Greetings!

As a lover of junk food (or would you say "sinner?), who just had a Big Mac, Fries, and a Diet Coke for supper, I'm a "neigh" sayer.  Only because I don't know who, or how, would determine what is junk food and what isn't.  What I consider junk food may be different than you.

Hope, peace, joy, love . . .

 beloved: 

a hint for you. What you ate for supper is DEFINITELY junk food. heehee.

In the US, they could tax much of the junk food simply by taxing HFCS (high fructose corn syrup).   Because HFCS is made of corn, it is heavily subsidized and very cheap.

I am really, really, really tired of Big Brother types trying to force me into their mould. It seems that Lefties are so self-righteous that they feel their opinions should be enforced by law while the opinions of Righties should be called hatemongering.

Don't try to legislate my diet!  These lefties are really the mirror images of religious fundamentalists. Both groups want their beliefs and prejudices enforced by law.

I am fat. I like being fat and I love myself very much. Please keep your self righteous hatemongering to yourselves!

Oh yeah - I know it's only for my own good - Stuff it!

My wanting tax on HFC has an ulterior motive; in the US it has largely replaced real sugar in almost everything -- and it sucks.  Higher price HFC would allow price supported sugar to become competitive with subsidised HFC.

Hey SLJ - as devil's advocate... We all know that statistically speaking, diseases and illnesses related to obesity cost tax payers a great deal of money every year.  What do we do to fund obesity health care??? And I am glad that you love yourself!   BTW, I speak as someone who has been obese all her life!

Over half of medicine is related to the lifestyle of the patient. Where do you draw the line?  My knees were wrecked when I was a jock. The doctors kept saying it was "jogger's knee" but it was really osteoarthritis. Athletic injuries are a major part of medicine. Should we raise the  health premiums of athletes?

Many diseases attributed to overweight have it backward. Overweight is a result of the disease not the cause. I was a diabetic with sleep apnea when I weighed 80 lbs less than I do now and  was all muscle. I got big because I couldn't exercise anymore without severe pain. Eating is one of the few joys left to me.

For some reason it is OK to harass and discriminate against big people where it would be unlawful to do the same acts to those with other disabilities (Granted - tobacco addicts and the mentally ill get treated worse in different ways). The laws aren't the same for all.

I was also diagnosed with severe sleep apnea when I was quite muscular and not overweight; 1.9 meters, ~85 kg, broad shoulders, 32" waist, and 18" neck.  I probably had sleep apnea when I was in my early teens, but none of the doctors that I went to at the time (late 1960's-early 1970's) knew anything about sleep apnea.  My mom took me or sent me to doctor after doctor; she was concerned because I would stop breathing for long periods of time while I slept.

I developed fibromyalgia a few years ago and I now weigh 130 kg.  Fibro has caused me to lose all interest in exercise because it now hurts to move.  I now hurt all of the time and have to take opioids just to be able to move.  I used to enjoy puttering around the house; painting, doing electrical work, plumbing, repairing things; or even renovating a bathroom or kitchen -- I now dread doing anything around the house.
 
Edit:   Add my apologies for ranting.
 

That's a profound loss, IDM.  Life isn't the same when everything hurts. 

I have osteoarthritis, and wake up in pain from head to toe every day.  At least some of it gets worked out once I'm up and about,.  My work doesn't help as it's all repetive and that makes for more wear and tear.  Do you have exercises?  I need to be more diligent than I am with this.

Anyway, I was going to comment on the pop being cheaper than milk. 

Instead of punishing people for their choices, why don't they make it easier to eat healthy by subsidizing things like milk, vegetables, fruit, beans and whole grains?

When broccolli is $2.50 in the winter, that represents a good chunk of the food budget if you are low income. Also, good food box service should be expanded to more communities and subsidized, if necessary. 

 Out of season vegetables have to be transported a long way, which frequently means that they are picked before they are ripe and that they have to sit for several days before being put out for sale at your supermarket.  

I understand that canned and frozen vegetables can be as healthy or even more healthy than out of season vegetables, and they are much cheaper.

I don't know how it works in Canada, but in the US, milk prices are kept artificially high with milk price supports.  The US also does the same thing with sugar, this is why most manufactured food in the US is made with HFCS rather than sugar.

I never considered dry beans to be especially expensive.  Black beans are especially healthy beans.  I think that many people don't know how to cook or use dry beans.

Whole grains could be a problem because many people don't know how to use or do not like whole grains.  Whole grains are also more difficult to store.  From what I have seen, more well off people tend to go for true whole wheat bread, but less well off people tend to go for the white bread -- and it isn't always because of the price.

I wonder if education might also help because many people don't know how to use many foods that are healthy yet inexpensive.  My mom used to make things like great northern bean soup with ham hocks -- which was VERY cheap to make and quite healthy if you didn't look at the pork fat too closely (she cut much of the fat from the meat and skimmed off most of the fat from the top of the soup).  She also made bread from stone ground whole wheat flour; it was not inexpensive, but it was very nutritious.

It might work.  Does anyone know if the sin taxes on cigarrettes have changed the habits of smokers?

A tax on trans fats make sense.

I'm not trying to tell anyone how to "live their life" - we have socialized health care and the facts are that - in most cases - people who eat more trans fats cost the health care system more. Of course there are exceptions. Not all people who don't wear seat belts get hurt in accidents, but it helps keep costs down, so it is a finable offence to be caught without one.

This issue seems very sensitive to some - but let's look at it reasonably. Many junk food producers use subsidised products, making the cost ridiculously low compared to healthy alternatives. Why should it cost someone MORE to eat healthy than to eat junk? There is a problem with our food selections - mass produced foods filled with perservatives and artificial products are causing health problems. Its time that the producers be enticed to offer healthier options by increasing the cost of selling junk. Your laissez-faire attutude toward health SLJ, is skewed. Your diet is already legislated; it is favoured toward profit for the large corporations intead of health for the public. So don't think that just because I'm concerned that your wreckless choices will end up costing everyone, and that I'm concerned that your diet choices will lower your quality of life, that I'm trying to "control you". I just think that you should pay extra for putting yourself at risk. The same way smokers pay extra for their health risks, the same way people who don't wear seat belts pay for their health risks, and the same way that drivers pay for the roads by way of gas taxes.

Sorry - I get sensitive when people get all "lefty-righty". Let's call a spade a spade, and not start tacking it to political ideologies which are laden with predetermined negative values. We can discuss this issue with anyone accusing anyone else of being a communist or a captialist.

The US heavily subsidises corn production, which means that corn is very prevalent in American prepared foods.  It is totally amazing what is done to and with corn; it is a sweetener, an oil, a side dish, a flour, a motor fuel, a thickener, a livestock food, an alcoholic beverage, and it is the basis for a large array of snack foods.    Corn is not an especially healthy food to begin with, and the way that it is normally used in the US; it is a junk food.

Perhaps it is all in the syntax ... how you say it to a mortal creature that thinks heh (Heb; hole space) knows what's good for themselves and in essense ... doen't know nothing! Nothing is expression of the sol of God ... non-sense to most mortals if you tried to explain to them the relativity of the two hemispheres of the sol ... Black Bowls/boules ... duality of unknowns!

We are told to feed the infinite nature: sheep, lambs and goats in old syntax but a lot is wasted in the transcendance ... do we care for the fringe?

Is God fixed or evolving, a revelational or distinctly rebellious nature of the other side of God? It has to make a powerful mind wander ... Judaic mist in some projections. Idylll cause Eros in a wilderness!

Do you know where your emotions come from? Ides good to investigate b' times, then some do not consider the binomial theorem as biblical. Please explain the forth book of the meuse, often referred to as mos or Moses, collective thoughts! It is a fore thought just prior to Deuteronomy if you can catch the duality there ... the Deuce or Duke?

Did the command say to love the enemy, even the portion that went against our primal desires and made us think of it? Then how many mortals understand the nature of the sol? I know I don't as the a'dam thing is just too big and expansive thing in a cos mos ... an alternate way of thinking away from God ... prodigal sun, or just a brother in an incestuous space where everything is intimate like thoughts and emotions ...

Is that confusing as the waters of Babylon ... like a loving creation bought into this realm without a thought ... ohminous, resistace to change? Idyll change, give it time and patience, time and tide will overcome all m'n as a non-sect-ante literary device that'll wash and be drawn out into a thind line ... like Rae Hab on the Wahl ... the real one in command. When she left that dividing line ... what happened? Fall into the divine abyss! Isn't that God at the limits and God is love? It stretches the imagination of the hard m'n! Go stuff it m'dam ... Idyll catch up with yah, everything is realtivistic ... particularly God if you don't keep an Ai over the imfinite desires of a turkey at Christmas, Thanksgiving whatever. Look at the results on the circumstances ... yah have to burn it off, and nothing happens until the phat la Dei sings.

What is the composite of the brain or an Eire-sh cede (bran) does it have a spirit that with a bit of dirt, water, air and plasma (light) and cultivation ... it'll grow? That's expansive and it too in the spectrum will be consumed. Is there no end to the enigma .. aphorism for a puzzle, a joke on life when the sol has not yet awakened?

Is it difficult for a spirtual thinking person to understand the mass as laid down in dissention?

There are stranger things under the mid night (Sheba) ... son ... don't go there they say, even tho' Christ said to fear not. Since when has a human listened to their thoughts desires and in Tuit Eons of time?

You don't think we were made for the a' meuse m'nt of the furies in space? If we could just hear the silent roar!

Huh?

 SLJudds, his profile may clarify things.

I don't agree with a tax on trans fats, they should be banned outright given how dangerous a substance they have been proven to be.

A tax on junk food will only make the poor poorer. It is not the answer to the current health crisis.

I agree, Cate. There is no need to use trans fats, so why do companies keep using them. Geez, even KFC has gone trans fat free.

That's a good point cate.

Just a general comment from someone who hasn't posted in Wondercafe for many months. 

I just finished a book called In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan.  Well worth reading if food is an issue in your life (and who doesn't need to eat every day?).  In his view, many of our food items are not so much foods as chemical substitutes, mostly created during the past several decades.  He's correct.   I think we often just consume for the sake of doing something, and much of what we consume is designed for convenience and speed, not thoughtful interaction. 

Perhaps a tax on the unhealtier products would be fair.  It would place a burden on those among us who have a limited food budget to be sure, but it would also make consumers think twice about the things they purchase.  A luxury tax is probably not unreasonable in these times, considering the financial crisis we are now facing as a world economy.  Living within our means should include the opportunity to buy healthy foods that are subsidized (if necessary).  By the way, a little bit of daily walking or other exercise might not hurt either. 

The poor will get poorer, the wealthy will get healthier. Not my idea of a solution.

Perhaps we should have "health food stamps"?

cate, you have noted a serious problem... but I don't think it defends the status quo of a heavily subsidised junk food industry. We're eating chemicals, not food.

Why is it so much cheaper to buy things made so far away than to buy things locally, including food?

As a retired teacher of elementary school children I have seen a change in eating habits over the years.  From sandwiches and fruits prepared and bagged at home to pre-packaged "whole lunch in a box"  is actually quite a leap of faith.  We've gone from relatively healthy and natural foods to foods with a shelf-life of months.   We've moved from reasonably priced items to lunchables that cost too much and are invariably supplemented with several candy bars, pops, and chips (or, even worse, the lunch IS pops, chips, and candy bars!).

We should not restrict choice for anyone (poor or otherwise) but we should encourage healthier choices by consumers.  I'd rather we subsidize foods for those who have less money (which is done on a daily basis in most urban schools through free breakfast programs) than push inappropriate consumer choices on those who can least afford it.  Children suffer intellectually and physically from unsound food choices; the results become evident early on and into adulthood .  Childhood diabetes is (in my experience) all too common.  I'm sure several other health problems also find their origins in some of the foods we eat (obesity, poor attention span, mood swings, among others).

Locally grown and raised whole foods are becoming rarities because the market is controlled and guided by the principles behind global marketing methods: Buy cheap wherever you can by controlling production.  Market the product on your time, not on nature's time.  The effects of this short-sighted thinking will be with us for generations to come.  "Consume, consume, consume" is the mantra we live by.   We are not encouraged to reflect too long or too deeply on our lifestyle choices because if we do, most of us would change how we behave. 

Painter, I've been thinking about this since I posted the thread and read the responses.  I never really agreed with a sin tax on junk food, but it can be really hard feed my family healthy foods.  I understand that a sin tax would not help that situation, but I didn't have one.  Your solution of subsidising healthy foods seems like a much better idea. 

I agree gadzooks that it does not defend junk food. That food is cheaper because it is synthetic and mass produced - much cheaper than natural and grown on a small-scale.

Painter's suggestion is an excellent one.

Those Lunchables are Hideous; they are full of fat, sodium, and an assortment of non-food additives.  I understand that they are easy and kids like them, but there has to be something better.

I would like to see "home ec" of some sort get back into elementary schools.

Many young people don't know how to cook. 

Many people buy frozen , cheap food products because they don't know how to make them from scratch. 

In general the cost of makingit is far cheaper than the cost of buying it ready made.

The inner city school  i help in does cooking but only for a select few kids.  It seems to be those who can't handle the math class so instead they do measuring in cooking.

but the fundamentals of shopping, cooking, diets is very important information that not all parent are capable of passing on it appears.

Long, long, ago, when I was in high school, girls were required to take Basic Home Ec and boys were required to take Bachelor Survival.  We were taught the rudiments of cooking and nutrition (using the old USDA guide), along with how to sew on buttons.

Girls could go on  to take another four or five Home Ec classes, including advanced cooking and dressmaking.  Boys were not allowed to take Home Ec, but were expected to take metal shop and wood shop.  I think that I have an excuse to know little or nothing about cooking and nutrition.

I wonder if high school kids are now required to take any sort of cooking and nutrition classes at all -- I suspect that they aren't.

The painful truth is that whole foods are considerably cheaper than packaged foods already. My stepkids don't care - they only want the overpackaged kind. When I rant on about whole foods they roll their eyes and act like I'm preaching Marxism.

When these little darlings become mommies themselves, they'll change their tunes and act like I forced junk food down their throats.

C'est la vie!

 I just went WAY overboard on the overpackaged foods and signed up for Nutri-Systems.  One of the foods is a dehydrated ground beef pattie that you add water to, let sit, heat in a microwave, and eat.  I hope that I can lose at least 50 lbs (22+ kg) on it.