Sorry, I must have been half asleep when I made my other thread, I asked if we should ban junk food all together. That's not fair.

Here I'm asking if we should make laws which control what's in our junk food, and tax that food if they exceed a certain quantity of something.

The 4 taxable options are food with high fat. Tax anything with high fat to encourage people to eat more veggies and less fattening food. This will probably directly reduce obesity rates as chips, cholocolate, cheese, and non fish meats are high fat.

Tax food/drinks with lots of salt. Salt doesn't really do anything to food except make you thirty and food is so heavily salted in North America, that you can get your daily supply of salt from a 6 inch subway sandwich or 3 slices of pizza. Most of us eat more then that, plus if a drinks salinity is higher then the human body (like in American Pop, but not European) then we should heavily tax it.

Tax sugar in our foods/beverages, we already get 10% of out sugar intake in a can of pop. If you drink only pop, you get 60% of your sugar intake from your drinks, nevermind you food. Isn't this ridiculous? Taxing sugar will help reduce cases of type 2 diabetes (and don't worry diabetics should really be eating fruit to get their sugar intake).

Tax HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup). HFCS is a sugar, which your body doesn't recognize as sugar. This is why, in my other thread, many of you admitted that you cant drink too much pop because it makes you feel sick (too much sugar, but you body doesn't recognize it). HFCS is what those gummy candies are made out of, and out of all the substances junk food is made of, it's literally the worst for you. Taxing HFCS products will reduce cases of type 2 diabetes, and likely obesity as well.

We can also just life the corn subsidy, making food prices more naturally reflect their cost, and naturally bring up the price of meat, chips, HFCS and other products with lots of corn in them.

So should we regulate the amount of salt/fat/sugar/HFCS in food and tax any junk food/beverages which don't meet those standards?

I assume this is in an attempt to convince ppl t eat healthy? Won't work. Taxes don't deter behaviour, it only makes ppl poor. They only way to convince someone to eat healthy is to show them how to cook. If ppl have to use their brains to eat they will choose better ingredients.

One way to get around this (which would only help at the bottom income level, but it could be a start) would be to limit what food stamps can buy. If the only "prepared foods" food stamps can buy are breakfast cereals, yogurts, and bread, and the rest is raw meats, fishes, and fruits and vegetables, that, i think, could accomplish something.

People smoke less now do they not? Yes the people addicted to smoking are poorer, but for the most part, people smoke less.

Also taxing junk food would make people eat smarter. Inctead of eating chips, maybe people will pick up Crackers and Humus, or avacado. Maybe fruits instead, or they could make a salad.

You don't need to know how to cook to eat better, and people who eat chips and chocolate and a meal really need to be pushed into alternatives.

Food stamps let people buy crap? Good point, but comments like the make me realize that some USA policies are stupid. Food Stamps should only be for essential food items, stuff like bread and rice, eggs and vegetable. Rice is so cheap to make and easy to cook with, toss in a few veggies, and if you have to buy a sauce and there, done, healthy meal 101.

People can make their own decisions about what to eat, they don't need the government to step in and babysit them.

Well, there are many negative consequences related to people's bad eating habits, and unfortunately they can be externalized. Contrary to what some of them may think, their actions do affect others when you look at things at the macro level. I believe that is part of the reason for this ban in the first place. However, I do not support coercing people to do the 'right thing'. From my experience it just doesn't work. People need to discover legitimate reasons on their accord.

I used to consume copious amounts of the stuff when I was in undergrad, and then I was hit with acid reflux. That was the start of other health issues. I traced everything back to my diet and through trial and error I learned what was best for me. Now I do not consume any form of junk food - nothing processed, no fizzy drinks, and I check the label on everything I eat. If I can't pronounce it then I don't bother with it. That's just one example. Most people I know respond to incentives like what I mentioned, but coercion usually brings about the opposite effect.

Oh and ... personally, I think instead of implementing a ban focus should be placed on the type of foods available. Calories are cheap, but nutrition is expensive. People often complain about eating right because it is too expensive, especially when you can buy enough food to feed a family for under 10 USD in McDonalds. The gov should focus on making the 'right' food cheaper - be it through subsidies or other means.

Tax being a fat fuck.

This. Tax irresponsibility. 

You do realize that Americans have an obesity rate of 33%? This is nearly 3x the Obesity rate in Germany, nearly 4x the obesity rate of Itally and over 10x the obesity rate of South Koreans and Japanese.

People (specifically Americans, Canadians, English, and Australians) can't discover legitimate reasons to eat healthy on their own.

Wouldn't it be better if you never had that acid refluc in the first place? If food, all food, had more reasonable portions of fat, sugar, and salt, you'd probably be a lot better off. I don't think the best way to stay healthy is for people to get obese and then realize their mistakes. It's better to not make those mistakes at all.

After all, everything is moderation, except moderation itself, is a good thing right? So why not moderate addatives in food?

This is completly false. A Big Mac Combo is about $7 and that barely feeds 1 person for 1 day. I live off $20 a week for food (I cook a lot), and I can tell you that you can feed a person for about $2 a day no problem. Eating healthy is cheaper then eating crap.