The War on Food Poor People Eat

Home > Best Of, Food & Drink, Politics, Science

The War on Food Poor People Eat

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 | Best Of, Food & Drink, Politics, Science |

Slate - Let Them Drink Water!What a fat tax really means for America:

It’s ironic that so many advocates for healthy eating are also outspoken gourmands. Alice Waters, the proprietor of Chez Panisse, calls for a “delicious revolution” of low-fat, low-sugar lunch programs. It’s a central dogma of the organic movement that you can be a foodie and a health nut at the same time—that what’s real and natural tastes better, anyway. Never mind how much fat and sugar and salt you’ll get from a Wabash Cannonball and a slice of pain au levain. Forget that cuisiniers have for centuries been catering to our hedonic hunger—our pleasure-seeking, caveman selves—with a repertoire of batters and sauces. Junk foods are hyperpalatable. Whole Foods is delicious. Doughnuts are a drug; brioche is a treat.

But of course. Politicians and food nannyists will tax candy bars, but not creme brulee. They’ll tax the Mello Yello at McDonald’s, but not the Espresso Macchiato at Starbucks. The distinction isn’t the nutritional content of the food - it’s who’s eating it. Poor people’s cheap food will be taxed. Expensive foods won’t. Nanny foodism isn’t about health. It’s about social class, political power, attacking corporations, and demonstrating who gets to tell whom how to live.

Morgan Spurlock’s 2004 documentary, Supersize Me, chronicled his experiment in eating every meal at McDonald’s. While no one would argue that McDonald’s is health food, Spurlock could have gained just as much weight if he had eaten at high-priced French restaurants. If there’s ever a rational fat tax it will add ten bucks to the price of every Julia Child cookbook.

Any tax on “bad” foods assumes that nutritional science can actually tell us something useful about what to eat and what not to eat. The evidence on that count is mixed. The long-held consensus of low fat dieting is under withering attack. Advice on the health benefits of moderate alcohol consumption keep being revised in both directions. Sweet and Low packets used to carry warnings that saccharine caused cancer in lab rats, but those labels were removed a few years ago. Most notable of all, after decades of diet books, diet products, and more attention paid to weight America is now fatter than ever.

The crossroads of science and public policy is a dangerous place. Policy should be informed by science only when the science is long-settled. That means that the most pressing topics - the ones that are most likely to be in the spotlight and the subject of new law - will rarely be informed by good science. They will instead be settled by politics and the pressure of political interest groups.

Hat tip to Instapundit.

5 Comments to The War on Food Poor People Eat

Food Quote of the Day | Bitchin' in the Kitchen
September 23, 2009

[...] Politicians and food nannyists will tax candy bars, but not creme brulee. They’ll tax the Mello Yello at McDonald’s, but not the Espresso Macchiato at Starbucks. The distinction isn’t the nutritional content of the food – it’s who’s eating it. Poor people’s cheap food will be taxed. Expensive foods won’t. Nanny foodism isn’t about health. It’s about social class, political power, attacking corporations, and demonstrating who gets to tell whom how to live. – Les Jones [...]

TinMan
September 23, 2009

Somehow I cannot support your position enough Les.

Taxing “fattening” foods means you need to hit ALL of them - not just the most ‘visible’ and ‘easily targeted’ ones.

Tax a Coke more than water? Then you’d better be putting an additional $.20 on that Macchiatto from Starbucks.

My biggest gripe with the whole idea of a “fat tax” is it’s a misguided fix for the real problem: subsidized food production leading to overproduction & the further distancing of human consumption of food from it’s (food’s) origin.

Between grain subsidies, the regulatory stranglehold that disallows local meat/dairy producers to sell to the public, the trucking industry that makes it cheaper to haul raw AND processed goods from shore to shore, you just can’t compete against a product that is ultimately cheaper.

So let’s make it not cheaper (tax). But in doing so you have to loosen up other things to counter-balance this ‘regulatory inflation’.

Pick up Michael Pollan’s book “In Defense of Food” - interesting read and gives some further insight into how our misguided regulations have left us not only fatter but less inclined (or empowered in fact) to fix it.

Signed,
Not a Foodie but appreciates a good creme brule’ (TinMan)

Les Jones
September 24, 2009

You are exactly right about govt’s mixed role in this. There’s a theory that some of the weight gain is due to the switch from cane sugar to high fructose corn syrup.

Maybe so, maybe no, but that switch occurred because of tariffs on imported sugar levied by the government. If the switch contributed to obesity, it was caused by the government.

That’s one example out of hundreds. Government tries to fix one problem to appease one constituency and in the process creates others. If they’re paying for our healthcare there will be no end to their meddling in our diets and economy.

Whatever happened to the liberal idea of “keep your laws off my body?” Once the government starts treating your body and health as a liability on the revenue fund there’ll be no end to the laws controlling your body.

SayUncle » Classes
September 24, 2009

[...] The War on Food Poor People Eat. Same as why the taxes on cigarettes are far higher than the taxes on cigars. [...]

TinMan
September 24, 2009

Not that I have anything to refute the sugar tariff suggestion, but in my opinion, by far the biggest factor in the replacement of sugar (sucrose/glucose) with HFCS has been the debasing of the value of our grain-stuffs - corn & specifically yellow No.2 corn.

When you can process a base product into so many different products and it’s STILL cheaper than even locally produced sugar (which is cheaper than imported product) you can guarantee which product businesses will be using.

Regarding your statement about liberal’s idea of keeping government ‘off my body’ - I believe you may be misinterpreting one facet of their platform.

It’s generally applied when discussing the abortion debate and when others attempt to legislate morality onto everyone else (banning abortions). When you want to have a medical procedure on your own body there shouldn’t be any laws preventing you from receiving said procedure.

Now, in the current debate we want to make sure and keep separate two distinct aspects of the subject:

There is the health care & the insurance to receive said health care.

What is being debated and legislated in DC right now are laws performing different things. Some of which are a government supplied insurance program for all citizens, subsidies for citizens to purchase private insurance programs…those types of things.

Not a single law is being written/debated that will tell you what procedures you can/cannot have.

I liken the situation to how most states REQUIRE all licensed drivers to have insurance for their vehicles. This I can somewhat agree with as there are occasions when you can cause harm to others whereas with health insurance, the only harm is to yourself.

So it goes back to helping those who cannot or are unable to help themselves (young, elderly, poor…) via whatever mechanism you can.

That’s enough for tonight.

TinMan