The Recipe That Could Change Recipes In The Big Food Industry
How we can make a “fat tax” work without hurting the innocent consumer
There has been a lot of talk about a “fat tax,” or “twinkie tax,” that would effectively tax foods and beverages that are considered unhealthy. A fat tax’s goal is to discourage unhealthy diets and offset the economic costs of obesity. Looking at the pro’s and con’s of a fat tax, let’s see if there are other — more plausible actions we could take to reduce obesity.
How it would most likely work
At the moment, the fat tax is simply a theory, but generally, how fat foods would be taxed is simple: raise the price of fatty foods and beverages, such as soda pop and donuts, the tax revenue would then subsidize the sale of healthy foods. Consequently, it would push consumers to shop healthier, and cut down on unhealthy food that has been taxed.
In a utopia, a fat tax would work; but this is America.
Don’t get me wrong, this “fat tax” is a good idea, but it doesn’t hit the mark for me. This tax doesn’t seem to be hitting the right people, it’s hitting the victims — not the ones making those victims.
Since 1969, Cigarettes have been taxed in America, ranging from $4.35 in New York, to 17¢ in Missouri. Tell me someone you know that has given up on cigarettes because the tax for them is too high. I can give you an answer: Nobody. Chances are, the tax on fatty foods will be about the same as the tax on cigarettes in Missouri, not enough to change the minds of Americans hooked on junk food.
The question to this answer
Why would you punish the consumers that are uneducated, ignorant, and being outright tricked by big food, when you can hit big food itself? That’s the question I’ve been asking myself since the topic has come up in my nutrition class, why?
Well, it doesn’t make much sense to tax the consumers when you put the question to the answer like that, doesn’t it? It makes no sense, no sense at all. Consumers clearly don’t eat unhealthy food because they want to be fat, they eat it because it’s good, cheap, and keeps you alive — sorta. Big food has money for extensive research on how to make the cheapest, and best tasting food they can make; no matter how unhealthy the ingredients there are — if they can get away with it.
“It’s cheap, good, and keeps you alive — sorta.”
Why would you punish the consumer for the lucrative big food industry? It just doesn’t seem right, and I’m not the only one that thinks that; you, the person who is reading this right now, are a consumer too, and you don’t like being punished for another ones wrongdoings, nobody does.
Getting to the point
Basically what I’m getting at: attack big food. Attack PepsiCo, attack Nestle, attack General Mills, attack Kraft, and many other huge food companies; not the consumers being tricked by these monopolies.
We could look at this in a very related way, in a way that people actually view correctly: Childhood obesity. You look at a six-year-old child that seems to be 200-pounds and you think to yourself, “Wow, those parents should be punished for feeding that kid so badly,” (hopefully), not, “Wow, that child should be punished for eating that way!” So why should we look at a situation where big food companies knowingly sell consumers unhealthy food, that they often market as healthy, and blame the consumers? I don’t know.
The solution is quite simple: change the entity that will be taxed.
Let’s tax the PepsiCo’s, the Nestle’s, the Kraft’s, the side that should take the blame, as well as the punishment. You can tax them in a multitude of ways, all of which will strictly benefit the consumer. My favorite tax plan, and the one I would recommend is as follows:
Tax the company per/unit of unhealthy ingredients its product contains.
For example, soda contains ingredients like high fructose corn syrup, phosphoric acid, artificial sweeteners, and sodium benzoate, all of which are detrimental to your health, therefore, a soda maker would be taxed per/unit of each ingredient their soda contains.
Because most big food companies largely contribute to the unhealthy food economy, this would cause them to inevitably comply to the tax, and either cut down — or completely stamp out their unhealthy ingredients. If they refuse, they would face the consequences: a tax high enough to topple their business, or a huge price markup in supermarkets. The price markup would be so high that unhealthy food companies would never be able to compete with companies making healthy food. Now that be a good incentive to make healthy food, wouldn’t it?
But how does this have to do with how healthy us consumer eat, you might say? Well, the vast majority of consumers have dozens of products in their pantries from companies providing unhealthy food, such as PepsiCo, Kraft, Nestle. If these companies were financially forced to produce healthy food, your pantry — for the most part, would contain products from those same companies, with one major difference: the food would be healthy. That is the whole goal of this effort, and the current “fat tax” structure only minimally raises the price of unhealthy or fatty foods, and minimally lowers the price of healthy, non-fatty foods; it doesn’t virtually black out unhealthy food.
Clearing things up
I can see it now: “But Alex, but Alex! We want freedom of what we eat! We live in a free country, we deserve it!”
That has a simple answer: But people, but people, the chances of your favorite foods being eliminated from planet earth are very slim, but the chances of your favorite food becoming healthy are very likely. Just like big food companies figure out ways to make food cheaper for them to make, thus making it unhealthy; companies will probably be able to make just about any type of food healthy, and it already shows in many vegan products.
This plan could work in hassling the makers of unhealthy food to change their ways, instead of hassling the innocent and uneducated consumer, that has no power over what is on the shelves of supermarkets. Tell me what you think!
Comment on any part of this piece, or email me if you have questions about my ideas, and I will happily explain, or debate with you over the topic!
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