To think that as big food industry cause a huge chunk of the NHS bill that they need to be taxed an NHS surcharge? Whats more galling is that many large food companies are US owned and the medication is US supplied.

As someone who is currently struggling month to month (financial post separation abuse) I can tell you from experience that it’s a lot cheaper to buy processed foods. I’ve gone from organic veg box and occasional Waitrose shop to trying to find the cheapest of everything and good fruit and veg is expensive. Also, it costs money to drive to the nearest large supermarket so rely on walking to nearest which has less fruit and veg.

Other things that impact;

• have you been taught to cook?
• do you work 50 hours a week in a zero hours job and are too exhausted to cook.
• do you have freezer space to cook once and freeze portions?
• are you aware of the issue with ultra processed foods.

Added to that these companies pay a lot of money to use the best science to manipulate us without us even knowing. Just look at Nutella adverts. Unless you have educated yourself otherwise, you’d be forgiven into thinking it’s a healthy choice.

It’s just not as simple as individual choice. There is huge social inequality that gets in the way.

So I agree. We need to subside fruit, veg, milk and whole foods and tax ultra processed foods massively.

It’s not about the additives and preservatives. I like raw food because it’s easier and nobody has fucked about with it.

I also like fresh ingredients. However just because it’s fresh doesn’t make it nice when it has been home frozen. It’s still watery.

Oh good - people have had convenient options for far too long

Personally, I'd like to see unhealthy junk food heavily taxed, with the income from that tax used to directly subside healthy, unprocessed or minimally processed british produce.

Wholemeal bread? Hardly anyone would consider that is rubbish, yet read the label and that's exactly what it is.

Ok, we get it. You are a vegetarian / vegan.

Likewise, I think that home cooked food (even after freezing) still has a far superior taste and texture to mass produced ready meals. I think that people's tastes have been ruined by the excessive additives and preservatives in mass produced foods, i.e. sweeteners, salts, emulsifiers, etc., so they miss them when you cook something from raw/fresh ingredients that is basically nothing but food! It takes time for someone's taste buds to adjust. People are basically tasting the additives and preservatives rather than the genuine food itself.

The difference in taste between a mass produced frozen ready meal from a supermarket compared with a frozen "home made" ready meal from something like a farm shop or something you've made and frozen yourself is stark, some of which is quality of the ingredients, some of which is the lack of the additives/preservatives.

I disagree. Personally I would never choose to eat a ready meal, over my home cooked food, that I have frozen, for future use.

But people also think of drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco products, or taking drugs as a "treat", which also causes huge cost and clogs up the NHS.

Last thing we want to do is drive unhealthy foods underground as that will probably make the problem worse and fuel crime, just like the drugs trade, illegal alcohol and tobacco sales have done.

Maybe thinking of foods like that as 'treats', is part of the problem. A 'treat' should not be something that harms the body, imo.

I agree, but people still smoke and drink, and even take illegal drugs, so even with higher taxes, illegality, and age restrictions, etc., people still consume things that literally everyone knows are bad for you. It's naive to think that we can stop people eating junk by banning it or heavily taxing it.

Yup, same at our hospital. DH was in for a week and always chose the "sandwich" option from the meal choices as everything else was cold/congealed/fatty slop, i.e. virtually liquid (with grease) Shepherd's Pie. "Desert" was usually a packet of crisps. Starter was processed concentrated orange or apple juice carton.

Hospital "restaurant" closed at 3pm so useless for an evening meal for visitors or, as I did, those who stay with the patient for a few hours. It had vending machines of the usual chocolate bars, crisps and fizzy drinks!

I got into the habit of walking down into town around 5pm just before closing time, to get us both something from elsewhere which I took back in. I'd also take a bag of snacks in with me each day with some fresh fruit and muesli bars.

We're pretty much there already.

My son has spent a lot of time at a hospital in Leeds and the food wasn't great at all, unfortunately. My son practically lived on jacket potatoes when he was able to eat and won't touch them at all now.

The opening times of the food shops around the hospital were poor too such as the restaurant closing at 3pm and none of them been open at all during the weekends so eating in hospital as a parent was fun.

"Who’s forcing people to buy this though?"

No one is 'forcing' anyone.

But people buy what is available to them. Some people believe they are making 'healthy choices' when the choice they are making is actually just between shit and slightly more/less shit.

Ready meals marked as 'healthy'; shop packaged sandwiches that appear to be healthy but are just as crap as any other packaged sandwich; yogurts marked as healthy that are anything but.

On threads about diet or weight, there are always a large number of people saying that beans on toast is a healthy meal. It's all UPF. But if your alternative to that is McDonald's or eating nothing, then beans on wholemeal toast is a compromise. It's not actively healthy though.

There will be people on any thread about food and diet who genuinely believe they are eating a healthy diet who are not.

Yes, if you are eating sugary snacks everyday and takeaway burgers, you probably know and understand enough to realise that its 'junk food' but there will be countless people who think they are making healthy choices because they've read the label on a packet and just accepted it and their food is still 'junk'.

I dont eat 'healthily' all the time but i make most things myself so I avoid UPF and I know exactly what is in my food (as far as I can do without growing it all myself).

"Who’s forcing people to buy this though? "
It's cheap and it's readily available, that's why people buy it. Look up "food deserts" where lower income people do not have access to cheap AND nutritious food. Why no Iceland in Mayfair? It amazes me that we allow food companies to sell us this shit, and absolve themselves of the consequential costs on the grounds of "personal responsibility". It's a public health issue like smoking or drinking and needs more legislation and enforcement.

A few years ago, James Martin did a programme on this at a hospital in Leeds I think. The food after he’d finished looked really good. I had to take someone to a hospital in the town I work in a few weeks ago and was surprised it had a Costa and a Greggs. But then, most hospital food isn’t good so I guess people will want to eat something familiar.

No, that's the food you buy. Nobody is compelling you to buy such rubbish.

I HAVE had them but not regularly and not for a long time.

I eat plenty of raw fresh fruit and vegetables.

I would just rather not have to add flour to my meal to make it palatable.

Well, you find ready meals more palatable than mels cooked from scratch & frozen, so you must eat them in order to compare.

Real food = food that hasn't been stuffed full of salt, sugar & fat by means of manufacturing process.

Where did I say I ate ready meals? I just said they were better than home cooked frozen stuff.

I don’t know why you would assume I was unaware of why people eat processed food - I am fully aware.

How do you define ‘real food’ ?

But on the plus side, it is consistent. When someone claims to like cooking and trying new things, it actually means that I can guarantee not being able to eat their cooking because it all just tastes overpoweringly unpleasant and contains a lot of random stuff.

I’m AuDHD and prefer to eat food where I know in advance what it will taste like. Ideally I prefer food that isnt cooked if I have to eat with someone.

🤔. You are an food manufacturers dream customer!
The key is to wean yourself off the high sugar, salt, fat & chemicals and learn to taste real food again.

We are all conditioned to associate certain tastes with certain foods. Your body will also produce pleasure inducing hormones in response to the chemicals. It's a junkies fix.
If food draws water after freezing, that can be easily fixed with a little flower.

You should listen to The Hunger Games on Radio 4. Although the programme is about WLI, one episode explores the physical effects and chemical changes in the brain. Very, very interesting.

Do you want this country to look like the U.S. with it's health issues?

Yes, I agree, that was a spelling error on my part. I don't think it takes much time to cook a decent meal.