Scott: I was just going to make the point that Bill G. made about cigarettes.  The P. R. people for the food industry are going to say that the tax on cigarettes is a regressive tax on poor people—for poor people disproportionately eat unhealthy food because it is cheaper. It seems that taxing is a very complex strategy.  If we are going to look at this issue holistically and get agencies involved,  then not only do we have to tax the 40 oz. soda,  we also need to use that money to pay not just for health care but also for the subsidizing of organic foods.

Mitch: Yes, we need to address the issue of corn, soy beans and other things that are heavily spayed and the issue of confronting heavily involved agribusiness and their super mono-crops.

Bill B: And we need to address the food desserts that are located in low income communities. As Scott has noted, it is not just because these foods are cheaper, it is also because they are the only foods that are available in certain communities.

Mitch: They’re cheaper because they are subsidized.

Scott: And they have economy of scale on their side.  My wife used to work for Taco Bell Corporate.  They looked for cage free eggs.  This was when they were just entering the breakfast service arena.  They had a very small footprint regarding the production of eggs. Thus, when they made that commitment, they could follow through by making a very small demand on the egg production industry. This put pressure on McDonalds to do the same thing. By contrast, it took McDonalds three or four years to make that move because the required supply change was much bigger. The egg production industry could not keep up with this flipping of the switch.  Granted that starting small is not a complete solution—but it does point us in an important direction. It might be easier to make small changes on a massive scale.

Jeremy: That is exactly right.  If you use the competitive nature of the corporate class to make them feel like they are falling behind and that it will cost them in the long run then this will be a pretty high motivator for them

I want to give a bit of a positive narrative about a study that just got published.  Berkely, Alameda, Oakland and San Fransisco were the only municipalities in California that created a sweet soda tax. A report has just come out that actually shows a statistically significant lowering of the BMI in these communities. So there is emerging data indicating that these taxes work; however, these ordinances were enacted in 2024. It has taken 10 years for this data to come out. During the early years, the data didn’t show significance–so the beverage industry declared that there are no changes!  This initial impression lingers.

This was an example of a tax solution.  As Bill G. was saying, that is like the Cigarette tax modality. This does work. At least in the United States, the amount of smoking is so much less than it was 50 years ago. This is one particular area of progress. Tobacco use is way down, though now Vaping has shown acerating use, so we may have a whole new epidemic going .

Mitch: And marijuana.