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A comment on Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition. Parent comment

Re:Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition by whatshisface on Thursday December 17, 2020 @05:25PM (#25461323)
>Honestly, I think the best way to tackle it is not to outright ban the foods, but just add an excise tax. If we added a 10% tax to soft drinks, fries and pizza, it probably wouldn't make a huge difference to the average citizen's spending. It would be a 10% increase in your food budget if that's all you eat though. If you want to go crazy, add a program that lets you earn that back by doing healthy things, like riding a bike. We should probably do that anyways. If we want to reduce the amount of driving people do, paying them walk/bike places instead of driving isn't a bad system either.

The behavioral epidemic is defined by being irrational and not in the self-interest of the sufferers. How would a slight change in food prices lead to any change in behavior?

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Re:Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition by chithanh on Thursday December 17, 2020 @06:59PM (#25462160)
The price of products does have an impact for shoppers. Also especially with poor people, raising prices limits the amount they can afford.

"It was concluded that there is reasonable and increasing evidence that appropriately designed taxes on sugar sweetened beverages would result in proportional reductions in consumption, especially if aimed at raising the retail price by 20% or more. There is similar strong evidence that subsidies for fresh fruits and vegetables that reduce prices by 10–30% are effective in increasing fruit and vegetable consumption."

https://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/publications/fiscal...

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Re:Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition by edmundsauto on Friday December 18, 2020 @12:47AM (#25464268)
It has worked to some degree with cigarettes.
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