Laura Northrup wrote a Consumerist article today soliciting opinions for a fat tax. Do we want to add that on to our list of other “sin taxes” like the “tobacco tax”?
One of her best points is that, if we do add such a tax, it should be called a “junk food tax”. As she says: No one calls tobacco taxes “lung cancer taxes.”
I think that yes, in theory, we should have a junk food tax. But in practice, it’ll be demonically hard to go through with.
Health and food experts, from Michael Pollan to Marion Nestle to Monica Reinagel, point out our system subsidizes cheap, high-fat, high-calorie, nutritionally bankrupt food. Because of this, we’re giving agri-businesses the green light to keep churning out the chemically-laden, corn-based products that make us fatter and sicker.
But what makes a junk food a junk food? By now, we’ve witnessed the many attempts that big business makes to dress of fake foods as healthy foods. Smart Choices, anyone? Unlike tobacco products, which by their nature (a little stick/puff/chew of plant matter, containing tobacco and other additives, that you light up and inhale or chew), are easy to quantify, giving “junk food” parameters is far more difficult.
First of all, would this focus on restaurants, packaged foods or both? Would their be criteria that each restaurant would have to evaluate their food by, and then they would voluntarily send in a tax for the meals that fall under “junk food”? Would they get audited?
For packaged foods, it seems that a guideline would have to call for a “serving” to have certain criteria: maybe a maximum calorie & fat limit, a fiber minimum, and certain vitamin & mineral minimums. But, even with those guidelines, packaged food companies will happily wade in & tweak as needed to get their products out of the junk food category. I imagine something along the lines of a chocolate snack cookie – cut the serving size down to a few tiny cookies that’s been pumped with inulin (for fiber), olestra (to cut down the fat), aspartame (to cut down the calories), & the standard vitamin & mineral enhancement mix used by many cereals these days, and voila – not junk food!
Perhaps the best way to classify something as “not junk food” would be to take a simplistic standpoint. A non-junk food item would have a maximum of say, 10 ingredients, have to include a certain percentage of whole foods, & get most of it’s nutrition from those whole foods – the fiber needs to come from whole grains, or nuts, the vitamins should also come from the food components, not just added powders. And certain classifications of food additives wouldn’t be allowed. For instance, no fake fats, sugars, artificial colors, and ingredients of dubious genesis (natural flavors, what are those?).
Realistically though, pushing those guidelines through would be near impossible. The artificial sweeteners, fats, and food chemical producers would get their panties in a twist, because such guidelines (they would argue) would imply their food products are “inferior” to natural foods. I say, let’s call a spade a spade and all agree that that’s true – and that, in the name of profitability, portability and shelf-stability, these products do pose some amount of usefulness to us. Artificial sugars are great for diabetics. Fillers and stabilizers that extend the shelf-life of foods can be important in places where it’s very hard to keep fresh foods.
Unfortunately though, the food cartels want these products to be viewed as just as good-if not better- than natural foods. Despite the mounting evidence of the issues caused by eating too much franken-food, producers always place the blame elsewhere – lifestyle, personal consumer choices, overeating other products. It would hurt their profits too much to admit their limited usefulness and play second fiddle to natural foods.
I support a junk food tax. I also support Laura’s idea that the tax monies go to encourage the growing and offering of healthy-food alternatives- make the price of apples and carrots cheaper. But in the world that we live in, where profit trumps…well, nearly everything, I don’t see how we’ll be able to make this tax a reality.