets, what happens if/when the desired behavior change actually happens? Now there’s a budget shortfall.
I think the theory is that the revenue losses due to the decline in those receipts are made up for by lower healthcare costs incurred due to healthier alternatives being embraced, but idk if the numbers ever bear that out.
I remember similar talk about raising cigarette taxes, supposedly government is so reliant on those taxes that it would collapse if people actually stopped smoking enmasse.
Lets start taxing the rich more before we start taxing food more.
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In all fairness, mcnuggets may not really be food
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Nhlnut has it right. Remove the corn and sugar subsidies. And if you want to get crazy move them to subsidize healthier foods.
Great topic and something we don’t address enough.
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Lol… I decided to not make this topic a flashpoint for me but I’m seeing the solution might just be to not post about it. There’s no way to not sound abrasive and antagonistic on a topic so many people are so willfully and aggressively ignorant yet self-assured about.
plus I have a ton of empathy since I figured out the root of this behavior
I’m newish to politics so I’d appreciate your opinion on this matter.
If the. Gov wants to charge me tax for buying fast food but not make the FF restaurant produce better quality food then we’re all looking at it wrong imo.
Providing services and dealing with tragedies of the commons is cool, but the government shouldn’t be so bossy. Some people act like they think the government has infinite authority and only allows anyone any freedom as an act of beneficence.
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when i’m ready to trigger myself i’ll be back 
How much did you value your time when doing this calculation? Did you include time spent grocery shopping?
The calculations here were very incomplete. I don’t think you can beat the dollar menus on cost alone even if you don’t put any value on time. A couple items from the dollar menu and no soda - pretty hard to beat price-wise cooking at home.
