What I wrote Trick & Treat for
I imagine there can be few readers of this blog who are not aware that ther Danish government has begun to tax 'saturated fat' If you haven't seen it in the news, here is an example from the Daily Telegraph
This move to price healthy foods beyond the reach of the poorer members of Danish society will undoubtedly make the manufacturers of junk foods very happy because, of course, their products contain very little saturated fat - just hydrogenated polyunsaturated fat! And, of course, as we know, it will have an effect that is exactly the opposite of what they hope to achieve. But when you have ignorant politicians who are influenced by Big-Food and let down by incompetent nutritionists, this is exactly the sort of lunacy that results.
I can understand their motives but, surely, someone must have spoken out against this move before it happened.
But there could be a wider problem: The domino effect. Now that one country has gone mad, it could prove to be contagious, with other countries caught up in the lunacy.
One can't help but wonder how this hydra that saturated fats are in abny way harmful has kept sprouting heads for many decades after it was shown to be based on deception. And, as the Danes have made this move "to counter the growing trend of obesity", how does taxing the only fat which has been shown not to cause obesity and which actually has the lowest calorific value of any fat - only about half as many calories as polyunsaturated fats - going to help.
Our politicians are probably no better informed than the ones who have let the Danes down so abysmally, so I'm not holding my breath that ours are not equally gullible and we won't see such stupidity here.
For my part, my MP, David Cameron, the Prime Minister, together with his Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, both have a copy of my Trick & Treat. One can only hope one or other of them has read it.
Barry
