EVERYONE PLEASE READ THIS!!!

[system]

I had to comment on an article that I just read on a Yahoo news piece…it talked about “US Researchers” whomever they are, have concluded that an 18% tax on pizza would help lower obesity and health issues and lower the average persons weight by 5 pounds a year. This is all stemming from the soda tax that a few states are pushing these days. I am not sure how the industry should proceed as a whole and I am sure the big guys will have their own healthy campaigns up and running sooner than later…but I think the small independent operators should somehow bond together and make a stand. Pizza is not junk food. It can be a good balance of major food groups but the few idiots that want to just tax us some more figure lets hit an easy to single out market. Pizza. They can’t go after the sub shops… Jarod lost 200 pounds at Subway… how can they tax that. I bet if we really looked at the nutritional data of a $5 footlong and compared it to a couple of slices of quality pie the pizza would in most cases win and taste a heck of a lot better. If anyone has any suggestions or ideas throw them out here. Let’s not sit idle while you take a risk of loosing more of your bottom line to the State. Will your customers pay this for a large pizza: $20 X 1.18% = $23.60 plus your regular local taxes…DAMN! I guess selling those $5 pizzas might not look that bad if you have to add the “Pizza Tax” on top… $5 X 1.18% = $5.90 plus local taxes. Lets stop this before it starts!!!

 

[system]

Here is the article:

CHICAGO (Reuters) – U.S. researchers estimate that an 18 percent tax on pizza and soda can push down U.S. adults’ calorie intake enough to lower their average weight by 5 pounds (2 kg) per year.

The researchers, writing in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine on Monday, suggested taxing could be used as a weapon in the fight against obesity, which costs the United States an estimated $147 billion a year in health costs.

“While such policies will not solve the obesity epidemic in its entirety and may face considerable opposition from food manufacturers and sellers, they could prove an important strategy to address overconsumption, help reduce energy intake and potentially aid in weight loss and reduced rates of diabetes among U.S. adults,” wrote the team led by Kiyah Duffey of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

With two-thirds of Americans either overweight or obese, policymakers are increasingly looking at taxing as a way to address obesity on a population level.

California and Philadelphia have introduced legislation to tax soft drinks to try to limit consumption.

CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden supports taxes on soft drinks, as does the American Heart Association.

There are early signs that such a policy works.

Duffey’s team analyzed the diets and health of 5,115 young adults aged age 18 to 30 from 1985 to 2006.

They compared data on food prices during the same time. Over a 20-year period, a 10 percent increase in cost was linked with a 7 percent decrease in the amount of calories consumed from soda and a 12 percent decrease in calories consumed from pizza.

The team estimates that an 18 percent tax on these foods could cut daily intake by 56 calories per person, resulting in a weight loss of 5 pounds (2 kg) per person per year.

“Our findings suggest that national, state or local policies to alter the price of less healthful foods and beverages may be one possible mechanism for steering U.S. adults toward a more healthful diet,” Duffey and colleagues wrote.

In a commentary, Drs. Mitchell Katz and Rajiv Bhatia of the San Francisco Department of Public Health said taxes are an appropriate way to correct a market that favors unhealthy food choices over healthier options.

They argued that the U.S. government should carefully consider food subsidies that contribute to the problem.

“Sadly, we are currently subsidizing the wrong things including the product of corn, which makes the corn syrup in sweetened beverages so inexpensive,” they wrote.

Instead, they argued that agricultural subsidies should be used to make healthful foods such as locally grown vegetables, fruits and whole grains less expensive.

 

[Freddy_Krugerrand]

I bet a 30 percent tax on being a politician would lower the corruption rate as well.

Looks like everyone is now in the calzone business. No tax on calzone.

 

[Pizza_of_the_Month]

Soon there will be a proposal to tax lack of sleep too.

 

[pizzafanatic]

Thanks for the heads up. Leave it to my great state to look at ways of making more revenue. Forget about the obesity theory… this is about profit! I can’t see how they can single out a food type and place a luxury tax on it. What about those burger places with their 1/2# patties, six slices of cheese and loads of bacon. Are they not contributing to the obesity trend?

All I can say is that there will be a great war on this if legislation passes for a pizza tax. Can you say “Class Action”?

 

[system]

Freddy_Krugerrand:

I bet a 30 percent tax on being a politician would lower the corruption rate as well.

Looks like everyone is now in the calzone business. No tax on calzone.

LOL… would you like your calzone folded or flat? Good Call…That or just going to have to rename Pizza every week or two.

 

[Tom_Lehmann]

The so called “sin taxes” just don’t work. They have been proposed for essentially all “fast foods”, including burgers, pizza, fish and chicken. Put all of those together and you have a pretty formidable force to deal with! Just look at how well the sin taxes have curtailed the consumption of alcohol. Please show me where the consumption of alcohol is down because of the taxes levied on it. Here in Kansas I can show you where the sale of alcohol is down, but that’s due to people crossing the state line into Missouri to buy it where the taxes are lower, but they’re still Kansas residents, and they’re still drinking it, so you can’t go by the sales figures. Point is, it would need to be a Federal tax, or people would just go across the state lines to buy their pizzas. With all the ruckus that would cause, I seriously doubt that any state representative could possibly serve more than a single term without losing his/her job. Write your state representatives and voice your concerns, find out who is promoting this stuff, and work together to serve them their “walking papers” at the next election. This might be something that could be addressed at the next “Pizza Summit”.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

 

[pizza_garden]

How would they explain my thousands of slim, untaxed pizza customers in Japan?

Here is a chart that shows consumption of soft drinks (water, high fructose corn syrup and flavoring). Japan is on one end and the US is on the other. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions. Pizza? I don’t think so…

Chart Link>>

 

[Tom_Lehmann]

P.G.
I was watching the news last night and saw an article on the soft drink issue. Soft drink consumption in schools has gone down by 80+ percent over the past few years. Went on to say that this translates to a weight loss of roughly 5-pounds per student over the course of a year. Right! Only if they replaced the soft drinks with WATER! The reality of it, which they did not address, is that the students drank something else, probably something with a more “healthy” connentation, like milk or fruit juice, like there ain’t no calories in either of those. So, if you were to add those calories back to their equation and recalculate the potential weight loss numbers, I’ll bet that they wouldn’t come up to the original figure of 5-pounds. But then that wouldn’t be as impressive. Half truths can always be painted a very impressive color.
Call me “old school” but I’ve always said that barring a medical problem, the key to effective weight loss is in moderation. Eat pizza, just don’t eat the whole thing. If you insist upon eating a lot of pizza, think about opting for a veggie topped pizza rather then the local version of the T-Rex delight (lotsa meat toppings). I’ve also been an advocate of the so called, healthy cheese options (tofu cheese). Blend one of these with your regular cheese and instantly, you have a cheese option that has a good taste and texture, while being 50% lower in cholesterol that your regular cheese topping. We hear that we should eat less red meat and more poultry, not a problem. Try skinless chicken, or poultry pepperoni, or chicked based sausage, and a pizza begins to look pretty good in the nutritionals department. In any case, I have to want to eat more healthy, and if that is what I want to do, for the most part, we already have the toppings available to allow me to do so. Now, for the hard part, lets begin educating our kids, both at home, and at school, in the benefits as well as ways to eat more healthy food options. In my opinion, that’s how you really fight obesity.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

 

[brad_randall]

Don’t completely discount the difference between milk & juice vs. soda and sports drinks. The glycemic index for milk is around 30, juices are in the 40’s, sodas reach into the 60’s and sports drinks (like gatorade) are designed to provide super-fast energy and are in the high 70’s. Milk provides a more consistent level of energy whereas soft drinks spike blood sugar rapidly and when that begins to decline it triggers a hunger response.

And consider the quantities of these beverages which children will consume. I know I struggle to get my children to drink milk at all, whereas they will easily consume a 2-liter of soda in a day if their consumption is not monitored. I haven’t even touched on how caffeine affects their behavior.

This doesn’t include chocolate milk though… that stuff is pure, liquid evil.

 

[Tom_Lehmann]

Just to give you an idea of how education and home examples (meals) play into this, consider my children. Raised on nothing but whole-wheat bread and the like, then there was whole-wheat pasta. We seldom drank sodas, but mostly milk and real juice. Snacks consisted of fruit and veggies, and meals were well balanced with a lot of chicken (our own), fish (which we caught), and venison (which passed under my gun sight), as well as garden fresh vegetables. Candy bare were unheard of. Fast forward to the grandchildren, they only eat whole-wheat. Their idea of a trip to McDonalds is to get the fruit and cheese snack box and a juice or white milk (neither one likes the slimey mouthfeel of chocolate milk). We won’t tell them that all chocolate milk isn’t like that. Neither boy likes candy either, they are not used to the sweetness. You are right about the spiking of blood sugars., this is why I was so against the low carb diets. Carbohydrates are sslloowwllyy broken down into sugars, and they don’t cause a spike in blood sugar, which is what triggers hunger pangs, which leads to further eating, and the cycle begins. Again, education, example, and moderation.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

 

[Piper]

Tom Lehmann:

Call me “old school” but I’ve always said that barring a medical problem, the key to effective weight loss is in moderation. Eat pizza, just don’t eat the whole thing.

Exactly! I was thinking this exact same thing as I read this post. Weight gain is caused by eating more calories than you expend, and it doesn’t particularly matter where you get those calories from. You can lose weight eating McDonald’s and pizza every day and you can gain weight eating Subway.

Proposals like this may lead to a decrease in pizza consumption but it won’t have any affect on weight gain or obesity. People prone to weight gain will just get the calories from some other cheaper source.

Contrary to pizza, I do however believe pop is the devil. Being able to drink 15% of your daily calories from a 20oz bottle, especially when those calories are comprised entirely of simple sugars, makes calorie ingestion much too simple. But the answer isn’t a tax, it’s education (especially from parents.) And let’s face it, most parents already know that filling their kids with pop is not healthy. But once the kids get a taste for the sweetness it becomes a lot easier to give in than deal with a tantrum.

Really, the problem all around is sugar. Most Americans have a sweet tooth and are practically addicted to it. Ask a visiting foreigner what they think of our food and they’ll most likely tell you that it’s too sweet.

 

[pizzapirate]

All the talk about what is and what is not good for you is besides the point and feeds right into the government’s plan. People will talk about what is healthy vs what is not, businesses will try and defend their products, etc. It started with alcohal and cigarettes because its was easy to get people to debate the health effects and not the tax. Of course cigarettes are bad for you and people paid no attention to the tax/increased burden on society to feed the growing government.

Its “all” about the money and nothing else. If there was a way to make every pizza that is “not purchased” tax deductible, do you think they would do it? Of course not. Its just another money grab and to argue “what” they are taxing is just missing the whole point.

Some of you argue why not cheeseburgers? It’s far easier to target small pieces of a pie rather than the whole. They will target one product of a time until they finally will say its not fair that the tax burden is placed soley on these specific businesses and they will expand it to all. And everyone will just say, yeah, that sounds more fair . . . missing the whole point again.

No more taxes period!

 

[NicksPizza]

I come from a research background, and am appalled at the possible poor research design of this. Also likely is that the results are blown wayyyy out of proportion. 5# a year can be had with walking 30 minutes twice a week. Monkeying with the marketplace over a POTENTIAL 5# weight difference it pathetic. Studies like this almost HAVE to be done on self-report, and that just ain’t big news when someone says they eat less pizza 20 years later . . . they left college, the local favorite place closed down and never found another good one, changed over to fish and chips, whatever.

SECOND: What’s with some local county dolt saying that taxing food consumption is a VALID MEANS OF MANIPULATING THE MARKET to force people to make different personal food choices?!?!?! How about putting recess and physical education back into scholl cirricula to send a message that excercise and activity is important?? THEN let’s look at putting small pizzerias out of business later, if we have todo it at all.

WTF? First it’s butter-margarine-butter-margarine-butter-outlaw transfats. Now someone thinks that pizzas is all of a sudden the reason for childhood obesity? You can’t make this stuff up.

 

[George_Mills]

Hi Guys:

The solution to this and many other problems is to get rid of the idiots in washington that are spending the nation into poverty.

George Mills

 

[Pizzamancer]

pizza_garden:

How would they explain my thousands of slim, untaxed pizza customers in Japan?

Here is a chart that shows consumption of soft drinks (water, high fructose corn syrup and flavoring). Japan is on one end and the US is on the other. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions. Pizza? I don’t think so…

Chart Link>>

That data is made up. Japanese on average eat 1/4 the amount of pizza that Americans eat, and per-capita they eat the same amount of MacDonald’s.

On topic:

These things come up again and again, but the bottom line is. They don’t hold water. No one in the world will buy that an 18% tax will reduce the average weight of the population. Sure, there might be correlation in the study, but they gave no proof of causation, and no politician is going to buy it.

 

[system]

SInce I started this I wanted to add a little about the ideas of weight loss and all the ideas that go along with that. I love pizza…and I love Coke. Now…do I ear pizza everyday…no. I do drink alot of pop that I have probably cut in half the last couple of years. Now the big kicker…a few years back I shatered my ankle into 13 pieces and spent 9 months in a wheelchair and almost a year on crutches before I was able to waddle again on my own. I went from 200 pounds of a pretty in shape six foot tall guy too a 300 pound 5’11 guy that was way out of shape. Yeah…somehow lost an inch in the middle. Go figure. They blamed it on spinal compression from the 16 foot fall I took that caused the injury to begin with. Fast forward a few years…I had a little girl… and really started to watch my quantity intake of food not so much calories or types though. I have always eaten a good variety of foods and love fresh fruit in quantity and juice the same. My little girl is going to be 3 in June and in the last 3 years I have watched the quantities a bit more…never really adjusted the types… cut pop as I said…but still drink alot of it…and I have lost 83 pounds with little more than normal life activities as my ankle is still only about 50% useful. Bottom line… if you want to loose weight you can. If you eat alot…you are going to gain weight. Eat better…moderate…you will be healthier. This is just another money making polititian scam that needs a stop before it starts. We are getting taxed on everything these days and most people do not realize how many new taxes have hit the books in recent years and whats to come. Someone made the comment about elections in this post…that is a must. I wish we could vote out Washington in it’s entirety and start over. Single term limits…get something done instead of protecting one’s re-election campaigns… It’s time things change so this country can continue to be the best before it’s too late. Yeah…politics and pizza…what the hell was I thinking? :roll: