I spent a few days in England visiting family, I stayed at an INN LODGE, clean, tidy, very reasonably priced food in quite large portions. Probably like me, you struggle to keep weight off. I find it extremely difficult, always told to clean my plate as a child and it’s a habit I cannot seem to break, especially when the food is designed to entice. Health professionals continue to warn us of diabetes, heart disease, and general obesity, we all see the giant wobbly belly’s shuffling down the street, and it is so easy to become one, with fast food being available cheaply and in vast quantities.
Cigarettes have been attacked for causing cancer and heart, lung illnesses, taxed to an extreme in an effort to reduce use of them, surely now is the time for fast food to be looked at in a similar fashion, after all its just as dangerous. Alcohol is also being taxed, not so much because we like to drink, but because it is looked at as a social danger, if that is the case then fast food outlets are an even greater threat, obesity!
Most improvements in health have been brought about by social changes, clean water, good sewerage system, testing cows for TB and a good diet removed many diseases, vaccination ended polio and smallpox, cleanliness the plague. Illnesses are not stopped by some magic medicine, most only control the symptoms. But a change in the way society views how people live, how and what they eat has given way to an almost dictatorial rant by ‘specialists’. It is well-known that exercise and meals in moderation are the way to go, however the ‘in the know’s’ have forgotten an additive monosodium glutamate makes you want more and is widely used in the UK.
We talk about food inflation, but I don’t see anyone starving. Quite the contrary, food is too easily available at a low price, trollies ladened with food leave the supermarkets and taken home however at the end of the week most of that is thrown away. If food was taxed, then people might eat a healthier diet, men and women might find they like cooking, at least they would know exactly what they were eating and their children might just have fewer allergies. Time for the Treasury to do some work for the NHS.
