Think sodas and other drinks are too sweet? You are not alone.
Barry Nalebuff, professor of economics and strategy at Yale School of Management, thought that too and so 14 years ago he started Honest Tea Inc. with one of his students. They make tea that tastes like tea and it has fewer than 100 calories each. They will have sold 100 million bottles this year.
But not in New York City. Because Honest Tea comes in 500 milliliter bottles, it will be banned. 500 milliliters is 16.9 ounces and, because New York City wants to mimic the social authoritarian, anti-science quackery of San Francisco, it will be outlawed to cure obesity.
Is eliminating low-calorie tea helping anyone? Well, no. But we have to do something. It's for the children. When social authoritarians invoke children, you should reach for your wallet.
A 16-ounce bottle of SoBe No Fear has 260 calories and 70 grams of sugar, almost four times the sugar and calories of Honest Tea, yet the lower calorie one is being banned because of size.
Nalebuff is at Yale, so he is fine with social authoritarianism and the super-nanny state (and he is rich, having sold Honest Tea to Coca-Cola), he just thinks size is the wrong metric. Ban calories instead, he claims. Obviously, banning neither makes the most sense, but once the government can force you to buy health insurance, they can tell you what to consume too.
Ban Calories, Not Ounces, to Regulate Sugary Beverages by Barry Nalebuff, Bloomberg
