All the foods the Scottish Government plan to make more expensive

[DinnaeFashYersel]

The SNP are about to wage war on the popadom.

Poverty is rampant, NHS and education are in crisis but our government are concentrating on increasing the price of porridge.

In addition the ban on promotions of food our great leaders deem unhealthy they are also going to restrict practices in restaurants

No more ice cream factory puddings for your kids at Pizza Hut or complimentary prawn crackers with your Chinese

In hotels you can still have a buffet breakfast and eat as many sausages and eggs as you like but only one pastry each.

@SirChenjins exactly what I was trying to word but maybe didn’t come across so well!

It's only cheaper really if you are needing packed lunches for the week or will use the makings for other things.

I'd also argue that having a sandwich or whatever with a not so healthy side and drink once a week is better than having a full pack of those unhealthy things in the house and consuming them over the week even if that worked out cheaper.

I'm not against trying to divert people away from making unhealthy choices at all, but doing that in isolation without making healthy choices more affordable and providing grass roots support on education/cooking etc is simply a waste. It's not just about food addiction which starts in childhood, it's about budget constraints and lack of knowledge and lack of choice.

SNP have got a nerve trying to dictate anything to do with diet when the food that they directly control, school meals, is a national disgrace and they should be thrown out of govt for this alone let alone all the other monstrously damaging policies and poor governing they inflict on us. The meals at my son's high school just got overhauled, they added new choices ... At break time, chicken burgers, at lunch hotdogs and fizzy canned juice. At primary school hotdogs were also on the menu and packed lunches included yoghurts with 17g of sugar, bread which would have survived an apocalypse with the amount of sugar and preservatives (which also made it inedible) and mouldy apples.

The SNP should turn the spotlight on themselves instead of trying to control shoppers. It takes 11-13 years for Scotland's children to complete the education system (that the SNP hasmostly ruined), but why not harness that time and teach great habits while feeding the kids good food. It's not that complicated. It doesn't all have to be free, it needs to be free for those who need it. Why not spend money on a national school meals improvement program instead of making new laws which will have no positive impact.

Because making new laws keeps them in jobs - endless committees to come up with something that will have very little impact on health and which shifts the responsibility away from them.

They could try making new laws around things that would have an impact - like ensuring children with disabilities get the support they need.

Snowyhillhorizon at our high school, if children don’t have options they like in school (and even if they do) they go out into the community to buy lunch. Meal deals are often cheaper than school offerings (‘main meals’ in the canteen often have huge queues too). Given the food purchases I see them make in the local shops, remove the meal deals and teenagers won’t buy a healthy salad, they may just buy a bigger bag of crisps.

I was thinking about this today when I was doing my supermarket shop so I will take the liberty of sharing my musings.

If you make a packed lunch at home with mass-produced bread, even one of the more healthy ones like a branded, seeds one, it still counts as an ultra processed food. Especially if you make it with say, ham or another processed meet. Your average packed lunch is still fairly processed. Add in some mayonnaise - more processed food.

Okay, so I usually make myself a salad with falafels or lentils or something to bulk it out, not sandwiches. Falafels might also count as ultra processed, depending which brand you buy. The Cauldron ones have a use by date of a week, the other brand (cannot remember if) had a use by date of three weeks. That must be full of preservatives. And supermarket bought mayo is a no-no - full of fat and highly processed.

So to make myself a healthy packed lunch, I need to bake my own bread and make my own falafels and mayo or buy bread and falafels from an artisan bakery/deli (ie have either more money or more time). I shouldn’t be buying these things in Tesco either. So I am not sure how my meal deal is much worse than what I would be using at home. (Okay, it’s environmentally worse because of the single-use packaging).

I’m so sick of these fuckers.

That’s the upf issue all over isn’t it, preservatives exist to make food last longer because most people shop once a week and have very little time Monday to Friday. Breakfast clubs don’t dish out non upf porridge oats generally because of burn risk, limited facilities, so they must mostly dish out upf bread and cereal.

leaving the side the issue of trying to get most kids to eat plain porridge with fruit…

so more more would need to be done than simply sticking tax on ‘unhealthy’ food to enable people to have the time’ money, skills and energy to manage good choices.