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@majorrage said in Diabetes, Should Govt Do More?:
FWIW with sugar and fat taxes etc, I completely support them, but only on the proviso, it's recycled straight back into fresh foods. Fresh fruit/veg, leans meats, non-processed snacks should be an absolute bargain at the supermarket. Processed crap (confectionary, crisps (chips)) should be expensive, making them the treat that they should be.
But that’s not the way economics works. The supermarkets know how much people will pay for fresh fruit and veges, it’s the amount they charge now more or less. That’s the point where supply no demand are in equilibrium. Economically, the only reasonable thing for the supermarkets to do is to continue to charge that equilibrium price. If you introduce a subsidy it should make no difference to the price, because it doesn’t change either the demand or the supply. It will therefore become a windfall profit (in fact, economic rent) for the supermarkets.
The fact that fruit and veges are variable in supply gives the supermarkets even more cover to do this. They can always justify maintaining their prices because of seasonality.
If you tax sugar to modify behaviour, so be it. Governments have been doing that forever. And it will reduce the demand for sugary products. But the subsidy side of the equation probably won’t increase uptake of fruit and veg. In fact there is a fair chance that poorer people will continue to buy sugary drinks and therefore have less to spend on veges.
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main problem with food costs in NZ is the duopoly of Foodstuffs and Woolworths.
Aldi is supposedly coming to NZ so hopefully they will put pressure on the existing ones to reduce margins, which are apparently some of the highest margins for supermarkets in the world.
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@taniwharugby said in Diabetes, Should Govt Do More?:
main problem with food costs in NZ is the duopoly of Foodstuffs and Woolworths.
Aldi is supposedly coming to NZ so hopefully they will put pressure on the existing ones to reduce margins, which are apparently some of the highest margins for supermarkets in the world.
Don’t bet on it mate. We have more supermarkets than you could poke a stick at and we still gave the s as me problems.
An over abundance of cheap shit.
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@act-crusader The system that allows billion-dollar companies to engineer products that get us addicted and ultimately lead to premature death and a range of health problems.
At its core food companies are creating products that sell and make them profit. Products that set off our reward systems are those loaded with sugar and fat, these products sell and make them the most profit. The nutritional benefit of these products is marginal at best.
We as a society are the ones that pay the costs of these products they are selling. Our taxes pay for the healthcare to care for sick people, disability for those too obese to work etc. We all experience the trauma from premature death and the mental health issues that often stem from being overweight.
Should these companies take more responsibility for the long term impacts of their products? should they have to pay some sort of tax to help pay for the damage their products do? If they didn't make these products people wouldn't get as sick.
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@jc Thanks for that, I guess from my point of view I buy a lot more blueberries when they are in season and cheap, if apples are cheap, I buy more. If avocados or bananas are priced high, I think twice before buying. I assume many lower income families must exclude fruit and veg based on price?
What is interesting is the pricing strategies of processed food, you can guarantee every trip to the supermarket some processed food will be half price or heavily discounted which clearly stimulates sales. At the end of each aisle there is some huge discount of coke etc. When was the last time you saw fruit and veg on the end of an aisle on sale?
How do we increase the demand for fruit and veg and decrease the demand for processed food?
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@catogrande said in Diabetes, Should Govt Do More?:
You’re right. The sugar tax in the UK is little more than virtue signalling that has the bonus of raising a few quid. It has had fuck all effect.
A google search indicates a 10% reduction in the consumption of sugar from drinks? Is that not an indication it is working?
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Taxation on high sugar food and drink would fit with excise taxes in general - there is an externality in the form of health costs caused by high intakes of sugar, so a contribution to those costs would be standard economic theory. Any reduction in intake would be secondary to that but obviously very welcome if it happened. Other uses for the additional tax revenue could be things like more education (although there's a lot of that now and has been for decades), research etc.
That said, most of the taxation commentary I've seen in NZ on this subject has avoided the externality point and focused on how excise taxes won't reduce intake much so isn't worth the complexity it would add (excise taxes are often complex to implement). I can't tell if that's because there's no merit to the externality theory so they don't even cover it (or consider that the savings in NZ Super offset any costs to the health system which was an old Philip Morris argument about tobacco), or if it's just inconvenient to the argument of not taxing sugar so is omitted.
The other classic option in economics for dealing with externalities is to regulate e.g. ban high sugar drinks or restrict their sale or some other regulatory framework. Obviously that runs into freedom of choice, so usually requires a high threshold to bother (not least because it's not hard to just buy sugar and make drinks at home).
It's also possible to do both as NZ has done with alcohol, tobacco and gambling to name a few items (all are subject to tax and heavily regulated with age limits and other restrictions). Sugar probably isn't at that level, but I mention it for completeness.
Society has also changed a lot - far more food and entertainment options and a lot less available time outside of work. The old 8 hour day with a 15 minute commute, 40 hour/5 day week, one working parent, one car and public transport/bikes/walking much more common, and house and land prices actively managed to make quarter acre sections affordable to everyone, is a quaint relic of the past, but it also meant most families had a vege garden (and fruit trees/plants) that could actually feed the family to some extent and the time to tend it and prepare/cook meals at home, and preserve the excess so it wasn't just seasonal.
Now a couple is often both working full time with longer commutes and potentially longer hours (45 hours or 6 days for example), and a lot of cheap, quick, unhealthy but appetising options become very appealing.
There is also a lot more entertainment available, so tending a garden, if you even have a section big enough for it to actually feed a family, is not very appealing when you've spent 55 hours/week each between work and commuting. More people could grow simple stuff (we grow lettuces and tomatoes in season and various herbs year round, along with having strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, mandarins, peaches and apples) but they still need land so it's not necessarily feasible for apartments or small townhouse sections, nor is it much of a supply really.
I'm not sure what the answer is because it's hard, and presumably people don't want to return to the past of a highly-regulated command economy. Exhorting people to eat better isn't working very well despite being a major focus in NZ at least (as soon as your blood sugar testing or weight is above the normal range, you get a truckload of stuff and suggestions of varying politeness to eat less, eat better, exercise more). Some people manage to pull it back with diet and exercise alone (my grandfather was very successful), some don't (my mother, not so much).
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@godder Thanks for that, all makes sense, and you touch on the complexity of the issue.
It is interesting how other things that are addictive and have poor externalities like alcohol, tobacco, and gambling usually have heavy taxes and rules in regard to advertising etc.
I really do feel for those addicted to food, every time they leave the house they are bombarded by hundreds if not thousands of triggers making it very difficult to use willpower as your defence.
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@jc said in Diabetes, Should Govt Do More?:
@majorrage said in Diabetes, Should Govt Do More?:
FWIW with sugar and fat taxes etc, I completely support them, but only on the proviso, it's recycled straight back into fresh foods. Fresh fruit/veg, leans meats, non-processed snacks should be an absolute bargain at the supermarket. Processed crap (confectionary, crisps (chips)) should be expensive, making them the treat that they should be.
But that’s not the way economics works. The supermarkets know how much people will pay for fresh fruit and veges, it’s the amount they charge now more or less. That’s the point where supply no demand are in equilibrium. Economically, the only reasonable thing for the supermarkets to do is to continue to charge that equilibrium price. If you introduce a subsidy it should make no difference to the price, because it doesn’t change either the demand or the supply. It will therefore become a windfall profit (in fact, economic rent) for the supermarkets.
The fact that fruit and veges are variable in supply gives the supermarkets even more cover to do this. They can always justify maintaining their prices because of seasonality.
If you tax sugar to modify behaviour, so be it. Governments have been doing that forever. And it will reduce the demand for sugary products. But the subsidy side of the equation probably won’t increase uptake of fruit and veg. In fact there is a fair chance that poorer people will continue to buy sugary drinks and therefore have less to spend on veges.
I agree with both points. I think that it should be recycleced back into freshfoods, but like you mention I am not sure if there is a way to actually achieve that result.
Even if you were to somehow reduce the price of fresh food through subsidy from sugar (without supermarkets taking the margin themselves, or growers just lining their pockets), I am sure we would see a combination of supermarkets and global food giants reducing their margins on sugary items, or even running at a loss to keep those items still attractive to those who want them.
Leaving the tax just in the hands of a government doesnt appeal either, each government will use it to fund endless layers of bureaucracy to manage said tax, using the last of it to sell their own media campaigns to tell us how good they were to bring it in, in the first place.
I dont know how you an bring it to life, but I would still would like to aim for it
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@catogrande said in Diabetes, Should Govt Do More?:
@taniwharugby said in Diabetes, Should Govt Do More?:
main problem with food costs in NZ is the duopoly of Foodstuffs and Woolworths.
Aldi is supposedly coming to NZ so hopefully they will put pressure on the existing ones to reduce margins, which are apparently some of the highest margins for supermarkets in the world.
Don’t bet on it mate. We have more supermarkets than you could poke a stick at and we still gave the s as me problems.
An over abundance of cheap shit.
Actually Aldi has been a disrupter in Australia, not to the extent to break the duopoly, but it has actually done enough to change certain behaviours from the two leading chains and has gained market share in the process. No guarantee it works elsewhere, but it has here and no one was expecting it.
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@bayimports given we hear about how much pressure Woolworths and Foodstuffs supposedly pressure (some articles used the word bully) growers and screw thier prices down to practically unsustainable levels, yet supermarkets continue to make massive profits and owning a supermarket in NZ is quite lucrative.
You can understand paying over the odds out of season (think the wife said tomatoes were like $15 per/kg a few weeks back.
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@bayimports Probably easier just to use an excise tax to provide meals (either prepared or as ingredients with recipes) directly to community services card holders or reduce income tax at the bottom end.
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@chimoaus said in Diabetes, Should Govt Do More?:
How do we increase the demand for fruit and veg and decrease the demand for processed food?
“We” can’t. The government can certainly use tax to decrease the demand for something, but increasing demand requires personal choice. The demand is an aggregation of individual choices, and you can’t make people want something unless either they like it or they don’t have a choice. If you wan’t people to change their buying choices you have to spend time to change their tastes, preferences and habits. That’s an education thing.
I think your point about sugar and fat setting off our reward systems are spot on. There are a load of people who know that fruit and veges are better for them but they prefer the gratification that comes with a bucket of KFC and a Fat Coke. Lots of people just don’t like vegetables enough to pay for them, and that’s not just poor people either, have you seen the processed shit that passes for the vegan products on the shelves now?
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@godder said in Diabetes, Should Govt Do More?:
@bayimports Probably easier just to use an excise tax to provide meals (either prepared or as ingredients with recipes) directly to community services card holders or reduce income tax at the bottom end.
It probably is and I think it is great to look after those who need it first, but I would like to think everyone could benefit from a solution (if there was a working one) as there would be a lot of people struggling even without a community services card
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@bayimports said in Diabetes, Should Govt Do More?:
@godder said in Diabetes, Should Govt Do More?:
@bayimports Probably easier just to use an excise tax to provide meals (either prepared or as ingredients with recipes) directly to community services card holders or reduce income tax at the bottom end.
It probably is and I think it is great to look after those who need it first, but I would like to think everyone could benefit from a solution (if there was a working one) as there would be a lot of people struggling even without a community services card
CSC was a bit of an offhand suggestion but presumably something like this would be more palatable if it targeted low-income families than open slather, so CSC would minimise administrative overhead of having to design and run an eligibility assessment process as known option. Schools used deciles for the school lunch programmes to date, so in theory that could be an option but it's not as well-targeted as CSC. Eligibility for things like working for families and/or accommodation assistance would be other potential criteria based on existing processes.
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@jc Yep and the trouble is fruit and veg has not been as engineered as processed food to hack into our reward system. It's almost an unfair battle that they can never win. Processed food is often cheap and "tastes" great.
Education is a tough one as the narrative is often influenced by lobby groups and spin doctors to confuse us into buying certain products.
Chuck in the diet industry with numerous different agendas and we as consumers are left not knowing exactly who to trust and what we should be eating.
I think the star rating on foods and the traffic light system in the UK has merit but I wonder if they really change behaviour as we all know a Magnum Ice Cream is not good for us, yet we still eat them because they taste fucken amazing.
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@chimoaus said in Diabetes, Should Govt Do More?:
@jc Yep and the trouble is fruit and veg has not been as engineered as processed food to hack into our reward system. It's almost an unfair battle that they can never win. Processed food is often cheap and "tastes" great.
Education is a tough one as the narrative is often influenced by lobby groups and spin doctors to confuse us into buying certain products.
Chuck in the diet industry with numerous different agendas and we as consumers are left not knowing exactly who to trust and what we should be eating.
I think the star rating on foods and the traffic light system in the UK has merit but I wonder if they really change behaviour as we all know a Magnum Ice Cream is not good for us, yet we still eat them because they taste fucken amazing.
Perhaps rather than stars or ticks or traffc light icons on food they could display a 1-5 colonoscopy icon rating system? I know that would make me pause.
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@chimoaus said in Diabetes, Should Govt Do More?:
@catogrande said in Diabetes, Should Govt Do More?:
You’re right. The sugar tax in the UK is little more than virtue signalling that has the bonus of raising a few quid. It has had fuck all effect.
A google search indicates a 10% reduction in the consumption of sugar from drinks? Is that not an indication it is working?
That surprises me. Do you have a link to the survey or the rationale for the outcome? I’d be interested to know how it was quantified.
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@jc said in Diabetes, Should Govt Do More?:
But that’s not the way economics works. The supermarkets know how much people will pay for fresh fruit and veges, it’s the amount they charge now more or less. That’s the point where supply no demand are in equilibrium. Economically, the only reasonable thing for the supermarkets to do is to continue to charge that equilibrium price. If you introduce a subsidy it should make no difference to the price, because it doesn’t change either the demand or the supply. It will therefore become a windfall profit (in fact, economic rent) for the supermarkets.
The fact that fruit and veges are variable in supply gives the supermarkets even more cover to do this. They can always justify maintaining their prices because of seasonality.
If you tax sugar to modify behaviour, so be it. Governments have been doing that forever. And it will reduce the demand for sugary products. But the subsidy side of the equation probably won’t increase uptake of fruit and veg. In fact there is a fair chance that poorer people will continue to buy sugary drinks and therefore have less to spend on veges.
As you know, fruit and veg are, for the most part, ridiculously cheap in this country anyway. You can go into ASDA, literally fill up your (smaller) trolley with fruit and vegetables and walk out with change from a tenner. So to that point, and perhaps my original statement, you are likely correct.
But I don't think its' enough. There's too many people in this country living off utter crap, which makes the human health supply chain extremely weak at the end. And there are too many people "standing up for them" when it's their own fucking fault. And who can blame them, when you can buy bags of crisps at 7p a bag at Costco. That's ridiculous. In my world, here is how it works
- All children have lunch at school, of which only healthy options available. This way we know all children have at least one healthy meal a day.
- All children have the option of breakfast at school, again healthy only.
- This is funded by fat taxes, on unhealthy food at the supermarket / suppliers. This this topped up by the government to reach a necessary level
- Nutrition becomes a mandatory subject at school, all the way through. Right from nursery to Sixth Form (year 1 to year 13). Separate to P.E. It includes food supply (visiting local farms, gardens, orchards etc) & shows how much crap is shovelled into processed garbage. As children gets older, it will include alcohol education & visits to breweries, vineyards. The whole lot.
- And most controversially, obese people are charged for NHS services. Having wards and wards of fat people using up services whilst people are on waiting lists for genuine out of their control healthcare needs is real national disgrace.
There is too much money, time, politics pumped into the NH Fucking S, when it should instead be pumped into the supply chain of NHS patients.
Diabetes, Should Govt Do More?