16 oz. Soda Ban Approved By NYC Board of Health

Theyre perceived as a luxury because they are.

if I want a healthy, well cooked meal, my only option is to somehow have a way to store fresh ingredients and cook it myself, because I live on a college campus where the cafeeria food is at best palatable and mass produced for institutional use, and the only other options nearby are mostly fast food.

This isnt too dissimilar from trying to feed 4 people on a mcdonalds size budget in sheer impossibility.

edited 12th Mar '13 10:22:59 PM by Midgetsnowman

To the ones suggesting educational reform in the form of PE and the like: The schools are already under massive stress and are pretty much a morass of stupidity on their own. It may be that Bloomberg, for whatever reason, was unable to address the issue in the way you're suggesting, and not actually unwilling to do it. (Plus, he probably doesn't have full control over the school system. Teachers themselves don't have much input, and the schoolboards tend to outlast any mayors.)

The school system is its own special brand of crazy stupidity and could (and probably does, if I remember right) have its own thread.

The soda ban may have been the only law he was actually able to get through. No politician is acting in a vacuum, after all.

Nowadays, I drink sodas only during parties. When I was a kid, I had a soda a day - it was NOT easy to stop the habit.

I do understand that some people want to do something that's banned, especially (some) precocious kids. But there are also a significant number of people who stay the heck away from banned stuff, especially once they know the reasons why it's banned.

At least this "attempt to ban" is encouraging people to think about what they eat and drink.

You're overstating the meaning of "healthy food". I'll illustrate what I mean.

You can go to a KFC or some similar restaurant for a meal. Hypothetically, you get the soft drink for $1.20 and the main meal for roughly $4.13 before tax. Average driving distance for an American going to a fast food place is about 7.3 miles, if I recall correctly. That's money for gas.

Now, go to a grocery store. I can personally bet that if we went shopping together, I could get you to save more money by buying healthier items such as canned vegetables, frozen vegetables and various beans, all of which will last longer and cost less than what you'd get at a fast food place. Also, many canned foods can be safely eaten right out of the can without being heated. I do this a lot.

Healthy, low-cost meals aren't going to be 5-star cuisine quality, but they will sustain you probably better than something that is ready-made by someone else. The fact that they aren't as tasty and exciting is what deters many Americans from preparing and eating them.

When you go to a fast food place or a similar mass-food outlet, you aren't just paying for the food. You're paying for the service. That's part of the extra cost, and as others have pointed out, the soft drinks are how these food companies recoup the cost of transportation, storage, and paying their employees.

edited 12th Mar '13 10:41:04 PM by Aprilla

Banning will do nothing to stop people. The same as taxing them as a luxury item like in California has done very little to nothing.

edited 12th Mar '13 10:33:23 PM by DevilTakeMe

I am not exactly sure if that is really the case. People are still going to drink their soda, just not as much as they want to unless they find other ways to get around it. Once again, the ban just attacks the symptoms and does little to actually get people to do something about their lifestyles to which they feel is threatened because a government agency is basically telling them "you are going to eat and drink the way we tell you to and you can't do anything about it," rather than "We want you to be healthy so here are some options and plans you can try and we will help you on it." People like choices. Take choices away, you cause a big storm.

edited 12th Mar '13 10:34:29 PM by Steven

therein lies the problem for me. (and a lot of others) if given a choice between a can of beans or not eating, I'm probably going to wait until I'm starving to bother with the can of beans.

I dont mind healthy food that tastes good. Healthy food that tastes meh at best I will probably avoid unless I have no other options out of sheer habit.

This is the issue behind all other issues. The Average american does not /want/ to sacrifice flavor for health, even if the alternative is dying much sooner.

I mean. personally? just the words "canned vegetables" conjures up a mental image of something awful tasting.

edited 12th Mar '13 10:38:28 PM by Midgetsnowman

Water issues are a hard one in this country. There's a lot of places, poor areas, rural areas, and urban areas that have terrible water quality. You can't just drink the stuff that comes out of the sink either because it's tainted, it needs to be boiled first, or it just doesn't taste great. I know my tap water tastes terrible unless I filter or boil it first or use something to mask it.

I like water and I'll drink it happily, but for many Americans, drinking water is as if not more expensive than soda and they don't feel like they're getting as much out of it.

Drinking water is only expensive if you always get it out of a bottle. Most tap water today is pretty safe to drink and there's cheap filters you can get to purify the water further if people are that worried. Pop that in the fridge and instant cold water whenever you want.

Of course I didn't fully read the post before this one ><

Yes water in many places are hard to come by due to the posted situations. It's like basic necessities aren't so basic.

edited 12th Mar '13 10:41:56 PM by Steven

People like choices, sure, but they'd prefer choices which don't make them sick.

Also, it's not as though this ban bans all sodas, just the serving sizes larger than 16oz (for regular sodas).

Let's just say that if you live in a country which doesn't even have a good health net, you tend to appreciate politicians who put up (some) fight to get people to be more healthy. Lol, at least we can say that the NYC mayor isn't too friendly with soda CE Os...

Anyway, though I agree with the spirit of the ban, I also think other methods would have been better.

I am so totally for the idea of schools teaching children how to grow veggies. Even in urban areas, it's feasible with a hydroponics setup on the roof.

How many people do you think both live in a place with no arable lawn land and have the money to build hydroponics equipment?

Or who when presented with a choice between growing tomatos and buying a hamburger, wont pick the second option?

No no no.

I want children to at least have an idea of how vegetables come about. Demystifying where food comes from helps a lot to get people to eat healthier.

Agreed.

Demystifying a lot of things would do quite a lot, not just food. We live in a society where the basics are taken for granted and now we're dependent on the mass produced stuff.

It's not like a lot of things would be difficult to improve ones health and lifestyle. Even in urban areas, there are things that can be done to grow your own food, etc.

edited 12th Mar '13 10:58:43 PM by DevilTakeMe

My issue has always been with sameness. Canned vegetables are almost always green beans and/or corn in most cases. While there's a lot of other vegetables I like, most of them don't come in cans. A lot of them do come in freezer bags.

I suppose another issue would be gym membership. I'd bet most people don't know where a local gym is at all. For me, a lot of it is time consumed. After getting home and making food, it's hard to work up the energy to drive to the gym and burn an hour or two out of the four I have to myself.

For enough daily exercise, get a pedometer and try to hit 10000 steps per day. Basically, just don't use elevators and try to walk as much as possible.

10k steps if you're eating regularly. If on a diet or fasting, 3k steps or less is okay.

Btw, frozen veggies are fine. There's debate about which is better - fresh or frozen, but a lot of health-conscious people are OK with frozen veggies and insist that they may even have more nutrition than fresh ones.

Fresh ones taste better though. Don't know much about canned as I go for either fresh or frozen.

I've found that when you're ballin' on a budget, healthy foods aren't all that hard to find. Personally, I hate most vegetables, but I love to eat fruit. Maybe it's because I live in an agriculturally inclined area(Strawberries from Oxnard are famous, and Driscolls biggest crop of them is here) but I never have trouble finding a cheap source of granny smith apples to snack on.

It's meals that are harder, or anything warm really. Aside from shit that I go out and hunt myself, I don't really know of any cheap sources of quick and easy meals that are served hot, taste good, are healthy, and are cheap.

And it's rather easy to get bored of tree rat and rabbits, I tell you what.

edited 12th Mar '13 11:27:11 PM by Barkey

Can't have it all (unfortunately).

Yeah, it's really quite hard to eat healthy. For a long while, I was like - it's my body anyway, I'll be the one suffering and paying for it, anyway.

Then, I thought about my family, and that's what just got me to just... resist. I don't want them to have to worry or to have to take care of me because of a food-related disease.

@Deboss: Do your workouts at home. It's cheaper, you don't have to wait to use the equipment, and you won't be eating up time driving there.

More related to the topic, part of the problem I see is a combination of exceeding recommended serving sizes for soft drinks as well as consumption of pseudo-healthy juices and sports drinks. Sixteen ounces of a substance with a high sugar content can quickly add pounds across your belly. I can't stress enough how one of the easiest ways to stay fit is to watch what you drink. In high school, we used to have a soft drink machine, but for various reasons, it was removed. I think it was for the best. Fights over money became less frequent, and the students <gasp> actually discovered these strange things called water fountains.

Some food marketers have suggested compromising with vitamin-water drinks and similar items, but these drinks are often worse than their carbonated counterparts. Gatorade and Powerade also have this problem, but some people still don't believe that. It reminds me of that catchphrase from the movie Idiocracy where the highly unhealthy energy drink was happily marketed as having electrolytes, as if that was super-healthy or something. I see this in real-life, too, and the health drink fads are certainly part of the problem related to sodas and whatnot. "Rich in antioxidants". Whoop-dee-do. Guess what? It still has an assload of processed sugar. And I personally think anti-oxidants are overrated along with gluten-free foods and zero-calorie drinks. "No sugar added". This is one you have to watch out for because people interpret it as having reduced sugar or no sugar. Usually, this just means the drink has no additional sweeteners.

Healthy eating is a matter of compromise. As I had, if you want to improve your diet, you'll probably have to make some hard choices and work them into your daily life so much that they become a second nature. I also believe that sugary drinks taste much better when consumed as seldom as possible. I haven't had a Dr. Pepper in a while, but I'm sure it'll taste great the next time I do because I don't chug cans of it everyday.

edited 13th Mar '13 8:00:26 AM by Aprilla

I don't know. If walking at least five miles a day isn't enough for someone like me, what is going to be enough? Canned vegetables? I mean I guess I buy things like chickpeas or baby corn, but those aren't good for you. It probably doesn't help that I find most things that come out of a can inedible...

Not to swerve off-topic, but I would like to point out that dark, leafy green vegetables are some of the most important vegetables you should be eating. Unfortunately, many people find those vegetables the least appealing. To be more on-topic, you can select some fruit such as strawberries, bananas and blueberries, and throw them in a blender along with some spinach and carrots. A little bit of cocoa or dark chocolate (make sure it's dark) will help, as well. Blend them together, and you can drink your vegetables without having to taste them directly.

I did the math between a can of V8 and that recipe mixed with whey protein, and the latter is usually cheaper for me. When I see a can of sodas, I look at the price and think about how much of that money can go toward a bill, gas, or a filling meal. I don't mean to come off as self-righteous, but the problem to me is that Americans file sodas in the "need" category, not the "want" category.

edited 12th Mar '13 11:52:20 PM by Aprilla

I make my own unsweet iced tea and shove that in the fridge honestly. Like I said, the water here is safe to drink but tastes funky. Making tea fixes this.

That said, I have some medical issues that mean I'm dependent on caffeine. I have debilitating migraines and after a lot of work with my neurologist, caffeine is the one drug that fixes them without massive side effects. As a result, if they get really bad and I'm out, I'll grab a large diet coke, and pop some pain killers because it's generally that or pass out.

Try straight black coffee, no cream, no sugar. It's cheaper, and you'll get the caffeine you need minus the calories and sweeteners of diet soda. Try to get a coffee grain with a low diterpene content. Of course, talk to a doctor about it.

edited 12th Mar '13 11:58:23 PM by Aprilla

Oh, thank you for reminding me of what it was I kept feeling I forgot to mention.

People can make their own meal replacements. It won't be warm, but it will be tasty cause most recipes call for a lot of fruit.

It's not a warm meal. It's a cold shake. Takes longer than just using doctor-prescribed meal replacement powders, but way faster than cooking.

edited 12th Mar '13 11:59:17 PM by probablyinsane

It's three euros for a small container of strawberries that don't even taste good. Even considering if I bought one such thing, why would I put it in a fucking blender that I cannot even afford.