Extra Time: 10 Lessons for an Ageing Society - How to Live Longer and Live Better. Camilla Cavendish

      In 2016, the UK government announced that it would levy a tax on sugary drinks to tackle obesity. By the time the levy came into force two years later, most brands had already done what we had hoped they would: reformulate to avoid the tax, thus withdrawing substantial amounts of sugar from the supermarket shelves.⁴⁰ While a few customers have complained about taste – and Coca-Cola has refused to dilute its legendary Classic – many are switching to low-sugar products. This suggests that relatively small signals can change markets.

      Reformulating food is much more complicated for the obvious reason that processed foods contain far more ingredients than drinks (if you remove all the sugar from a cake, it will simply collapse and look like a soufflé). But the UK government has already had some success in working with manufacturers to remove salt from processed foods. The same could be done for sugar — with the right combination of goodwill and political drive.