How much fonio does your family get through in a week and how much will the reduction in price help you?

[noblegiraffe]

The govt have released a list of 125 "everyday essentials" that they plan to cut tax on to help families with the cost of living.

It's a bit of a weird list. Beans, biscuits and chocolate yes, a bit more baffled by the fresh figs, gherkins and plantains. And I had to google fonio.

Aubergines
Avocados
Baked beans
Bananas (fresh and dried)
Biscuits
Boiled sweets
Bread
Buckwheat
Candied fruit
Chewing gum
Chocolate (bulk and retail)
Chocolate bars
Chocolate drink preparations
Chocolate spreads
Chocolate with fruit, nuts or cereal
Citrus fruits (various)
Cocoa paste
Cocoa powder
Couscous
Crispbread
Crisps
Dried apples
Dried apricots
Dried figs
Dried papaya
Dried peaches/nectarines
Dried pears
Fonio
Fresh figs
Frozen fruits
Garlic
Gherkins
Gingerbread
Green tea
Jams and marmalades
Limes
Liquorice products
Margarine
Marzipan and pastes
Mixed dried fruit
Mixed fats and oils
Mixed fruit and nuts
Mixed nuts
Mixed preserved fruit and nuts
Non-alcoholic beverages
Olive oil (extra virgin)
Olive oil (other)
Olive oil (virgin)
Olives (for oil production)
Olives (fresh/chilled)
Olives (frozen)
Other fresh fruits
Other peppers (capsicum/pimenta)
Pickled peppers
Pizzas and quiches
Plant-based drinks
Plantains (fresh and dried)
Prepared vegetables
Preserved beans
Preserved citrus fruits
Preserved tropical fruit
Preserved vegetables
Processed potatoes
Quinoa
Rusks
Soups and broths
Sugar confectionery
Sugar tablets
Sweet peppers
Throat pastilles
Toasted bread products
Toffees and caramels
Tomato ketchup
Tomato sauces
Vegetable oils
Waffles and wafers

Only the thick as shit racist ones.

Grown in the UK and Ireland, mostly. No import tariffs to remove on that.

Me too!

Devastating :(

Summary of this thread:

”Why aren’t this useless government removing taxes on foodstuffs that aren’t taxed in the first place? Why are they only removing taxes on foods that are taxed?”

More like

"why is this government removing taxes on foodstuffs that they are able to remove taxes on but it is being referred to as a list of 'everyday essentials' when it quite clearly isn't.

It's turned out to be 'why is this government removing taxes on foodstuffs that they are able to remove taxes on and referring to them as 'everyday essentials' when many of them could be thought of as essential to people of different ethnic origins to me'.

Unfortunately, the tone was set with an element of 'what's this foreign muck' from the outset, hence some of your contributors.

I don’t see where anyone referred to this list as “everyday essentials” other than you in your OP.

The press release for the previous round of tariff suspensions in April referred to “everyday items and summer essentials”. Is that perhaps what you are thinking of?

Nope, it was this article on LBC which I linked to early in the thread which said “everyday essentials”, in quote marks.

You could ask them where they got it from.

It's a consultation, so if you feel 'I don't eat this so it should be tariffed' is something you'd like to share with the decision makers, fill in the consultation form.

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/call-for-input-on-goods-for-cost-of-living-tariff-suspensions
Scroll down to 'Ways to respond'

I will be requesting further additions rather than removals. Cheaper taro boba and bao for me!

I assume by sugar tablets they mean the glucose tablets like the Lucozade ones. My dad is diabetic and carries them for emergencies.

"Many of them" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

I think trying to say "Well actually this item on the list is totally essential to this tiny ethnic minority therefore your suspicion that this list isn't actually everyday essentials is fundamentally racist" is ignoring the fact that the list is blatantly not everyday essentials and essentially offence-seeking.

Note question 29 of the consultation. It may well be that the first list from April was expanded because some ethnicities were more affected than others.

E.g. the top 5 tuber crop production worldwide is (I used AI, soz)

1. Potato ~ 390 million tonnes
2. Cassava ~ 340 million tonnes
3. Sweet Potato ~ 90 million tonnes
4. Yam ~ 75 to 80 million tonnes
5. Edible Aroids (including taro) ~ 10 to 12 million tonnes

The UK obviously produces potatoes but not the rest because the climate isn't right. So why not suspend tariffs on crops 2-5?

This thread is very interesting and I’m learning a lot!

I can’t see how reducing import tariffs on items grown sufficiently or produced in the uk will help uk growers or manufacturers. Surely the priority should be not to disadvantage uk businesses. So I don’t support reducing tariffs on those items.

Tomato ketchup is produced in the uk. As is chocolate. And biscuits. And soups. And potatoes. So I’d not reduce tariffs on anything like that. But yes to fonio!!! Why not? Yes to anything non sugar focussed. I am curious about rice which isn’t on the list, maybe there are already trade deals there, and frozen prawns, I haven’t looked it up.

And if anyone knows why chewing gum or throat pastilles are there at all, please educate me! These are absolutely not foods.

I wouldn't call a basic crop that is familiar to much of the UK's West African diaspora and people of West African ancestry, is gluten free, low GI, high in cystine, methionine, vitamins B1,2 and 3, Iron, Zinc, Calcium and Phosphorous and is ecologically sound in terms of requiring less water and tolerance of heat than wheat and something to start a sniffy post about as if there aren't enough people of West African origin or ancestry in the UK to deserve having foods that are part of their heritage being treated as essentials rather than culinary curiosities that should be charged as luxuries - especially as it then encourages the 'eww, foreign muck' posters to cluster.

You're a teacher. You can't be working in an area bereft of children who have at least one parent or grandparent that is of West African origin to the extent that you think almost nobody eats Acha. Moreover, I'm certain that you've heard of Tamarind paste (which is a preserved fruit) and dates.

There's also geopolitical aspects to take into account. I'm sure you could find a friendly geography teacher to explain those even if you don't have one that teaches Sociology or Psychology to explain how the way the original post was framed sounded like a 'Look! Who even eats this stuff?'.

"Tomato ketchup is produced in the uk. As is chocolate"

They may be produced here, but the tomatoes and cocoa.will be imported. Tariffs are a complicated subject and often involve tit-for-tat action, country A puts a tariff on something we export to them, so we put a tariff on imports from country A - see "Donald Trumps' Idiots Guide To Tariffs" for more information.

Noble, I'm also a teacher and have encountered you on a lot of Staffroom threads where I use a different alias. I've always found your posts sensible and well-informed.

There's a valid point to be made here about the composition of the list but picking up on plantain and and acha / fonio for particular derision was not a good choice and I'm genuinely surprised to see you double down on it.

Load of people on this thread have never heard of fonio, so no, I'm not going to accept that it's a personal failing to be unaware of it. And why on earth would I be any more aware of it if a kid I teach has a West African grandparent? It's still not stocked in Sainsbury's. Bizarre suggestion.

Fresh figs and gherkins too, but you seem to have ignored those. Couldn't find an ethnic minority who eat them regularly to get offended on behalf of? This is what I mean by seeking offence.

Gherkins are very popular in Polish and other Eastern European communities but you know that's not the point. I'm going to leave it here. I hope you've achieved what you wanted from your thread. Have a good afternoon.

I did actually. Most people sensibly discussing the list, or discussing what fonio is in an interested way.

Some people getting offended where no offence was meant, and one racist post that was quickly deleted.

So why does the list specifically say tomato ketchup?

I’ve been genuinely interested in learning about fonio! But there clearly isn’t a demand for it to be on the shelves near me. Or I would be happy and keen to try it. It’s not racist not to be aware of a food of particular origin, ignorant perhaps (me!).

I find it bizarre.

She should raise the tax bands, which would be much simpler and fairer, rather than messing around with discretionary spending on chocolate. Isn't there already a sugar tax anyway?