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.

My concern would be having to rely on prescriptions.

(Sorry not picking on op but using as an example. )

This perception is part of the issue. Food is expensive- Yes.
A lot of food that is sold to us as healthy is expensive- Yes
Cheap food that is readily available and healthy is demonised. - think about the humble potato.

On top of that, People luck basic cooking skills. They are afraid/ unable to cook something with a few basic ingredients.

I learnt to cook when I had DC and took it further when I was made redundant and subsequently stayed at home until youngest was around 6yo. Thats when I discovered that cooking non UPF i& veggie is a hell of a lot cheaper. Cheap enough to discover that I can afford organic quality meat once or twice a week. It's also cheaper because you eat less volume, as not pupmed full of air and water.. It has been a long journey and it wasn't always easy but we as a family feel so much more healthy and better for it.

Most of the quinoa available in Europe is shipped from South America, so at a food miles level is a shocking choice to make. Growing it for export also contributes to deforestation. So it'd be better for the planet to stick to oats and barley grown in the UK ;)

The nhs knows all this. They contract it all themselves. No one forces them to buy certain things, THEY procure every single item themselves from the toilet roll to furnishings to drugs. Everything is decided from the top tier and that’s where the money is being wasted. Clinical
Governance doesnt exist when it comes to
spending money in the nhs.

The UPF’s are generally popular because they taste good, they’re affordable and they are quick/easy/convenient. We live in a world now where there are more single parent households, where there are significantly less SAHP’s than there were a few decades ago - without someone at home all day, it’s a lot harder to find the time and energy to produce a fully home cooked meal every day. So people rely on products to help them.

I'll be honest, I don't think they taste good. Some of them leave a really unpleasant aftertaste.

But I also.wanted to say that I see this a lot in relation to food - the idea that people don't know how to cook or it's related to poverty (both financial and time).

I was a single parent when my children were young and worked full time. So I didnt have a lot of time or money. I couldn't cook when my eldest was born.

So I learnt. And I prioritised cooking healthy food from scratch because it was important to me that my children ate healthy food. So I prioritised how I spent my time and money around food based on that.

Some of the biggest consumsers of UPFs that I personally know are families that are financially well off enough to have a parent stay home/work part time (even though our children are now university age) who choose UPFs because they can afford to and like to have plenty of snacks and 'treats' available.

I remember having it drummed into me as a child that 'you are what you eat'. We've always known it was important to eat a healthy, well balanced diet but some people don't prioritise it and some people just can't be arsed.

Not everyone who eats a poor diet is limited on time, funds or has a child with SEND.

The “but it’s cheaper per calorie so that’s why we can’t stop buying it” argument is really nonsense.

For starters, it’s not just poor people who buy UPFs and high sugar products. Plenty of the middle class do too.
Secondly, water is always cheaper than soft drinks yet supermarket aisles are filled with them.
Thirdly, we are extremely overweight as a nation (even and especially among low income families) so it’s not like people are desperately needing cheap calories. Less calories is fine, actually.

I would love to hear from NHS chief execs as to how the appalling food in some hospitals comes about.
I have been in 2 hospitals, York and Scarborough. In the former after I had a baby they were giving me leaflets about the importance of a high fibre diet after childbirth and no options other than cheese sandwich on white bread. In the latter there was freshly made vegetable soup at the start of each meal. Same NHS trust.

No-one thinks about price per calorie though, I don't think it's as relevant here as the price per unit of alcohol scheme in Scotland. It's far more complex with food. I agree about shops though.

I think the way to tackle this isn't in the supermarkets, it's far too late in habit formation. It's a fact that obesity and poor health goes hand in hand with poverty. A quick look at the PHOF data will tell you that https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile/public-health-outcomes-framework

Bring back all the Sure Start centres, support and educate parents when their children are tiny. Teach primary school children about nutrition. Teach them more at secondary school. When I was at school we learned about balanced diets and the nutritional needs of different ages/sexes, cooking on a budget etc. Most importantly we learned how to cook. Our DC did 'food tech' and it was laughably awful.

For adults the government should fund initiatives like Jamie Oliver's, teaching then to cook from scratch, quick and nutritious food.

No-one thinks about price per calorie though

Some people do. My partner used that exact phrase before we moved in togther and he was a bit 🤔 at the thought of an increased food bill (and fewer calories!) for better food.

Teach primary school children about nutrition.

It's already on the primary curriculum from EYFS onwards.

But schools and primary aged children have very little control over what parents choose to feed them at home. Schools can teach the theory but the practice is taught elsewhere.

Just make people pay for their healthcare

The issue is choice. People choose to eat crap because they think its more flavoursome and its definitely easier to prepare. But its actually not cheaper in a lot of cases. I buy my veg and fruit at Aldi - its cheap. I’ve cut back on meat and processed meat. Saves a lot of money. I try to eat freshly made food. Yes it takes slightly more time but not that much to be honest. But that’s because I choose to do that. Many people can’t be arsed frankly, and then complain about being overweight and having chronic health issues. So yes, tax the crap. Educate about easy cooking of fresh food. And make it clear that we are all responsible for what goes in our bodies and how it impacts our health.

Our governments allowed the food industry free reign, then the supermarkets/shops. There wasn't public information. Again children centers and other community groups would offer cookery lessons, are now gone. We let food be about weight and what's fashionable. There was nothing wrong with the chicken/pork casseroles my generation cooked, padded out with heart healthy beans (butter/haricott/cannelloni) or pules. Likewise cottage/shepherds pie, padded out with lentils, occasionally rabbit with barley, or our local dish Scouse. Lentil etc soups, all cheap and filling. We demonised bread and potatoes, but none of the working class were fat on them in the 70s and poorer kids had lard on toast.

Poverty is linked to obesity because a certain combination of fat and sugar light up our brains. They are the new addictions. The food industry know what to put in the £1 pizzas to make us crave more. We moved away from tea. Admittedly my eldest was given tea, milk, no sugar, she had better teeth than the children having the ribena/juice that was being pushed in the 80s. Black/Rooibos tea is naturally anti inflammatory, I grew up drinking it because my father was South African, but affording a coffee became a status symbol, then part of our lives.
Tax on sugar drinks has just made them rubbish for mixers. We need guidance in schools, cookery lessons, community involvement and public health campaigns. I want to do Mexican cooking at my local college but it's £180. Yes, there's YouTube, but it hasn't been great. Our local housing provider ran cookery lessons and gave out a free slow cookery or air fryer, but only for tenants or over 55s, not families. Also I don't want recipes with canned soups instead of ingredients and needing to have fancy mixers. If you have a big kitchen, you can have gadgets, but when I did cookery, we called our, rice/soup etc maker, a big pan. Our mixers were a big bowl and wooden spoon/metal whisk. There's responsibility on the industry and government/councils.

@soddingspiderseason it isn't that they think it's more flavoursome, what's in the food, the fat and sugar, activate the striatum and the mesolimbic reward system in the brain. When you haven't got other rewards going on, a £2 pizza is a cheap hit.

I agree, shouting for basic life skills to be taught in schools is always popular but the reality is a few hours of food at school is drowned in the everyday experience at home. Home is where we learn to eat and to prepare and cook food.

@Noras Fruit, veg, legumes, raw ingredients are already tax free whilst cakes, crisps, fizzy drinks and takeaways are already taxed. If you are going to call for wide ranging, complex and intrusive legislation into peoples’ lives its a good idea to check your basic facts first.

I completely agree.

A lot of home made, cooked from scratch food is actually freezable! Yes, it looses some of the texture and often draws water due to the absence of binding agents and other chemicals.

But I can produce a decent freezer ready meal in the time it takes to boil some pasta!
But, that's the skills & knowledge that sadly so many people are lucking. (I found out by trail & error and of course Dr Google.)

Yet supermarkets have huge areas devoted for fruit and veg, fresh meat and dairy products, some even have fresh fish counters alongside butchery counters. Fruit and veg areas are usually the first thing people see/walk past on entry.

It's definitely more that shoppers want to buy the ultra processed crap stuff because most seem to walk straight through the fresh fruit and veg areas almost seeing it as an annoying obstacle to get past without buying anything!

Rather than blame food manufacturers and supermarkets, how about we properly educate the general public, preferably by making cookery lessons fit for purpose in schools. Also start imposing consequences, i.e. charges for GP and NHS appointments/treatments. Bring back personal responsibility - no one holds a gun to someone's head to buy a multipack bag of crisps instead of a pack of apples or oranges (which are usually cheaper!!).

Lots of "crap" is already subject to 20% VAT, i.e. chocolate bars, crisps, fizzy drinks (also liable to the sugar tax). No VAT on fresh fruit and veg, fresh meat or fish, milk, bread etc.

My mistake, I'm in Scotland where prescriptions are free.

Maybe if this was a public health measure those diagnosed with problems could have exemptions.

They are free for children under 16 but my concern would be having to rely on it to feed my child.

My son also doesn't have an ARFID diagnosis at this time. He is under a dietician but it can be very difficult for it to be diagnosed.

The problem unfortunately is deep rooted and cultural. This means it’s not something that can be easily fixed by schools - they are worse than many families with their daily desserts, croissants on “french day”, teachers who bring in sweets at the end of the year etc.

In fact, I would say the first step would be in reforming the schools so there’s no dessert except plain yoghurt and fruit, and no commercially produced frozen fish fingers etc. Teachers shouldn’t be allowed to bring in food and kids shouldn’t bring in cupcakes on their birthdays.

Culturally, I would love to see the practice of offering other people’s children junk food without the express permission of their parents to become heavily stigmatised. It’s not kindness, it’s self indulgent and harmful. This especially annoys me because my child has allergies and i feel bad for her having adults regularly offering her things she can’t have, however she is nearly always offered crap and it’s just really shitty behaviour to ply children with junk food for no reason.

This is it, really.

I batch cook staples like ragu/bolognese; curry; chilli; soups; etc to go into the freezer every few weeks. All from scratch. No jars, no spice mixes etc.

I also freeze fresh meat in portion sizes I'll need. Sometimes I cook chicken breasts and freeze them diced, or freeze left over chicken from a roast to be used later.

If I fancy trying a new recipe, I always check to see if it's freezable and make double.

A chicken carcass goes into the slow cooker to make bone broth so we don't buy stock.

And then just cook fresh veg, or make guacamole or whatever I need to do whilst its reheating.

There are so many resources online now that it's actually really easy to learn to cook.

We can see what has happened in the U.S. why would we want to follow in their footsteps. I don't think 'time' to make fresh food is relevant. I used to think this but the reality is most people could spend less time on their phone and peel a few carrots and potatoes. The mindset is strange to me, we can see where this leads to and take action now. Sometimes you have to take some responsibility for yourself and your children and stop expecting others to do it for you!

Any surcharge gets passed on by the business to the people using the product. So I guess you could make them stop but there is a lot to be said for people taking personal responsibility for their lives

It’s not an education problem- everyone knows processed food isn’t healthy.
however, big corporations have been allowed to produce ‘food’ which is highly addictive. The brain has a reaction to the combination of sugar, fat, salt etc. They are purely designed for over consumption.
These companies should be treated the same as tobacco companies. No adverts, sponsorship etc. High tax, warnings on packets.
you can’t really blame individuals- it’s as if we’ve filled the shops with heroin then say ‘ don’t buy that’.