I'm not sure, but memory suggests that we have a native Australian berry that is around a thousand times sweeter than sugar, with negligible calories?
There are any number of sugar substitutes, one of which apparently comes from sugar? Allegedly just as sweet with far fewer calories.
Perhaps we ought to focus on the simple calorie count rather than sugar per se?
Mangoes are decadently delicious and full of vitamin C! Moreover, as well as providing a sweet satisfying sugar hit, they also have a chemical that wastes a few fat cells with every bite?
Always providing you also eat the skin and don't overdo the taste treat, which would then become self defeating?
It is said an apple a day keeps the doctor away? Perhaps we might add, a mango a day helps keeping obesity at bay? As does drinking more water?
Perhaps one might suggest a very filling tropical fruit salad for breakfast that could include, almost any combination of fresh yoghurt, pineapple, paw paw, mango, blanched almonds, crushed Brazil nuts, sultanas, blue berries and a banana.
Have it as a blended and chilled smoothie, (takeaway,) if you want the kids to follow your example? Fresh if available and or affordable, or dried/packaged if not? Soak the dried fruit and blanched almonds over night in the fridge, if you still want the quick and easy smoothie in the morning? Rhrosty.
P.S.Vegans should include a daily vitamin 12 supplement, which is arguably all that's missing from a very healthy, very broad vegan diet.

Here's a radical idea. Don't regulate, ban or limit any sort of food or drink. Give the people the information about what's in it all and trust the people to make their own decisions.

In fact, if you value democracy, trusting the people should be the starting point for all government decisions, though I can't imagine the Greens and other protagonists of the nanny state letting their fellow citizens make decisions for themselves. Good heavens, what if someone made a decision the Greens didn't like?

Greetings Senior Victorian

Your proposal that in a democracy a government can "trust people" to decide for themselves is fine in theory, but has failed in practice because people are not homogenous with skill sets. Many are alert to the pros and cons of an array of foods and drinks. But many are also ignorant.

The marketers of fast food are sending their messages by print and electronic means with sweet tunes and in-the-meal-box prizes. Such as Happy Meals, for a period of time.

In a democracy the countervailing msg would be often made. That is that fast foods are not wholesome meals and are loaded with sugar and fats.
But that msg is not made.

Many have no idea that quick service restaurants, w actually sell high energy treats that are NO substitute for balanced meals.

Ideally such people would receive messages or education on what is good and what is bad to eat, without the government resorting to taxes or regulations of serving sizes. But experiments have shown many people do not want to be educated or cannot be educated and so giving them cues e.g. smaller boxes of Kentucky Fried Chicken as 'standard' meals could be what sways them to eat less of such foods.

Rhrosty - thanks for rekindling in me the desire to go vegan. It slipped way down my priority list recently.

You're on very dangerous ground here, Jonathon. Once you start believing that you or 'the experts' have a responsibility to protect people from themselves, you are attacking the very basis of the contract between the government and the people.

We give government the power to coerce us in order to protect us from harm by others. That's why we allow armies and police forces. We do not permit government to protect us from our own decisions. One of the fascinating paradoxes in today's Australia is that a government that fancies itself to be progressive is becoming more authoritarian by the day - one banned sugary drink and newspaper column at a time.

Senior Victorian

I consider myself, broadly speaking, reasonably libertarian. I also know that any ideology in its purest form is a hideous catastrophe.

Were this proposal putting forward the banning of sugary drinks in their entirety, then I would concur with you.

It's not. This will only affect cups of soft drink that are roughly the size of your head.

People still have the choice to buy a great deal of soft drink. They can go back and buy two smaller cups if they're that desperate to get it.

Your purist libertarian arguments come across as naught but hyperbole when weighed against the realities of the situation.

We all have to pay tax to support our health-care system. I don't have a problem with that, I'm glad we have a basic safety net. Seeing as we all have to pay for that, I think it's reasonable that measures that still allow us our freedom, but reduce strain on the health-care system, are reasonable.

You declare "I should have the right to buy whatever I damn well want, no matter how stupid or gluttonous it is."

And you still have that right in this case. Is it not reasonable for others to prod you to consider the wisdom of such a purchase?

First, choose a label: libertarian seems suitable for this purpose. Just the right hint of danger with enough definitional uncertainty to be useful. Then add a couple of qualifiers: purist and ideology are always good to create that atmosphere of unease, especially when combined with something like 'hideous'.

Then accuse your opponent of missing the point. Surely, the restriction proposed is not unreasonable and might help to 'prod' people in the 'right direction'. So begins the long slow slide away from liberty. Small step by small, not apparently unreasonable step.

All to solve a problem that in the main applies to a small perecntage of the population. We in the West live longer and healthier than ever before. Obesity of itself is not a large problem. It only becomes so when you add 'overweight' to reach the unquantifiable 'overweight and obese'. So what we have here is a solution in search of a problem, solvable by just one more ever so small restriction on my right to make a decision.

"Regulating portion size, not taxing or banning product, might be the key to the fight against obesity."

The excess calories theory has been disproven. Participants on a low-carb calorie unrestricted diet lost more weight than their calorie restricted counterparts:
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?volume=297&issue=9&page=969

Bloomberg is barking up the wrong tree. Sugar consumption isn't behind the obesity epidemic.

"Many studies have found that sucrose is less fattening than starch or glucose, that is, that more calories can be consumed without gaining weight....In another experiment, rats were fed either sucrose or Coca-Cola and Purina chow, and were allowed to eat as much as they wanted (Bukowiecki, et al, 1983). They consumed 50% more calories without gaining extra weight, relative to the standard diet. Ruzzin, et al. (2005) observed rats given a 10.5% or 35% sucrose solution, or water, and observed that the sucrose increased their energy consumption by about 15% without increasing weight gain.
http://carbsanitydiscussion.blogspot.com.au/#nabble-td4947792

The starches and the seed oils (the most recent addition to the western diet) are behind the obesity epidemic:

"If starch or glucose is eaten at the same time as polyunsaturated fats, which inhibit its oxidation, it will produce more fat. Many animal experiments show this, even when they are intending to show the dangers of fructose and sucrose.

For example (Thresher, et al., 2000), rats were fed diets with 68% carbohydrate, 12% fat (corn oil), and 20% protein. In one group the carbohydrate was starch (cornstarch and maltodextrin, with a glucose equivalence of 10%), and in other groups it was either 68% sucrose, or 34% fructose and 34% glucose, or 34% fructose and 34% starch. (An interesting oddity, fasting triglycerides were highest in the fructose+starch group.)The weight of their fat pads was greatest in the fructose+starch group, and least in the sucrose group. The starch group's fat was intermediate in weight between those of the sucrose and the fructose+glucose groups."

http://carbsanitydiscussion.blogspot.com.au/#nabble-td4947792

"Many people are claiming that fructose consumption has increased greatly in the last 30 or 40 years, and that this is responsible for the epidemic of obesity and diabetes. According to the USDA Economic Research Service, the 2007 calorie consumption as flour and cereal products increased 3% from 1970, while added sugar calories decreased 1%. Calories from meats, eggs, and nuts decreased 4%, from dairy foods decreased 3%, and calories from added fats increased 7%. The percentage of calories from fruits and vegetables stayed the same. The average person consumed 603 calories per day more in 2007 than in 1970. If changes in the national diet are responsible for the increase of obesity, diabetes, and the diseases associated with them, then it would seem that the increased consumption of fat and starch is responsible, and that would be consistent with the known effects of starches and polyunsaturated fats. "

http://carbsanitydiscussion.blogspot.com.au/#nabble-td4947792

Senior Victorian - all that sophistry, be it yours or mine, doesn't change the fact that you're raging against a decision to ban softdrinks that as I mentioned are as large as your head.

Not ban softdrinks altogether. So you can still choose.

And you can complain about restrictions on choice all you wish, but members of any functioning society have to accept that some choices will be curtailed.

New York voted for Bloomberg. This was the decision that was made. If they don't like it, they can vote him out.

That's just how it works. Deal with it.