There was some news out earlier this week regarding tax breaks for healthy foods. I am all for the concept of tax-free healthy foods and higher tax on not so healthy, but share some peoples skepticism regarding its potential effectiveness, at least in the short term.
One of the hard things to do is categorise ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Much like the traffic lights idea from earlier this year, I am interested as to the specific categorising protocol. Some foods are blatantly easy (like fruits and vegetables) but others are hard – eg chocolate milk, baked beans and pasta just off the top of my head – are these foods good or bad? I could make a good argument both ways for all of them.
Will pricing really affect how much fruit and vegetables you buy?
The price of Milk vs Coke is a commonly quoted example as to an imbalance between health and pricing, BUT how many times do you look at the price when buying milk/coke from the supermarket? And do not buy it if it is too expensive?
I think the government will be effective if they initiate something like a tax break for fruit and vegetables, but think giving fruit out at schools and restricting advertising of ‘bad’ foods to children would be much more effective. I would love to see the young children I know wanting a ‘Thomas the Tank Engine Banana’, not those ‘fruit’ drinks that are covered with popular cartoons and heroes that they want now.
December 5, 2007 at 2:57 am |
“…restricting advertising of ‘bad’ foods to children would be much more effective”
AMEN!