Should We Have A Fat Tax?

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There’s been a lot of talk lately about how Denmark has recently introduced a Fat Tax to try and curb their obesity crisis. In essence what they’ve done is added a tax on all foods that contain more than 2.3% saturated fat to make them more expensive to buy and therefore less desirable to eat. Now while I applaud their attempts I question their wisdom, and here’s why.

In 1982, Ansel keys wrote a report titled, “The Seven Countries Study”. Some of you may have heard me talk about this report already in previous posts. He analysed data from over 20 countries looking at the relationship between saturated fat consumption and cardiovascular disease risks.

He concluded that as nations increased their consumption of saturated fat, their risk of cardiovascular disease rose as well, so the obvious decision was to cut back on the consumption of saturated fat and therefore reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Now on the surface this makes perfect sense. The only thing is his report excluded nations whose results didn’t fit his picture. Those like Holland and France that ate alot of saturated fat but had low levels of cardiovascular disease. Or those like Chile and Argentina that had really high levels of cardiovascular disease but ate very low levels of saturated fat.

So when his report was published and he got himself on the cover of Time magazine, the entire western world took his advice on board and slashed its consumption of saturated fat. Australia now consumes only 29% saturated fat compared to 41% in 1975. But what happened to our obesity levels and our death rate from cardiovascular disease? They all rose dramatically. Why, cos it “AIN’T THE FAT THAT’S MAKING US FAT”.

If it ain’t the fat that’s making us fat, what is? Well the answer isn’t a simple one because we are all leading a more sedentary lifestyle and overeating, but from a nutritional point of view the answer is simple. Its sugar, salt, processed foods, microwaved foods, convenience foods, takeaway foods and the biggest of all, ALCOHOL!!!

So, rather than tax the fat, lets tax the following: let’s tax all sugar laden foods and softdrinks, salt, processed foods, microwaved foods, convenience foods, takeaway foods and alcohol. (Opps sorry we already tax alcohol) That only leaves fruit, veges, meat, dairy, seafood, nuts and grains not to be taxed. Hmm, I quite like that idea.