Proposed tax on sugar and salt - good or bad news for AF?

[Finvola]

I've been mulling this over since the proposal was made to tax sugar and salt in an effort to persuade 'junk food' manufacturers to cut sugar and salt in their products. Great news for the UK's obesity levels and for dental and many other health factors including AF - which is the point of the suggestions.

But, manufacturers talk of the appeal through the serious sweetness of their goods and I wonder if the proposals become law whether we will see a massive increase in artificial sweeteners being used to keep sweetness levels up. Mars bar with aspartame sounds worse than Mars with its current levels of sugar.

As for algae instead of meat? ? ? Just interested in the opinions of others who know the dangers of artificial anything in food.

[dezi]

Doesn’t look like it’s going to happen but it would be good. Barely effects me because we generally eat meals cooked

From scratch. Haven’t had a takeaway in years and rarely eat anything pre prepared.z

[CDreamer]

I ask myself is sugar better or worse than artificial sweetners which manufactures will replace sugar with, if such a tax were imposed?

The problem as I see it is not sugar or salt it is profit driven manufacturers and inequalities in our society along with lack of nutritional understanding and cooking know how and the time to do it.

I like the idea of GP social prescribing of fruit and veg but that’s only going to help a small percentage of people already incentivised.

I feel sorry for working parents with children returning home tired and having to put a meal on the table but mostly it’s about family cultures. I cooked from scratch always, both my sons cook from scratch and now so do my grandsons - one’s a very keen baker.

Our only hope to beat obesity as a nation is education, catch ‘em young and involve them in preparing healthy food and educate them so put it on the schools curriculum and then like smoking, the parents will learn from the children. Oh did my boys bug me to give up smoking and eventually I listened.

[Finvola in reply to CDreamer]

Absolutely agree CD - Domestic Science as it was called when I was at school was compulsory from 11 to 15 (for girls only mind you!) and, together with examples at home, made me cook everything from scratch.

Taxing sounds good but it's not the answer at all, I think.

[spinningjenny]

Problem is, a lot of salt substitutes contain potassium or magnesium, so hearties would have to be aware. Many diabetic products contain aspartame which if overused can send people literally running to the loo.

[irene75359]

I stopped adding salt and sugar to my food a long time ago and only add a very little at the table if it is absolutely necessary. I do very occasionally buy food with added sweeteners (I know!) but it has never affected me. My daughter was amazed to see breakfast cereal in the USA boasting 'sweetened with real sugar'...

[dezi in reply to irene75359]

Looking at food labels with my daughter in law in the US has made me realise why they are insistent about eating fresh organic cooked from scratch. I do the same when I visit them as what they put on or in some foods is amazing.

[CDreamer in reply to dezi]

Profit led, purely profit led. Get them addicted on your product they’ll buy more.

Tax the companies that use these chemicals in food & give relief to the organic farmers & producers. If only it were that simple!

[CDreamer in reply to irene75359]

We need salt in our diet - essential for well being - as ever it’s too much that causes problems. I take at least 6g salt daily. I don’t agree with eliminating salt & a lot of research coming through echoes that.

It’s ultra processed foods and takeaways which cause the biggest problems because they are addictive, just as much as heroin, alcohol or tobacco and don’t contain the nutrients we need.

Sugar - another story!

[irene75359 in reply to CDreamer]

Oh I do have salt - I just have got out of the habit of adding it to everything. I can't imagine poached eggs or roast or mashed potatoes without salt!

[Finvola in reply to irene75359]

I'm the same with eggs and potatoes Irene and we both are lacking in salt - my husband more so than I. We both take salt each day to counter its lack in our diet.

[irene75359 in reply to Finvola]

That is good that you are aware; I have a weakness for salted cashew nuts...!

[Windlepoons]

"Tax" is the key word. Yet another one. There is an effective natural sweetener, Stevia, but no doubt the manufacturers will go to artificial ones. Not all salt is bad. Himalayan mountain salt is excellent. We have been using it for 20 years.

[dezi in reply to Windlepoons]

They will go for the cheapest and easiest which is generally not the best

[Windlepoons in reply to dezi]

Very true. The authorities have also demonised salt for a long time and three elderly friends stopped having it because they had been frightened into thinking it was very bad for you. Their blood tests showed very low sodium levels. The human body does actually need some. I gifted them all a bag of himalayan salt and their levels improved.

[wilsond]

I sometimes could scream at these initiatives! I moved from teaching in school to local authority Family Learning.My role was to encourage identified families , especially the parents to engage more with education and to get able to support their children more.

One of the ways we did this was to host family cooking programmes,which gave us the chance to get to know the families and then hopefully move onto curriculum based courses.

The family cooking types were all based on eating well for less,planning ahead for busy days so not relying on fastfood etc.

Nutrition and health were at the heart of them.

Guess what,new manager with little or no idea of how Community Education works,pulled all these soft sell courses and workshops....a real shame.

I'm waiting to see some bright spark come up with a marvellous new idea..Family Cooking...

I'm with you Finvola,better the devil you know than artificial this and that !

[CDreamer in reply to wilsond]

So annoying when great initiatives like that get pulled by the ignorant because people need support & if you can do it as a community peer pressure works for you instead of against. Sure it costs but not nearly as much as treating overweight kids for all the long term conditions they’ll end up with.

[dezi in reply to wilsond]

Yes. My niece teaches design technology on school she is head of department and that includes cookery - when she was training all that cookery entailed was putting bought things together basically making a sandwich. Years before that - going back to late 80’s my wife did a cane decorating evening class at the local comp. while there the meeting three mentioned that the kit hen classroom they were in had just been refitted with 20 sinks, refrigerators and cookers - a mix of gas and electric, for domestic science a year or so previously and then told they couldn’t be used for health snd safety reasons so had stood unused since. Such a waste! Most of us had good training both at home and in school. I often wonder what my Mum and grandmas would have thought of television programmes such as eat well for less bet they could have shown all of them a thing or two. Little money, larger families, little choice, no refrigerators, no pre packed food, seasonal veg and fruit and then to cap it all rationing!

[secondtry]

My focus these days is finding sources of food that are unprocessed, no or minimal fertilizers & sprays, grass fed (includes laying hens) and ideally local; in nutshell going back to what my granny eat. Then it is a little of everything which will include sugar and salt; the latter as Windlepoons has said needs to be the unmanufactured e.g. Himalayan or french/UK coastal salt. - don't ask what they put in the manufactured stuff.

The big food companies are not there to sell healthy food, they just want to maximise profit e.g. In the 80's we thought we were doing the best eating Flora margarine and never questioned the adverts, subsequently changed to butter from an organic dairy. Now they are pushing hard Oat milk & other manufactured 'healthy' alternatives???

[Finvola in reply to secondtry]

So true secondtry - money making and a career boost in some cases - like the great salt 'discovery' which fooled so many for so long and applied to so few of the population.