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.

[Noras]

We need radical thinking now.

The population is being physically harmed by uber processed foods. Many companies who produce the food are US owned. The US having poisoned is then sells us the drugs to maintain lofe and not cure any conditions.

Crisps - many US owned companies
Soft drinks - mainly US owned companies
Things like tomato ketchup - mainly US owned companies
Sweetened yoghurt - mainly US owned compnaies
Chocolate - Cadburys - say no more
Oven chips - US owned

The Gov needs to tax the hell out of carb heavy processed junk food and reduced VAT on fruit / veg / legumes etc.

Its glaringly apparent that there is something significantly wrong with the current proportions/ floor space of poor food choices in supermarkets.

Most of the aisles is taken up with selling pretend plastic foods.

Why is the Gov allowing this and not taxing this stuff to the hilt and spending that tax money on the NHS?

It makes me believe that we have a corrupt Gov not prepared to tackle large food consortiums and thus allowing the British public to be poisoned into poor health / diabetes etc where they become customers for large US pharmacy.

The whole thing is crazy. People need to be able to cook better and stop wasting money on processed junk. In that same vein, we need to tax more all take away places especially McDonald’s, Burger King, all coffee shops selling mass produced cakes with palm oil etc.

Good idea to stop fat, poor people eating what they want.

Food-related illness is estimated to cost more than alcohol-related illness, but yes social issues, crime, violence related to alcohol are expensive.

I think most, not all, but most, do know that beige crap is just that. But we have become extremely used to it. I teach teens and put on an after school event. One parent queried about eating and I was surprised by the fuss she made about making sure her dd could have access to healthy, non processed, non sugary options. I just assumed they'd all nip to Gregg's or the corner shop. I mean, she's right but it was so unusual it stood out. Modern life is very busy with working parents, pressure to do multiple after school hobbies. Cooking fresh from scratch isn't always appealing and not everyone has space for freezing batch cooking or running a slow cooker.

I dont disagree theres a huge issue but I think there are structural reasons for it beyond people bring stupid or lazy.

As far as I am concerned

We force people not to take drugs by making them illegal

We force children not to drink by restricting the sell of alcohol to juniors

We reduce drinking by increasing tax on alcohol

We restrict smoking by stopping advertising and also by taxes.

So yes we should tax more

Crisps mostly US owned companies

Biscuits - a lot of Turkish owned companies

Ice cream made with gross palm oil - agin lots of Us companies

Breakfast cereal - the devils food - many US companies

Sauces - many US companies

processed meats - hugely carcinogenic - why are these even sold?

We should then redistribute that money to healthy ready made meals ( no palm oils / no e numbers/ no emulsifiers etc)

Fruits

veg

pulses

Also to the NHS to fund a weight loss programme. We need to develop our own weight loss jabs or market more chia seeds/ physillium husk for weight control.

Yes I do drink coffee as it has polyphenols and is healthy ( I drink decaf)

For breakfast I avoid cereals and eat Greek yoghurt / nuts/ berries and seeds

For evening meal I eat lots of legumes / tomatoes etc

And contrary to expectation to make a chickpea stew takes about 20 minutes so barely longer than opening a pizza and putting it in the oven.

Obviously you are using a goady/judgemental description of people deliberately, but the question you raise is whether the state should ever intervene in what people choose?

If the state should not, we have many laws and rules to remove in other areas.

If the state should, why not food?

People actually think that things like ham is healthy. People think other pizza is healthy. People think that when they put Cheerios into a bowl they are giving their kids a healthy breakfast.
People think that fruit flavoured yoghurt is healthy. They think that words like citric acid are fine.

The Government needs to protect the people more. They need to own this and have radical policies to stop big business destroying our health. It’s very galling when it’s overseas companies doing this.

How many coffee shops are owned by overseas companies paying minimal wages, little on shore tax and then lumbering the UK with huge medical costs for diabetes etc? I look at the rows of cakes fulls of e numbers and preservatives / palm oils and could weep.

The Gov needs to ban all trans fats as they do in the US

The Gov needs to tax heavily all foods using palm oil

The Gov needs to tax more foods with added sucrose / fructose contents

The Gov needs to ban or restrict the sell of heavily processed meats linked to cancer.

So you will tax or ban the food you find to be unhealthy so hard people can't afford them or not buy them at all?
No government will do that. It will cost to many votes.

Read The Road to Wigan Pier. Orwell beautifully highlights the link between poverty and junk food all the way back in the 30s so almost a century ago. This is for anyone highlighting personal autonomy and asking why people don’t buy apples rather than donuts.

The use of £5 as an example price is a straw man, signalling to me it would not be worth my typing time to engage with your false options directly

Pointing out that fruit is actually cheaper isn't a straw man, it directly refutes your main argument. If fresh fruit is accessible at bottom-tier prices, taxing chocolate isn't about affordability, it's just punitive.
but yes, am also not bothered in further engagement with your opinions either which are clearly “I expect others to make the life choices I do”.

It really aligns with the posters have seen on here who when it comes to politics have the views of “if you don’t vote as I do, you’re too stupid to vote”. In this case, “I don’t approve of your food choices so you should be stopped from making them”.

The reality is that lentils / beans are really nutritious and healthy plus cheap. It’s so cheap and quick to make a Dahl etc.

The idea that a pizza and some coke is a cheap option is so untrue.

Sadly people just lack any idea about what they are eating and still think that granola is healthy as an example.

and if people just don’t like lentils and Dahl? Suck it up and eat it anyway?

If your food choices cause you to cost the NHS tens of thousands in treatment charge due to diabetes? Also you then claim benefits for self induced ill health?

No one is forcing junk food and drinks down anyone’s neck. Self control and willpower are the tools that all humans have.

It’s no good trying to blame companies.

For some people. I have never made a Dahl anyone would eat. Luckily my husband does better.

No. It's not a walk in the park for all people to cook with lentils and beans.

The whole thing is crazy. People need to be able to cook better and stop wasting money on processed junk

As a broad statement I agree with this but, as with many things, its a complex issue.

I see calls for schools to bring back proper cookery lessons. I had proper cookery lessons in the late 80s and early 90s but that's not how I learnt to cook.

My understanding of what is 'healthy' food has improved a lot over the 30+ years of adulthood I've lived so far.

When I was younger, I believed (as many did and still do) that 'calories in and out' was the only thing that mattered. I see this still being touted now all over MN and its simply not true. There is far more to it than that.

Many people don't understand how UPFs affect the body. Eg weight loss jabs work, in part, by mimicking GLP-1, which the body releases after eating to control hunger. UPFs actively disrupt the production of this so that people dont have that feeling of satiety and can/want to eat more.

The traffic light system of food labelling is limited in its usefulness because it doesn't take into account UPF ingredients/additives and looks simply at calorie, fat, salt and sugar (but not overall carb) content.

I saw an app advertised on fb the other day that claimed you could scan the barcode of foods that would give you an analysis of how healthy the food was. There were lots of comments recommending a free alternative app instead. So, just to try it out, I downloaded it and scanned a few items in my kitchen.

It gives each food item a score out of 100 and a rating of bad, poor, good and excellent in terms of whether it's a 'healthy' food or not.

However, it rated Greek yoghurt as good (with a healthy food score of 66%) but oven chips as excellent (with a healthy food score of 90%). Tomato ketchup also got an excellent healthy food rating at 84%, I think it was.

Obviously, it doesn't take into account the quantities at which people will generally eat these products or what would fill an empty stomach best but according to that app, a plate of oven chips with ketchup would be a 'healthier' option than plain Greek yoghurt generally. And, yes, i know they're not like for like food comparisons but my point is that it skews understanding of what is healthy food generally.

So someone could use that app and decide that oven chips and ketchup is a 'healthy' meal because the app states that it is. And it's better for you than Greek yoghurt (which most people would think of as good for you).

And if you drink, smoke, have a fall from a horse or a skiing accident?
Not to mention if you have a hereditary disease that can be passed on.

The use of £5 was a straw man. No one is suggesting a £5 price but you.

You assume my diet is virtuous? Why assume that?

When I smoked, I understood the justification for a tax on cigarettes even though I paid more. I also understood the justification for an indoor smoking ban even though I personally stood in the rain as a result.

These questions are not about me individually, they are about the system, the whole population, the ethics of the food companies.

Smokers and drinkers both pay targeted taxes.

They do have it forced down their necks due to the use of clever chemicals to encourage binging, colourful packaging and advertising.

The food companies are relentless at testing chemicals to hit the sweet spot especially fats. This encourages binging eg you open up a packet and you can’t stop eating through the contents.

No one should be stopped.

Cigarettes are on sale, alcohol is on sale.

Would you remove all tax from those products and transfer the health costs to the general pot?

The problem is that taxing food (or any other essential) is regressive as it costs poorer people a higher % of their income than wealthier people, so while it impacts their behaviour more, it also makes them poorer and pisses them off in the process (the drive towards renewables is a good example of this- incorporating renewables into the grid is a "good thing for society" but while it makes power more expensive for everyone it impacts poorer households more). Go ask someone who earns min wage how much a pint of milk is and they'll tell you. Ask someone who earns 200k a year and they probably wont be able to. They buy milk- they just dont care what it costs because whether its 1 quid or 4 quid doesnt make any odds to them.

There's also the question of legislative consistency which is where the sugar tax got so problematic. There are v few foods that are completely unprocessed and once you get beyond those, creating a framework that consistently taxes things you dont want people to eat based on content is difficult- eg not all high fat foods are "bad", some unprocessed foods are naturally high in fructose. There are some quick wins- could put VAT on cakes for example - but previous efforts have got completely bogged down in consistency and where's there's no consistency there's just going to be legislative challenges left right and centre.

Finally, the fact is that most of the issues with UPF are that they are a contributor to obesity (there's not a huge evidence base that eating (most) UPFs cause huge issues for people who aren't also obese- at least not enough to create an entire legislative framework to address it). Once these fat pills roll off patent obesity will probably get reduced by 50% so the problem could well just solve itself. 10 years seems a long time but it could take the government 5 years to create a consistent legislative framework for food taxation so may be better to just let it play out.

That’s just one option of millions.

A portion of chicken with some peas and quinoa is a really healthy meal as an example

You’d be surprised. I was on a Brownie holiday recently. The person doing the shopping list is very old school and every snack was sweet.

As the person doing the shopping, I rebelled and bought fruit and carrots & cucumber to make into sticks. I have a tonne of chocolate biscuits left.