Fat: A New Vice

Hey, check out these silly Brits.

Hamburgers, soft drinks and cakes could be hit with a "fat-tax" in a bid to combat Britain's growing levels of obesity, doctors said Monday.

Hmm, first, soft drinks are full of sugar, not fat. This is important because of a later quote.

But Breach said the tax would hit food manufacturers hard and have little effect on the poor.

"A fat-tax will remove food manufacturers' incentive to pump food full of fat. Instead they will fill processed foods with healthier ingredients and better selections of meat," he said.

"Fat is a cheap by-product of the meat processing industry -- they have mountains of the stuff and are desperate to use it, so they use it as cheap padding in foodstuffs," he added.

Fat's cheap? You betcha. Try comparing potato chips to Soy Crisps (Genisoy), candy bars to fresh fruit. You bet it's cheap. But what's the goal here (and forgive me, I know I have little room to criticise (proper spelling for the argument) the British government, not being a Brit and all)? It sounds like a nice, happy American scheme we all know as the vice tax.

Problem is: we all have to eat. We don't all have to drink, and we certainly don't have to smoke.

So, British government, perhaps I should send you a nice big package of Oreos. Your people still have free will, and if they, like many Americans, want to eat their way into larger sizes, there really is precious little you can (read: should) do. Oh, you could borrow a page from tobacco control and refuse to sell food to minors.

Perhaps you should move all your citizens to Colorado? Knock 'em down (er, or, up) to the rest of the states' level.

hln

Posted by hln at June 16, 2003 05:52 PM | Blogspot Blog