Fat Tax (5 Viewers)

[BlackDragon]

Because if you used that time to work, you could make money.

Most people do not feel like cooking a meal after a long day's work, and are happy to pay a few extra dollars.

If they purchase poor quality, unhealthy food like McDonalds, it will almost certainly be more expensive than a healthier, yet equally satisfying alternative.

But if you spend time at a fast food place you could be working then too? Therefore you have to add the wages of yourself for that time anyway on top of it? And besides I can cook at times when wouldn't be working anyway. (i.e. not in the day). I'm happy to actually put a small amount of effort to eat cheaply and healthily.

 

[jennyfromdabloc]

But if you spend time at a fast food place you could be working then too? Therefore you have to add the wages of yourself for that time anyway on top of it?

But most people don't consider sitting around at a restaurant a chore, whereas many people do consider cooking and washing up to be unpleasant work. You may like it, good for you, many don't.

People are generally happy to pay others to do work they don't like or are inefficient at. It's like saying "omg why would you pay someone $20 to cut your hair when you could just do it yourself." Lots of people don't like cutting hair and/or are not very good at it. Get it?

 

[BlackDragon]

But that still means you could be working then, which was your argument? And people who really needed to save or were really on a shoestring budget would never eat out like that. People who choose to eat out instead of cooking for themselves often have the luxury of doing so. And if people want to be healthy as well as do that, then that is tough.

 

[jennyfromdabloc]

But that still means you could be working then, which was your argument. And people who really needed to save or were really on a shoestring budget would never eat out like that.

Not everyone could necessarily be working extra hours instead of cooking. The point is they consider it like work, so they are happy to pay more and consider it better value than cooking themselves.

People on shoestring budgets do indeed eat out alot. Time and time again studies show that poor people in developed countries spend more on fast food than rich people.

 

[loquasagacious]

What the hell? If someone really wanted to save my, like me, they wouldn't eat out at these ridiculously expensive and unhealthy places. I'm saving money and I can eat so cheaply and healthly and prepare it myself. Why do I have to incorporate wage costs for myself? That makes no sense. I mean I made a minestrone soup for me and my friends yesterday and it has lasted three of us two meals and it cost less to produce than a single meal at some stupid fast food place. People who expect to save money and be healthy and THEN eat at macdonalds are crazy. If all they did was eat at those places or 'drink vegetable oil' they would become very unhealthy.

Since when was your minestrone healthy anyway? I guess that it has high carbs and low protein.... exactly the kind of mix which the atkins/zone/paleo/etc schools of thought would label your minestrone as unhealthy and fattening.

 

[BlackDragon]

Wow lol.

Ingredients: 1 onion, 1 carrot, 2 celery stalks, 2 cloves of garlic, 3 tomatoes, 2 potatoes, 1 can of canneloni beans, 2 teaspoons of oil, 1 stock cube, two litres of water. Reduce.

That is completely healthy, I can't believe you are arguing against that. And if you really understand the atkins diet you would know that it promotes increased protein intake because protein diminishes appetite. It is not more healthy at all, it is just a strategy to lose weight. And if people ate healthily like this and lived an active life then they would lose much more weight than any crazy fad diet.

 

[BlackDragon]

People on shoestring budgets do indeed eat out alot. Time and time again studies show that poor people in developed countries spend more on fast food than rich people.

I don't know what we are arguing about here. If people who are genuinely poor eat out alot then they are obviously simply spending more of their income on food in comparison to other things in their life. The fact is that if they couldn't do that then they wouldn't, and I know plenty of people who cook for themselves because they can't at all afford it.

 

[jennyfromdabloc]

MY FIRST COUNTEROBJECTION:
I was comparing cows to mouldy seaslugs, not seagulls. Seagulls may in fact be quite healthy, I am not sure. Seaslugs as well, but mould, not so much. I WOULD NOT LIKE MOULD. However you would be correct, it is already illegal to relabel mouldy seaslugs as beef and such an example may need to be abstracted as HYPERBOLE and not literalised.

MY SECOND COUNTEROBJECTION:
People are health ignoramus or LIMITED health conscious or not even conscious at all! In fact many people have been shot in war and are now UNCONSCIOUS and can only move their facial hair (some naturopaths have read these movements as requests for healthier feeding tubes. Such claims have never been peer reviewed).

There is a growing number of people who can read "Fat content" or "Kilojoules", but this alone does not constitute healthy real food. In fact, it is quite easy to make a low fat PREMIUM HEART FOUNDATION APPROVED burger by reducing meat content and adding flavours and colours.

ME THIRD COUNTEROBJECTION:
Government intervention is something I hate in all spaces and realms and time and coordinates. However, I have a careful hate for the following circumstances:

So I buy a beautiful frozen meat pie. No it's not exactly healthy. I don't care. It's my meat pie. I eat it. It costs $3.
Next week an inflatable meat pie arrives on the scene. It costs $2.70 and is injected with water and colours and flavours and preservatives and everything that makes me rosey cheeked and FIGHT THE POLICE. It uses low grade meat, has high fat content. This is not my pie. But for many other people, it becomes their pie.

Next week, my beautiful $3 frozen meat pie costs $2.70. It tastes substandard. But it competes. The ingredients are lesser. The quality is down. It's not my pie anymore. I want to eat COPS, SO I BUY A GUN.

This is a scenario that happens all too often. I agree there is a general FREE-MARKET trend that now if you snap ORGANIC on food you can charge $6.50 for a shit pie and people with green shopping bags and coats full of bottled water lap it up like it's the last gold on earth.

I just want my fucking non-organic pie.

It is difficult to say, "therefore government must intervene" and I do not wholeheartedly want to say that. I fit in a niche market of people who probably don't represent a numerical BODYCOUNT to make VALID LAW PROPOSAL. It is simply a limitation of free market to which I still consider THROUGH TEARS said options as a LIKELY UNFEASIBLE possibility. (WHAT DOES THIS SENTENCE EVEN MEAN! BEAT IT WITH A SHOE!)

There is an amazing amount of food being sold which is food by appearance only. It tastes yum but it's absolute shit- maybe even just a label saying "THIS IS 20% food" would suffice. Then those who want 20% food can pay $2.70. I want my 60% food pie for $3.

Are you playing it up, or are you really that drug fucked?

 

[jennyfromdabloc]

Wow lol.

Ingredients: 1 onion, 1 carrot, 2 celery stalks, 2 cloves of garlic, 3 tomatoes, 2 potatoes, 1 can of canneloni beans, 2 teaspoons of oil, 1 stock cube, two litres of water. Reduce.

That is completely healthy, I can't believe you are arguing against that. And if you really understand the atkins diet you would know that it promotes increased protein intake because protein diminishes appetite. It is not more healthy at all, it is just a strategy to lose weight. And if people ate healthily like this and lived an active life then they would lose much more weight than any crazy fad diet.

He's right Keiran. If vegetable soup isn't healthy, what is?

Also, what are we arguing about. Enough of this.

 

[BlackDragon]

Yes no more fighting

 

[BlackDragon]

It is comfortably respected and 100% fact that ALL poor people will spend their money on fast food, gambling and cigarettes.

That is not true. I know alot of poor people and growing up we didn't have that much money either, and none of us do anything like that. Most poor people I know are just trying to support their families or do whatever they can to eat and live normally. They are just normal people and their patterns of behaviour are the same as anyone else, its just that they can't afford any extravagance at all.

 

[loquasagacious]

He's right Keiran. If vegetable soup isn't healthy, what is?

Also, what are we arguing about. Enough of this.

It was a bad example but the point is that the idea of what is healthy (and by extension unhealthy) food is still a contested one. High fat, carbs, protein and calories generally have all been linked to poor health outcomes by various schools of thought. Then there is the issue of the type of fat/carb/protein to further cloud the issue.

EDIT: Oh and if I started eating just vegetable soup I would lose muscle mass

 

[Riet]

Fast food is definitely cheaper. E.g. Large Quarter Pounder Meal - $7.65. At uni most of the sandwich type places It's about $8.50 a roll and then another $2-3 if you want a cold drink. Yes I could make lunch at home but it is a pain and when it is 30 degrees sandwiches get gross.

 

[BlackDragon]

Of course, you need a balanced diet..eating vegetable soup every meal is not balanced. Finding a healthy diet is in fact really easy. And the debate centres around what is the best method of losing weight, not what a healthy diet is. Healthy diets are so easy!

 

[Planck]

Nobody said anything about punishment, we're talking about taxation. The punishment would be fining them or gaoling them for not paying it.

Taxing someone's goods over another makes them less competitive and is effectively a form of punishment

 

[KFunk]

A mate of mine, in a public health station of a clinical viva examination, was asked 'if you could introduce any public health program into Australia what would it be?'. His response? 'Fat tax'

While it is an interesting idea, and makes me laugh somewhat, I am not a supporter.

 

[Slidey]

BTW, are we discussing a junk food tax or something directly discriminatory to fat people?

 

[Lentern]

Taxing someone's goods over another makes them less competitive and is effectively a form of punishment

That is a very broad interpretation of the word punishment. By a similar reckoning a wholesaler charging more for a quality brand over a no frills product is punishing the retailer for wanting to sell the brand.

 

[Planck]

That is a very broad interpretation of the word punishment. By a similar reckoning a wholesaler charging more for a quality brand over a no frills product is punishing the retailer for wanting to sell the brand.

People can choose between multiple brands you idiot. You can't choose between multiple governments with anything other than changing your geography.

Fuck your aspergers is really starting to grate.

 

[Enteebee]

BTW, are we discussing a junk food tax or something directly discriminatory to fat people?

We're talking about involuntary fat camps and seizure of property.