to think that the amounymt of junk food in the supermarkets is f*cking RIDICULOUS

[sallyseton]

whole AISLES dedicated to sweets, chocolate, crisps, cakes, biscuits etc!!! is sthere something wrong here or is it just me?

no wonder half the country's fat if every time we go shopping we're bombarded with all this. packaging is often designed to be most appealing to children, too.

there's an argument that supermarkets promote this food as unlike say, a potato, these foods do not go off quickly. so it is more profitable for them.

i am not a food nazi, i like chocolate etc as much as anyone else, i just think the choice on display is ridiculous and we all as a country probably eat too much of it.

there's a very good argument that says that if you want cake or something, you should make it yourself. that way you can see what goes into it (and no additives or preservatives) but because of the hassle involved it really will be a treat. i might try it.

oh, and nefore anyone flames me over using the word "junk" food, yes i do believe that the kind of preservative filled crisps etc you find at the supermarket are junk food, almost no nutritional value, unlikely to fill even the smallest
child up, abd the packaging will be thrown away and fester away in the earth, certainly not biodegradable.

i do feed my child crisps btw, but the
slightly healthier "baked" ones, and i am certainly not
judging anyone, feed your child anything you damn well please i just dont think we should have such a surfeit of crap in the supermarket!

ps i bought some light mayonnaise yesterday, it had a little sticker on it saying it was a good source of omega 3 and 6. MAYONNAISE!!! you have to be f*cking kidding me. these food companies are all damn immoral liars.

The businesses are there to meet a demand - otherwise the shops / takeaways close down.

I agree we have a very odd view of food in this country and our relationship with food on the whole is a bit bizzare.

The high streets and supermarkets have changed to meet those demands so it is about personal responsibility and choice. But we also need to recognise it and legislation or social engineering in setting minimum prices or the amount of 'crappy' food an outlet can sell is not the way.

Need to improve how engage the children and education is the way - the stuff Jamie O did on school dinners was I believe the right way to go. Many children in this country just don't know where food comes from e.g. pork is from Tesco (not a pig) etc.

i'd just also like to point out that this isn't necessarily about fat people! sure, you eat too much, you get fat, but there are some skinny people out there who eat nothing but rubbish! its about health

"but there are some skinny people out there who eat nothing but rubbish! its about health"

I think the countrys problems stem from a lack of local veg shops. Our local shops consist of cafes, pubs (inc gastropubs), a couple of takeaways (burgers, chinese) varius random shops, and

one newsagents, which sells lots of said junk, plus a couple of sorry looking veg/fruit, shrink wrapped on a polystyrene tray. How is anyone without a car supposed to eat a balanced diet?

As for ingredients.. ahaha! (wots ingridents?)

ahh sorry toccanfudge, didnt mean to make you feel bad! just wanted to make sure this didnt turn into a thread about fat people as opposed to supermarkets. i'm sure you're doing fine, lord knows none of us are perfect!

some of the food in the cake/ biscuit/ sweet aisle is very good (yummy chocolate cookies, delicious victoria sponge ...>slobber

that's ok sally - I meant to add a and a in there as well.

Can't wait for the day I get my appetite back and I can sit down with the DS's and enjoy some nice home cooked food

In the mean time so I don't disappear into nothing I'll just eating crap (when I remember I haven't eaten)

OP - I agree that there is too much crap stuff but don't see it as the supermarkets responsibility to say what I can / can't have.

I also like choice and quite often will visit 3 different supermarkets in one week as well as small shops if need to. Tend to prefer to do smaller shops than a few big ones.

The French still tend to go daily to the shops to buy bread - seem to have a different attitude than we do when buy bread that has the attribute of staying 'fresh' the longest.

Do like French supermarkets too and probably they have less crap maybe than the UK ones but not that markedly.

Let's not forget that junk food is made up largely of fats, sugar, salt & refined carbohydrates all of which can be highly addictive substances in the body individually, let alone together!

Just as we expect retailers & manufacturers to behave responsible when selling tobacco & alcohol, so they should be when selling foods, especially highly processed, addictive and potentially health ruining foods. At least the NHS gets funded via tax on tobacco & alcohol (whether that is right or wrong is another debate)but whilst these products are putting increasing pressure on the NHS, the companies make huge profits without contributing to the cost of the health issues they are causing.

I hope the traffic light labelling system gets through the EU legislation process - I think it's today. It's a simple & clear message on the front of packages & gives the food producers something to think about - who's going to be happy putting all red on their 'harmless' product.

Yes personal responsibility is all well & good, but processed food companies are very good at manipulating products & consumers. They have been shown to make healthier changes when pushed to do so by customers/governments (lowering salt levels recently, Hellmans & M&S using free range eggs only for example) but won't make changes unless pressured to do so, or by legislation.

So YANBU & I hope more changes for the better are to come.

As aware individuals we also need to ensure we are aware enough to know Hellmans claim to contain Omega 3 etc is absolute rubbish - they should stick with the "we've switched to free range eggs" claim, which although a long time coming is a great leap forward for such a huge food manufacturer.

And while many of us may be absolutely brilliant at reading every label etc, and buying products that are healthy you have to accept that a huge proportion of the population are much less aware. It seems none of the posters here are living on the crap, but clearly someone is & going by percentage of shelf space dedicated to processed foods its well over 50% of the population. It's in everyone's interest for the population as a whole to eat better as we'll all end up paying the price by increased health costs via NHS as years of living on crap takes it's toll on the UK population in so many (very expensive) ways.

@minipie - agreed, education is most definitely the solution. But education takes a while - sometimes a very long while - before it really has an affect, especially with fairly major changes to do with lifestyle, literacy etc. In the meantime...what to do?

This is slightly off topic, but in Reykjavik in Iceland booze costs a FORTUNE and there's only two, government-sponsored (maybe even government run?) off licenses you can your booze from in the city. They had problems with alcoholism and presumably they are educating their citizens about the dangers and long term effects of alcohol abuse, but in the mean time...clamp down. And it seems to be working. Likewise Glasgow city council brought in a similar thing banning happy hours and all day drinks promotions to limit reckless drinking encouraged by 2-for-1 offers etc.

So, ok, Tesco et al shouldn't have to ban junk food but maybe they shouldn't devote quite so much store space to it, or the number of offers they can have on it in any one week should be limited?

I don't know what the solution is really but it does seem to be a problem and chucking Jamie Oliver at school dinners and limiting the amount of junk food advertising during kids tv programs doesn't seem to be fixing it so far...

YABU - just don't go down those aisles.

I shop in a big Tesco's regularly but reckon I only go down about a quarter of the aisles - completely avoid all the crap.

It's a free world and we make out own choices.

And if you think our supermarkets are bad - go to America!

i think the whole cause of obesity is way more complex than simply what supermarkets sell. there are far too many examples of people who eat healthy food but gain weight, or people who eat crap and stay skinny (in fact, some kids raised on junk food just fail to develop and grow properly).

there are social/psychological reasons. there time constraints. there's the lack of exercise from doing housework/hard manual labour. there's more cars. there's medical conditions, there's a fat gene and an unfit gene.

yes, it is quite shocking that so much space is given to junk food, but that stuff can sit there for months, so it doesn't matter, it's effectively storage on display.

and let's not forget, one of the reasons for increased longevity is better food. 'back in the day' people couldn't afford meat more than once a week, couldn't afford fresh fruit/veg unless they grew it themselves. food used to be 1/3 of the family's budget, and a serious issue of whether parents could feed the kids properly. (it's why cake isn't taxed, cos it was a staple needed to feed kids, otherwise they didn't get enough calories). supermarkets aren't great, but they have achieved some things which we now take for granted.

I still don't see what is "unethical" about selling junk food. Individual items are not inherently dangerous - they'd be banned if they were - and nor is it that case that they can't be (a small) part of a healthy diet/exercise regime.

The problem is over-consumption of junk food (and lack of exercise) and I don't see how supermarkets or advertisers can be held responsible for either. If the state is to play a role then it should be in terms of better education - both of healthy eating/labelling issues and the ability to read/understand the labels in the first place, if necessary.

"Individual items are not inherently dangerous - they'd be banned if they were"

Ok, I know what you mean and I take your point that a couple of mars bars aren't going to kill anyone. God knows I'd be six feet under by now if they could lol

But it's not like the government ban stuff that's actually bad for us - cigarettes, alcohol, knives, solvents, junk food. All for sale in the supermarkets!!

Don't know whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, I do agree individual choice plays a bit part in things, but I think huge supermarket chains do need to take some responsibility for marketing all this crap to death with their two for one offers etc etc

hmm, it's difficult isn't it.

part of the issue with restrictions/taxes is, how do you decide what is "unhealthy" food and so should be restricted/more expensive.

for example is butter unhealthy? Yes it's high fat but it is natural. Is low fat marge unhealthy? It's low fat but has fake ingredients. Etc.

also, while junk food causes health issues, it doesn't generally cause accidents, violence, family breakdown etc in the same way that alcohol can... so there isn't quite the same justification for state restrictions.

also, I worry that if the state applies restrictions, that will only encourage people to think "if it's not banned then it must be ok" and not really apply their own mind to whether it's healthy or not.

I do think the focus has to be on education - even if that is slow.

Perhaps as a middle way we could put a tax on ingredients such as hydrogenated fats, E numbers, MSG, xanthan gum?

it's the colourful cartoon packaging for the crappiest food that kills me - sugary cereals, monster munch crisps, ice pops etc

of course kids look at it and want it, it's aimed right at them!!!

Minipie

I do agree - a tax on the ingredients that cause much of the problems and a huge red sticker on the foodstuffs containing the worst offenders. I think many people would think twice if they saw a red sticker on every other item in their trolley and an increase in the shopping bill.

I just don't go down the crisp/sweet aisle.
Mind you, I'm still a porker.

What is really pissing me off at the minute, is the supermarkets campaigning so hard against the 'traffic light' system of food labelling, saying "Ooh, customers might get confused and think they're not supposed to eat the ones with red all over them"
Well, no, actually, if I want a cream doughnut, then I expect the red marking, but it might give me pause for thought if it appeared on the kids' breakfast cereal. Which is what they're really worried about.

By the way, mayonnaise is mostly oil, and omega 3 and 6 are oils, so it would certainly be possible to create a mayo that was a good source of them.

I agree that it's easy to not walk down the biscuit or crisps aisle. I also agree that people have a choice to buy a tomato rather than a jammy dodger. Yet they don't.

Education? Forget it. Five a day? Don't patronise me. My doctor's surgery is full of helpful posters telling me how to feed my kids. Try avoiding crisps, thay say... FFS. Everyone, every single person in the country, illiterate, poor, immigrant, they all know that mars bars, crisps, take-aways, coke, cakes are not good for you. We all know. The government ought to stop wasting money telling us over and over again.

I am afraid it's a lost cause. People just don't care, do not have respect for themselves, give in to either their own cravings or the demands of their children. There is nothing left to do but to look after your own.

And I don't mean starving yourself or having no treats. Quite to the contrary in fact... If you eat really strong flavours, really delicious foods, you do not have to eat much to be satisfied with the flavour hit. Dairy milk chocolate, biscuts and mild cheddar are mostly flavourless except for the fat or sugar hit many people have been trained to crave. Substitute a couple of small squares of 70% dark chocolate for that mars bar. Grate a small amount of strong parmigiano on your (wholemeal) pasta rather than smothering it in tasteless cheddar. Drinking one glass of fine wine rather than six beers is cheaper and more satisfying. Making ice-cream at home, you can control the sugar content, and pack it with flavour from fresh strawberries, raspberries, rhubarb. Make your own sorbet.

Your DCs will have a world of fabulous flavours on the table every day, and will delight in helping you to make all these "treats", and eventually, they will find the stuff most people call treats bland and unappealing.

DW can't cook for shit, and as I was away the other night, she opened the freezer, whereupon DS wailed, "No mummy, not fish fingers and chips!"

It's all possible. It just takes a little imagination, a little discipline, and a love of flavour to get it right.

As for the people buying 12-packs of walkers for their slovenly offspring at Iceland? Forget them, we can't save everyone.

"I avoid HUGE supermarkets though, never go to Tesco, and generally use Ocado - shit food is pretty easy to avoid."

Yah, yah, abslootely - if you can afford Ocado's prices, or to buy easy meals like cottage pies from M&S because you want a night off.

If you were living on £50 a week and had two kids, would you think "shit food is pretty easy to avoid" then? When a loaf of cheap, pulpy white bread costs 50p, but an organic wholemeal one costs £1.20? Etc, etc, etc?

There are so many different problems I think the situation is impossible to tackle.

For a start, junk food is cheaper than fresh. One punnet of strawberries, £1.99. Five doughnuts, 99p.

Junk food is downright easier than buying and preparing things from scratch.

Supermarket shopping is seen as a leisure activity. This one always makes me . Why oh why? If perchance you were to happen on our local Asda at the weekend, you would see whole family groups going round - mum, dad, gran, kids... And they're all piling up trolleys with mega pizzas and huge sacks of crisps, cider, orange squash - and all brand names, too. And they appear to be enjoying the experience. Enjoying!! Going round buying from a list which includes such exciting things as lentils and broccoli just isn't going to float a lot of people's weekend boat.