Mr Khan said:
SamuelRSmith said:
Kasz216 said:
Nah. The government overreaching would be them taxing unhealthy food.
Educating people on what they should eat... that's what the government should be trying to do.
Not sure how the plate is supposed to be better then the pyramid though. It might just cause people to eat taller cuts of meat.
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Hmm, I take issue with Government "educating" simply, because, really, it's a form of social-engineering. Not only that, but health effects from different diets is a highly controversial subject. The "6g of salt", or "5 portions of fruit and veg" stuff all has a lot of controversy behind it. In some ways, it's no different to the Government teaching Al Gore's approach to climate change.
Also, I think there's a difference between educating, and constantly enforcing the ideas with propaganda. This is what I meant by the social engineering thing. By all means, teach kids in schools the basics of how to maintain a healthy diet... but by consistantly playing commercials, running billboards and bus prints, and all the rest of it, they're not just educating, but also imposing their will.
Finally, the Government running these adverts is basically just subsidizing the health industries. The Government is paying for much of their advertisement costs, which really isn't fair. The industry os more than large enough, now, to fund its own advertising.
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Of course, much of US health problems come from HFCS... which wouldn't really be a key ingredient if it wasn't for Government meddling, with corn subsidies, in the first place.
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Not corn subsidies, but rather sugar tariffs, or that's what we're being taught in the International Trade class i'm taking atm. If sugar were taxed more fairly, companies would shift back to using real sugar in a lot of their products.
Agricultural subsidies just come with the territory of large economies, though. There's really no way to mobilize against them
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The subsidies and the tariffs are two sides of the same coin. Eliminating one should have the same effect as eliminating the other (if subsidies == tariffs, that is). Of course, the best thing to do would be to eliminate both, but, as you say, that's politically impossible to do, at this time.
Saying that, though, the UK has been reducing agricultural subsidies gradually, over time. Unfortunately, European CAP just means that they're getting their subsidy from elsewhere, though the UK has been campaigning to get CAP reduced... which, thanks to France, will probably never happen.
