Right, This fat tax........

cee

Rick Chasey wrote:

Fat tax won't work as well in the UK.

It can work in Scandi because there amount of people who are properly poor are plently less.

A fat tax in the UK would be pretty regressive. Given the poor are feeling the bite of recession harder than the rest, and cheaper food is the worst offender for said fat, a fat tax would be an unecessary kick in the balls to them.

Except, thats a point I totally refute.

I do not think it has anything to do with the poor.

I stated earlier that I believe that fresh, healthy alternatives can be made and even spend less money.

It has more to do with the lazy and unimaginitive.

Maybe Jamie Oliver has a point (much as i hate to admit it) that what we should fund, is some kind of food ministry to teach people how to prepare the healthy, filling meals for little cost.

jds_1981

meanredspider wrote:

It might not be watertight but so long as a Mars Bar, takeaway kebab, bottle of Coke etc counted as "processed", it wouldn't matter if a few things slipped through the cracks.

Surely something like a shish kebab should count as unprocessed?

Bread made that morning, fresh salad, maybe a little condiment and barbecued chunks of meat with a ground spice & herb coating. Mmmm.

rick_chasey

cee wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Fat tax won't work as well in the UK.

It can work in Scandi because there amount of people who are properly poor are plently less.

A fat tax in the UK would be pretty regressive. Given the poor are feeling the bite of recession harder than the rest, and cheaper food is the worst offender for said fat, a fat tax would be an unecessary kick in the balls to them.

Except, thats a point I totally refute.

I do not think it has anything to do with the poor.

I stated earlier that I believe that fresh, healthy alternatives can be made and even spend less money.

It has more to do with the lazy and unimaginitive.

Maybe Jamie Oliver has a point (much as i hate to admit it) that what we should fund, is some kind of food ministry to teach people how to prepare the healthy, filling meals for little cost.

Poorer people eat more saturated fat.

You tax saturated fats, you're hurting the poor more.

The rest is irrelevant to the tax.

You're making some point about the way people approach food and cooking etc.

garryc

I think this 'fat tax' is going in the wrong direction. The government should en encouraging people to eat as much crap as they can stuff into their uneducated mouths. In fact if you can eat 2 burgers in one sitting you should get a free one, same with pizza, fizzy drinks etc. let's encourage gluttony, think of the benefits...

All the stupid people who can’t understand basic nutrition, healthy eating and taking what you need rather than what you want would start to become massively overweight. They would have health problems and die early, no great loss when you think about it, if you aren’t intelligent enough to stop poisoning yourself, despite all the warnings, then what use are you to the rest of society?

But the most important thing is that these people will die before they reach pensionable age, pension problem solved! Now where’s those carrots...

jamesco

Hmm, so my foie gras will be classed as 'natural' (it's just liver, after all) and not taxed? Okay, I can live with this fat tax idea, never go to KFC or McDonalds anyway...

suzyb

garryc wrote:

All the stupid people who can’t understand basic nutrition, healthy eating and taking what you need rather than what you want would start to become massively overweight. They would have health problems and die early, no great loss when you think about it, if you aren’t intelligent enough to stop poisoning yourself, despite all the warnings, then what use are you to the rest of society?.

Gee thanks.

meanredspider

garryc wrote:

All the stupid people who can’t understand basic nutrition, healthy eating and taking what you need rather than what you want would start to become massively overweight. They would have health problems and die early, no great loss when you think about it, if you aren’t intelligent enough to stop poisoning yourself, despite all the warnings, then what use are you to the rest of society?

...

So just applied eugenics? Hmm - hasn't this been tried before somewhere...? :roll:

bails87

Have we reached Godwin yet?



As for it 'hurting' the poor, as I said before, the tax is avoidable if you CHOOSE not to eat these foods. It's meant to 'hurt', otherwise it won't change behaviour.

As I (also) said before, cheap, quick meals aren't impossible to make. It's like putting a tax on cigarettes to discourage people from smoking. And then moaning that the poor smoke more so it's an unfair tax on the poor. No, it's a tax on smokers, just like this is an easily avoidable (that's the whole point, after all) tax on people who eat crap.

meanredspider

bails87 wrote:

Have we reached Godwin yet?

Oh so very close (did I get away with it...?)(I didn't mention the H or N words )

Sewinman

meanredspider wrote:

Sewinman wrote:

Define 'processing/processed'. Not easy...

It wouldn't need to be complicated and could be done by exception. ie "unprocessed" items plus certain listed "basics" (milk, cheese, flour, tea, coffee).

Unprocessed could be defined as a food type either in its natural state (fruit, veg etc) or simply mechanically altered (filleted, butchered, mince, purees etc) or with certain basic preserving processes (smoking, salting, drying) etc These items could have "negative VAT" applied to them whilst everything else would have VAT. The idea being that it was cost-neutral and incentivised the buying of unprocessed foods. All of this would just be at point of sale.

It might not be watertight but so long as a Mars Bar, takeaway kebab, bottle of Coke etc counted as "processed", it wouldn't matter if a few things slipped through the cracks.

How is a takeaway Kebab 'processed'? Even a donner is just minced up lamb.

Sewinman

bails87 wrote:

Have we reached Godwin yet?



As for it 'hurting' the poor, as I said before, the tax is avoidable if you CHOOSE not to eat these foods. It's meant to 'hurt', otherwise it won't change behaviour.

As I (also) said before, cheap, quick meals aren't impossible to make. It's like putting a tax on cigarettes to discourage people from smoking. And then moaning that the poor smoke more so it's an unfair tax on the poor. No, it's a tax on smokers, just like this is an easily avoidable (that's the whole point, after all) tax on people who eat crap.

Do you regard butter, milk and oil as easily avoidable luxuries? Or staple foods? 'Cos that is what they are proposing to tax.

bails87

Sewinman wrote:

bails87 wrote:

Have we reached Godwin yet?



As for it 'hurting' the poor, as I said before, the tax is avoidable if you CHOOSE not to eat these foods. It's meant to 'hurt', otherwise it won't change behaviour.

As I (also) said before, cheap, quick meals aren't impossible to make. It's like putting a tax on cigarettes to discourage people from smoking. And then moaning that the poor smoke more so it's an unfair tax on the poor. No, it's a tax on smokers, just like this is an easily avoidable (that's the whole point, after all) tax on people who eat crap.

Do you regard butter, milk and oil as easily avoidable luxuries? Or staple foods? 'Cos that is what they are proposing to tax.

Oil, yes. Why not grill stuff? How often do you have to deep fry anything.
Butter. Again, I have it on toast and sandwiches, not much else, what about 'low fat spread' and the like? I don't know what the proposals are around those types of things.
Milk. This does seem an odd one. Is semi/skimmed milk covered?

k1875

Sewinman wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

Sewinman wrote:

Define 'processing/processed'. Not easy...

It wouldn't need to be complicated and could be done by exception. ie "unprocessed" items plus certain listed "basics" (milk, cheese, flour, tea, coffee).

Unprocessed could be defined as a food type either in its natural state (fruit, veg etc) or simply mechanically altered (filleted, butchered, mince, purees etc) or with certain basic preserving processes (smoking, salting, drying) etc These items could have "negative VAT" applied to them whilst everything else would have VAT. The idea being that it was cost-neutral and incentivised the buying of unprocessed foods. All of this would just be at point of sale.

It might not be watertight but so long as a Mars Bar, takeaway kebab, bottle of Coke etc counted as "processed", it wouldn't matter if a few things slipped through the cracks.

How is a takeaway Kebab 'processed'? Even a donner is just minced up lamb.

Uh-uh. Elephant leg. Fact.

Sewinman

bails87 wrote:

Sewinman wrote:

bails87 wrote:

Have we reached Godwin yet?



As for it 'hurting' the poor, as I said before, the tax is avoidable if you CHOOSE not to eat these foods. It's meant to 'hurt', otherwise it won't change behaviour.

As I (also) said before, cheap, quick meals aren't impossible to make. It's like putting a tax on cigarettes to discourage people from smoking. And then moaning that the poor smoke more so it's an unfair tax on the poor. No, it's a tax on smokers, just like this is an easily avoidable (that's the whole point, after all) tax on people who eat crap.

Do you regard butter, milk and oil as easily avoidable luxuries? Or staple foods? 'Cos that is what they are proposing to tax.

Oil, yes. Why not grill stuff? How often do you have to deep fry anything.
Butter. Again, I have it on toast and sandwiches, not much else, what about 'low fat spread' and the like? I don't know what the proposals are around those types of things.
Milk. This does seem an odd one. Is semi/skimmed milk covered?

I use oil in salad dressing mainly. Presumably it would not apply to skimmed milk.

I don't agree with your smoking comparisons though, cigarettes are inherently unhealthy and thus the punitive taxation is justified. Butter and milk are not.

meanredspider

Sewinman wrote:

How is a takeaway Kebab 'processed'? Even a donner is just minced up lamb.

It's cooked when you buy it for starters. It's probably processed in some way to make it stick together too (certainly looks like it to me) but that's secondary. Cooking is probably the most basic form of processing beyond simply cutting up.

edited to add

The more common and authentic method is to stack marinated slices of lean lamb meat onto a vertical skewer in the shape of an inverted cone. The meat is cooked by charcoal, wood, cast iron, electric, or, unpreferably, gas burners. The doner stack is topped with fat (mostly tail fat),

Simple processing but processing all the same.

bearfraser

They can FAT off ,if i want to eat crap why the *&^% cant i , it my body and its not a temple..

61Sigs

I don't get the whole "it's a poor tax" thing. I've just been made redundant and I can assure you that Greggs, KFC and Chicken Cottage will not sudenly become the cornerstone of my diet, unfortunately. I can't bloody afford it.

I suspect that the whole thing is a people problem.

bails87

61Sigs wrote:

Greggs, KFC and Chicken Cottage will not sudenly become the cornerstone of my diet, unfortunately. I can't bloody afford it.

This is my point, cheap, healthy food is easy to make. When I had very little money I ate cheap stuff that was fairly healthy. Fast food is relatively expensive.

I think the idea of taxing 'unhealthy' food is good in theory, the problem comes in seeing which foods to apply it to.

Bearfraser: Calm down dear, you can still eat whatever you want.

Sewinman

meanredspider wrote:

Sewinman wrote:

How is a takeaway Kebab 'processed'? Even a donner is just minced up lamb.

It's cooked when you buy it for starters. It's probably processed in some way to make it stick together too (certainly looks like it to me) but that's secondary. Cooking is probably the most basic form of processing beyond simply cutting up.

edited to add

The more common and authentic method is to stack marinated slices of lean lamb meat onto a vertical skewer in the shape of an inverted cone. The meat is cooked by charcoal, wood, cast iron, electric, or, unpreferably, gas burners. The doner stack is topped with fat (mostly tail fat),

Simple processing but processing all the same.

So you are saying that anything that is cooked should attract VAT? What about a mung bean?

61Sigs

This is my point, cheap, healthy food is easy to make. When I had very little money I ate cheap stuff that was fairly healthy. Fast food is relatively expensive.

Absolutely, an If you get yourself organised, it's not even that time consuming.

notsoblue

61Sigs wrote:

This is my point, cheap, healthy food is easy to make. When I had very little money I ate cheap stuff that was fairly healthy. Fast food is relatively expensive.

Absolutely, an If you get yourself organised, it's not even that time consuming.

Also, its easy to stay out of debt, you just need to manage your credit cards, getting a good job is easy too, you just need to work hard at school and get into university, and raising kids? Easy peasy, not that time consuming. I don't know what all these people on benefits/in low paid jobs/with unruly kids are doing with their time when its so easy to live a perfect life!

:P

suzyb

bails87 wrote:

61Sigs wrote:

Greggs, KFC and Chicken Cottage will not sudenly become the cornerstone of my diet, unfortunately. I can't bloody afford it.

This is my point, cheap, healthy food is easy to make. When I had very little money I ate cheap stuff that was fairly healthy. Fast food is relatively expensive.

I think the idea of taxing 'unhealthy' food is good in theory, the problem comes in seeing which foods to apply it to.

Bearfraser: Calm down dear, you can still eat whatever you want.

Afaik fatty foods are seen as poor people's food because poorer people are less well educated and less well educated people tend to eat more unhealthily (as well as drink and smoke more).

jamesco

suzyb wrote:

Afaik fatty foods are seen as poor people's food because poorer people are less well educated and less well educated people tend to eat more unhealthily (as well as drink and smoke more).

When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don't want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit ‘tasty’. There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you. Let's have three pennorth of chips! Run out and buy us a twopenny ice-cream! Put the kettle on and we'll all have a nice cup of tea! That is how your mind works when you are at the P.A.C. level. White bread-and-marg and sugared tea don't nourish you to any extent, but they are nicer (at least most people think so) than brown bread-and-dripping and cold water. Unemployment is an endless misery that has got to be constantly palliated, and especially with tea, the English-man's opium. A cup of tea or even an aspirin is much better as a temporary stimulant than a crust of brown bread.

-- EB (GO)

bails87

OK.
A bit of chicken
Tin of tomatoes
Half a bag of pasta
An onion
A clove of garlic

Grill the chicken, fry the onion and garlic, pour on the tomatoes, chop up the chicken and add it in. Then cook the pasta, mix together and serve. Easy. Cheap. Quick.

I'm not pretending that everyone is a michelin starred chef.

Ffs, a baked potato and beans is healthier and cheaper than a big mac! Anyone who can't "cook" that is in real trouble!

squeeler

bails87 wrote:

OK.
A bit of chicken
Tin of tomatoes
Half a bag of pasta
An onion
A clove of garlic

Grill the chicken, fry the onion and garlic, pour on the tomatoes, chop up the chicken and add it in. Then cook the pasta, mix together and serve. Easy. Cheap. Quick.

I'm not pretending that everyone is a michelin starred chef.

Ffs, a baked potato and beans is healthier and cheaper than a big mac! Anyone who can't "cook" that is in real trouble!

I agree, it couldn't be simpler but what about someone who's parents have never cooked "properly". There are people out there who do not know what a carrot is, a 35 year old woman at my work seriously didn't know how to cook an egg! Every meal is out of a packet, tin or a takeaway.
I see fat tax as punishing people for being uneducated and poor and to me that's wrong. I prefer the carrot rather than the stick approach. The trouble is it is easier to use the stick approach and just tax the fat.

meanredspider

Sewinman wrote:

So you are saying that anything that is cooked should attract VAT? What about a mung bean?

No - if you go back to my original proposal, I'd say that there can be exceptions for basics. That said, despite having lived and worked in China for 6 months as well as quite a few other places, I wouldn't know a mung bean if it hit me in the face so can't comment specifically.

You pay VAT on cooked food "eaten in" anyway

61Sigs

notsoblue wrote:

61Sigs wrote:

This is my point, cheap, healthy food is easy to make. When I had very little money I ate cheap stuff that was fairly healthy. Fast food is relatively expensive.

Absolutely, an If you get yourself organised, it's not even that time consuming.

Also, its easy to stay out of debt, you just need to manage your credit cards, getting a good job is easy too, you just need to work hard at school and get into university, and raising kids? Easy peasy, not that time consuming. I don't know what all these people on benefits/in low paid jobs/with unruly kids are doing with their time when its so easy to live a perfect life!

:P

I'd hardly equate getting a job or getting out of debt with not living on takeways

Initialised

'Bad' food is nice because it is high in sugar, salt, fat and calories. You can't undo 4 billion years of evolution with a knee jerk reaction.

Thy trick is to tax laziness. Make any form of transport other than walking or cycling prohibitively expensive over short distances and watch the obesity crisis shift to those who can afford surgery to reverse it.

rick_chasey

Saturated fats make food cheaper since it lets the food last longer than the alternative.

Sifting out those fats also costs more.

People who are giving chat about how easy it is to razz up a fresh food alternative are missing the point.

The alternative to unhealthy food is more expensive, in either time, knowledge required, financial, or any combination.

That's why it's regressive.

You can say that the regressive nature is a cost worth having.

Having said that, the tax on ciggerettes doesn't seem to price that many people out, only reduce their purchasing power. Again, that's regressive.

Have a more equal, wealthy society, then this stuff is less relevant > which is why Denmark can do this stuff. The UK can't.

AidanR

barry_kellett99 wrote:

AidanR wrote:

have put on around 6kg of muscle and lost 8kg of fat in a year.

How do you measure this?

Body-fat measuring scales. Roughly confirmed by a mirror.

--

Saturated fat isn't inherently bad for you, a point made in this delightfully cheesy clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8WA5wca ... r_embedded

Basically, they're taxing a myth. And because it will encourage companies to replace saturated fat with industrial vegetable oils, it will actually damage health. Winner.