Stealth tax alert.

[Hamradioop]

OH does the bread making. He's pretty good at it too.

We both work full time. In fact, through the tourist season, so six months, I work 16 - 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. OH works from home, and is often up into the wee sma's on skype to the states.

Anyone can grow at least some of their own veg. Anyone can learn how to cook cheaply, from scratch with fresh ingredients. It's entirely possible, and if you're not working, then you can turn that time into something useful, like food that isn't laden with crap.

We're a family of six. Our weekly food bill is between £100 - £140. Taking the higher end, that's just over £23 per person, per week for good, fresh food cooked from scratch. Or just over £1 per head, per meal. We eat home made risotto, thai chicken, fry up once a week, a proper one, and all sorts of other good stuff. It CAN be done.

To turn the question around, why shouldn't folks take responsibility for themselves? Why shouldn't they shoulder that, learn what's good and what's not, get up off their backsides and do things properly? Why on earth should we end up with blanket legislation that once more treats us like kids, incapable of making choices for ourselves? Not only that, but look how wrong the government sanctioned NHS is on its dietary advice. Frankly, I'd rather take my chances; I wouldn't trust them to organise mass inebriation in a fermentation facility. I certainly don't trust them to tell me what's healthy and what's not - for a start, if you listen to them tell you everything that's not healthy, you'll never eat or drink again, never mind breathe!

We need balanced diets, a little bit of everything, and everything in moderation. As my Granny would say, ''a little of what you fancy does you good.''

The biggest problem is NOT a lack of legislation. It's a lack of will power on the part of the folks that buy this stuff. You can bulk buy, cook off and freeze a weeks meals in a few hours. You can use a crock pot to cook your food while you're out through the day - hell, you can even make bread in a crock pot! You can also buy things like tomato seeds very cheaply from companies like Real Seeds - and you can save those seeds. You can *always* grow something. There's also quite a lot of veg that can be grown from what you'd usually throw away. You can even root a pineapple top - and yes, they will grow here, the Victorians grew them, outside of glasshouses.

Let people be responsible for themselves, because it's the only way to learn. Legislation is not required. People taking responsibility for themselves, their choices and their actions is. This is on a par with ''we need safety legislation for hair straighteners because toddlers are being burned'' - and each child was burned because an idiot parent left a hot device where the child could get to it!

Hear hear well said Less Legislation more personal responsibility. And any parent that child burns itself on hair straighteners should be prosecuted to the full extent of the LAW.

[Hamradioop]

and its about time all these teenage drunks at the weekends blocking up A&E were charged for their treatment too.

Hear hear, absolutely and the ambulance ride and the police time. Hit them where it hurts in the wallet and if they can't pay get them digging gardens for OAPs.

[grenfell]

In essence I agree about the drunks. However, I do worry that it could be a slippery slope . The idea could easily be extended to cover anyone injured while playing sports, or fishing, or hiking , or climbing and you wouldn't have that whiplash if you didn't drive so maybe you should pay for that too.

[Flippertyjibbet]

A tax on foods is a tax on the consumer who may have little choice for many reasons. They may not be able to travel to shop at which 'more healthy' foods are being sold. A person may not have the funds to go for a healthy option.
The answer would appear to be to limit the quantity of refined sugar within the products, however I appreciate that artificial sweetners are also not a desirable option so lets just get used to eating food with less aditives and is a little less sweet.
I would suggest that to really address this issue a fundemental restructuring of the food chain is required, we live in a society in which the large corporations dominate and control food manufacture and supply. It is this profit motivated system that is the driver behind poisonous the food that fills the supermarket shelves.
As preppers I feel that in many ways we are at the front of a movement that by promoting self reliance, producing our own food on a local level when possible, we are showing that a different relationship with food is possible.
Perhaps I am optimist, but if we could produce as much as possible trade food, skills, knowledge and resources without involving the tax system or big business wouldn't that be great.
Regards charging people for ambulances etc when drunk, to do this we would have to charge for all risk based activities and although I am getting on a bit (big 50 this year) I still remember being young, making an arse of myself and getting into all sorts of mischief. I allways thought that is what you are meant to do when you are young!

[grenfell]

I wouldn't disagree with a word you have written FJ . It would take some doing though . People nowadays have been literally brainwashed in regards to food , peas should be bright green , carrots straight as a ruler and everything perfect. I've seen it myself bringing in veg from the garden . My wife is fine with all of it but her sister turns her nose up at "ugly" carrots or parsnips and was horrified with the idea of horse shit going in the ground where food is grown
Perhaps as you say you are an optimist but I am too and consider it a valuable tool for any prepper.

[Prepshire]

It shouldn't matter if the country is fat it just means it makes it easier for us preppers to live. they'll starve and we'll survive. the government aren't taxing it to stop us being fat they are doing it to take more of our money because of the billions of pounds of debt But in the long run the population will fall dramatically because of bunny huggers and veggies/vegans and townies who think the countryside is their local park. When SHTF we'll live and it'll be alot easier so i'm not complaining (rant over).

Richard
Prepshire

[grenfell]

In the long run the population will fall dramatically because of bunny huggers and veggies/vegans

Richard
Prepshire

Sorry but that really is verging on total drivel. If we adopted a vegetarian diet it would be possible to sustain a far higher population. Growing crops to feed to animals that enter the human food chain is a very inefficient way of producing calories. Something like 60% (I think) of grain production goes for animal feed , if that were fed directly to humans starvation would become largely a thing of the past.

[Hamradioop]

Iin the long run the population will fall dramatically because of bunny huggers....... and townies who think the countryside is their local park.
Richard
Prepshire

Is this darwinism in action?

[Devonian]

Most of the responses on this thread really are missing the point and are not actually considering what the "proposals" are.

This is NOT a tax on the consumer, it is the Government trying to force the hand of the multi national conglomerates to change the way that our food is manufactured and to simply start reducing the amount of sugar and other additives within our foods.

It is not about raising extra income, its is about reducing the burden being placed on the NHS.

[matthopkins]

This is NOT a tax on the consumer, it is the Government trying to force the hand of the multi national conglomerates to change the way that our food is manufactured and to simply start reducing the amount of sugar and other additives within our foods.

Rightly or wrongly this is how i see it.

We all know that food producers who add loads of sugar to their product do so to add taste because the cheaper bland ingreadiants used. we also know highly processed sugar is available very easily to them and whilst using this they need to change non of their manurfacturing proceedures as is. They get hit with a tax because they are making a product that makes us fat so their profits drop slightly. A simple answer to maintain profits is to raise the product price. taking into account the cost of this tax set against the raise in product price, with manurfacture costs staying the same; the results are as follows.

Cost of production offset against total % profit remains the same.
The fat tax adds 5%(?) to total product costs in real world manurfacture terms causing a loss in profits
cost of product to consumer rises by 5% (?) to compensate for above loss in profit, thus adding more cost to weekly food bill.
people still purchase product because they like it, liking it so much they are fat due to sugar content.
Due to sugar content of their food many now need help from NHS.

Is anyone telling me that this extra cash from yet another tax,regardless of it being raised at source, will be spent within the NHS? I doubt it.

I work for myself and i pay the market value for the products i need to produce my goods. This effects the price i sell at. of course the market place along with the rules of supply and demand dictate the maximum price my customers will pay. As customers they know this and as long as i stay competitive they except it. They understand that to build a bespoke bookcase in mahogany using 25ft of timber at X£ per ft will cost X alone in timber. On top they expect me to charge for my labour for the hours worked.
What they wont except is if due to bad business i owe rent on my workshop and have an arrears; thus causing them to pay for my business mistakes by me upping my price. They will go elsewhere.
Sadly with a government we cant in real time shop around, we are stuck with them till election time.

it seems to me that much like a poor businessman this government is upping his charges to cover for his mistakes elsewhere in his business, in this case using the promise of looking after you and your NHS as a reason.
This is fine if all monies raised under the banner of promoting better health and a more cost effective NHS go back into the NHS but they wont. They will be moved into other areas of a failing government or worse still into private investment.