To get fed up with people with people like Jamie Oliver trying to coerce poor people via taxation.

[Booyaka]

I absolutely loathe Jamie Oliver anyway, but this crusade of his over sugar is driving me mad. I think something possibly needs to be done about sugar, but I don't think this is the way to do it. He did make a suggestion about prominently labelling total number of teaspoons of sugar in a product, which seemed quite sensible. But mainly he was pushing the tax angle.

Jamie Oliver's entire schtick seems to be that poor people can't be trusted to make the right decisions so they should instead be priced out to force them to make the decisions that he and his ilk believe that they should be making.

It bloody annoys me that they seem to think if you are wealthy and can afford them anyway you can be trusted to make the right decision anyway, but if you're poor you need to be coerced, and that coercion, of something as basic as what you eat and drink, is fine as long as you are poor. He did very much concentrate on handwringing about 'the deprived' too and how this tax would seemingly save them from themselves.

Apparently 1/3 of the products he sell in his restaurants are high sugar anyway, but he probably doesn't mind that, because he prices his tat so highly only middle class people can afford it and they're sensible enough to be trusted with sugar unlike the proles.

He probably doesn't realise, but a lot of people can't afford to take their kids to Tuscany or the Caribbean, Cornwall or even Skeg-bloody-ness. They can't buy their kids a lot of toys or give them days out. Is it really fair to give these people a financial kicking for giving their kids one of the few treats they can afford? Especially when many of them do so sensibly and in moderation.

www.telegraph.co.uk/men/active/10450517/Sugar-consumption-is-a-fizzy-drink-tax-the-answer.html

That article says we consume an average of 123ml of sugar sweetened drinks per day. 1/3 of a can of coke. Or just over 0.8 litres in a week. That's about 50 calories per day, or 350 in a week.

To put it into perspective, that's a ham sandwich. Which suggests the vast majority of people consume it reasonably responsibly.

They're not going to do it anyway. The economic cost in terms of health might be similar to alcohol, but when you add in the social problems of alcohol, crime, worklessness, road accidents, poor work performance. They're not going to do anything which might discourage people drinking soft drinks.

It would kill what was left of the pub industry too.

I used to go brambling. I've posted on MN about how my dad used to pad me with home made body armour consisting of a body warmer, long sleeves, trousers, thick gloves, a balaclava and swimming goggles to get the nicest, juiciest blackberries from the centre of the thicket.

But it's a Sunday afternoon outing and good for anecdotes 40 years later.

It's not a long term plan for nutrition.

Thanks charity I thought I remembered that thread. I'm pretty sure I posted my brambling memories on it.

I remember that thread too.

I loved picking blackberries. I took the DC to a local pick-your-own and teenage DC1 disgraced us all by rejecting perfectly ripe gooseberries because they were "a bit green"

I'm glad I found that link, I'm re-reading and that was how we did a Jamie Oliver thread pre Penis Beaker.

booyaka that's the average. Plenty of people never touch the stuff. I don't for a start, and nor do my children (they do like diet versions)So.you can't say 'the vast majority' of people consume it responsibly because you don't know how many people buy it.

I gave up diet coke in April 2013.

Im just putting that out there cos i do Slimming World who tell you to drink the stuff because its free and will fill you up.

In defence of DD she was also a child who cried when PIL took her out for a 'real treat' of a meal because McDonalds didn't sell her favourite salmon and avocado salad. Oh, how I could have smugged it up on MN if it had been around then. A few years and she had forgotten what gooseberries are supposed to look like. That's why it's best not to be a judgemental wanker Jamie

I didn't say 'the vast majority of people consume it' full stop. But the majority of those that do do it reasonably responsibly. You'd have to be going down to 1/3 of people consuming it at all just to get down to them averaging a can of coke per day.

Anyway, you're missing the point that a poster earlier claimed the figure was four and a half litres a week. I can't find anywhere quoting anything even remotely like that figure, it's wildly exaggerated.

Helena I'm amazed people still do that! Why not go the whole hog and tell people to chain smoke, nibble on an apple and end the day with a gram of coke? That's how people stayed thin when I was young.

YY Booyaka And im still not seeing any links from some of these posters to back up these claims. Yet i provided a link and IM the one who got told my claims were dubious. The need to "other" and blame poorer people is THAT strong.

Charity its crazy isnt it I just let the more ridiculous suggestions wash over me ...tweak the plan and do it my way.

I'm going to start this post by saying that I really like Jamie, I can't find him unliveable just for being rich, he works hard and is good at his job, he could be spending his time and money on himself and his family (which I'm sure he is) but he's also using his celebrity status to bring these issues to the front of the media and make people talk about them.
On a much more basic level, his recipes never fail me and I like what I see of his personality on the tv, I find his family also to come across genuine and nice people, feel free to judge me however you wish on that one.

On the whole sugar thing, it's a real kick in the teeth to have to force people to act a certain way and we should have too but should we also sit back and watch while some parents are shovelling sugar into their children at an alarming rate? Adults can do what they want with their health, they don't relay on a anyone else but children rely on their parents and carers to make those decisions for them, to provide the food and drink they eat.
I was in hospital with my son earlier this year, there was a child in the bed next to him that had every one of his teeth removed because they were rotten, it had spread through to his adult teeth too. The surgeon that did the operation very loudly berated his parents behind the curtain and said that she had told the, several times over the years that this would happen, their excuse was that he didn't like water or vegetables, he like lollipops and would only sleep with a bottle of lemonade at night.
Now I know that's just one story from someone you've never met but I know several children that have had the same thing done, it's fucking insane.
I've lived on sod all money to feed me and my child and his father and I didn't turn to sugar filled junk, it can be done.
I'm not for one second claiming I'm a marvellous super parent but I was taught to cook, budget and be frugal from a young age, both by my parents and grandparents and at school and I think that needs to happen as standard in every family, and school. I think it would help the situation, there would be no excuses then, if every child left school knowing how to budget for a household for a week/month and how to shop resourcefully and then cook simple, healthy meals using unprocessed ingredients that didn't cost the earth then it would go a long way to stopping this reliance on cheap, convenience food and sugary drinks.
The shops should also be banned from doing special offers on junk food and drink, people might not buy it if they couldn't get 2l bottles of Coke for 98p!

Hang on though............why arent the diet industry being called to account for giving that kind of advice in the first place.

.....oh wait they are a corporation too.

I gave up diet coke in April 2013.

I can top that HelenaDove. I last drank Coke, the proper red one, on a beach on Formentera the day after Princess Diana died. That was 1 September 1997.

I was never much of a Coke drinker. But I had a powerful craving that day. Maybe it was sign. I know she wasn't much of drinker.

I've always stuck to the empty calories of gin and tonic on the beach since then.

Thank God because I fucking hate Coke.

limited Bloody hell that IS a long time ago.

I'm glad I found that link, I'm re-reading and that was how we did a Jamie Oliver thread pre Penis Beaker.

I'm glad you did, too :) I'd pretty much managed to convince myself I've gone off Mumsnet because I've become a curmudgeonly old bat who hates people. Now I'm reassured it's more that Mumsnet's filled up with curmudgeonly people-haters!

I think I'll spend some time reading old threads, looking for my mojo.

Diet drinks have their own issues. I'm about to start a run of dental treatment & had to see the dental hygienist. She commented on my marked dental erosion/enamel loss and asked about my eating drinking habits. Initially I said no to the fizzy drinks question because we don't have sugary pop. Then I remembered that I used to have a can of diet coke every day until quite recently. Turns out it is just as bad for dental erosion due to the acidity.

No sugar in food? Sounds good. But what are they going to replace it with? Aspartame? Great. So that's a success then. This hasn't been thought through.

No sugar in food? Sounds good. But what are they going to replace it with? Aspartame? Great. So that's a success then. This hasn't been thought through.

JAMIE OLIVER: Food giants may insult me, but it's their hold over our leaders that’s truly alarming

That article makes sense.
Typical whining in the comments underneath, I see.

Titsalinabumsquash that happens to a lot of children's teeth and another thing that will cause it is not liking chocolate, sweets or crisps but having autism and being unable to get out of the habit of getting back to sleep by drinking milk.

Quite a few of my friends from support groups have DC with teeth which have been eroded by milk sugars and have been berated by professionals, which is nice for them on top of everything else

My autistic daughter had to have 2 of her milk teeth out, not because of her drinks or sweet food but because she doesn't like having her teeth cleaned. It's really difficult to get right to the back or her mouth. So far she has all
On the subject of fizzy drinks and tooth decay, my eldest (adult ) son recently lost a tooth due to his addiction to diet coke. It was caused by acid erosion, not sugar, obviously. He rarely had fizzy drinks as a child but started earning his own money as a young teen, and that was it really.

So, if the following things happened:

-Housing associations fix all broken cookers within 12 hours
-Replace all old kitchens within 3 days

And the taxpayers pay for anyone's heat (they already pay for seniors, but let's say they pay for everyone's)

And if Slimming World were held to account for advising Helena to drink diet coke;

Would this fix the situation?