Britain to restrict promotion of unhealthy food

Ding fries are done ..

m.youtube.com/watch?v=-utS4qVMzkg

They must think it's really urgent if we get until April '22 to stockpile

There is no such thing as 'unhealthy' food. Just poor diets and bad food choices.

Yes, it was a bad food choice for them to push the change out to 2022 ..

I think it is a good idea but a bit "nanny state" for the Conservative party though.

I have to agree with MOnica. Watch out for the food police

I agree with MOnica. No single foodstuff is inherently unhealthy. The quantities and balance of different foods in a diet are unhealthy.

IMO this is ridiculous. It would be better to invest in proper health education about what's in food.

It's because food will skyrocket in price so this is known as preparing for the inevitable. No more " bogoffs ".

Why do you think that food will "sky rocket in price" EllenVannin?

Cutting out, or down on sugar is a good start. It is amazing the amount of food you find it in!

Currently I am eating lots of so called bad foods because it is Christmas. Come the new year I will return to eating in my normal manner. Lots of fruit and veg, and little or no processed or sweetened food.

Like the Puritans this lot have already started an insidious campaign to ban Christmas.

M0nica

Currently I am eating lots of so called bad foods because it is Christmas. Come the new year I will return to eating in my normal manner. Lots of fruit and veg, and little or no processed or sweetened food.

Like the Puritans this lot have already started an insidious campaign to ban Christmas.

We are probably all eating too much ‘bad’ food at the moment MOnica, I have had both a bit of Christmas Pudding and Christmas cake for my tea, but like you I will soon be back to normal eating lots more fruit and veg and little or no cake and puddings.

Trouble is, there are far too many people who eat the ‘bad’ stuff all the time, and yes, they do need to be encouraged to change their ways.

Calendargirl I am all for them changing their ways, providing it is not at the expense of others

The rules that put a tax on high sugar levels in soft drinks has meant almost every manufacturer replaced some of the sugar in their soft drinks with sweeteners. Unfortunately, I am one of that group of people who can taste - and smell sweeteners and the taste and smell is unpleasant.

This Christmas, although I scoured two supermarkets, I could not find a single bottle of lemonade that did not contain sweetener.

I have thrown at least half a dozen of what used to be fruit juices away, because the manufacturer has secreted the words 'juice drink' on the back of the packet and replaced some of the sugar with sweetener. I now dare not buy any kind of soft drink anywhere without taking out a magnifying glass to read all the small print.

I have never been a heavy consumer of soft drinks, but at times, on a long car journey, a lovely day in the garden, at Christmas, with a vermouth, I like some lemonade. This pleasure is now barred to me. Water is dandy, but now and again, I would like to drink something else.

growstuff

I agree with MOnica. No single foodstuff is inherently unhealthy. The quantities and balance of different foods in a diet are unhealthy.

IMO this is ridiculous. It would be better to invest in proper health education about what's in food.

Quite! Nothing wrong with promotions as such just what people do with them having bought them.

Education is what is needed.

Health education doesn't change what foods people crave or the amount they consume- This has been proven time and again- They know that what they are eating is junk and eat it regardless- We are all dirt poor anyway due to soil being depleted of nutrients- As a result, what we eat is fertilizer forced and in no way shape or form as nutritious as the food our parents consumed-

I think having food sold in smaller packages would help.

For example when did you last see a yoghourt pot sized portion of cream on sale. I was almost first in the supermarket one morning in Christmas week and had to buy a pint of cream or none at all. Christmas is about the only time I buy cream, but I have noticed that small sizes of almost any item are disappearing. Remember when there were small tins of soup, half-sized tins of tomatoes, vegetables, etc.

I know you can - and I do, freeze almost everything, but my freezer is full of plastic containers with half portions of food that used to come in smaller sizes.

Oh, I agree- Packaging has been an ongoing issue- And freezer space to store the extra-

Well, it isn’t the shops that provide the free one but the manufacturer. I think sometimes they’re asked to do it by the shop but sometimes it’s to get more sales at the end of a financial year. I need to ask DH about it because he worked in sales but he’s asleep: I’ll ask him tomorrow. I think it’s good that some supermarkets offer free fruit for children but don’t know if it’s still happening given that I no longer go to shops.

Wouldn’t it have been a good idea to continue to liaise with Jamie Oliver on his campaign to get children to eat more healthily?

I think the introduction of standard packaging sizes could help. Soft drinks limited to one litre bottles, cereals haveing standard weights.

Some foods do come in standard packaging - sugar, butter, flour. If it works for those commodities why not for all fats, cereals, biscuits etc.

It would also stop manufacturers from deceiving consumers by putting goods in oversized packets with the weight in tiny print on the back. The consumer would know that all biscuits would be in packs of no more than 8oz/225gms, however big and flash the box.

Monica I too dislike the taste & smell of artificial sweeteners. Bottle Green cordials don’t have them in & have an interesting variety of flavours www.bottlegreendrinks.com/cordial/plump-summer-raspberry

Re small lots of cream. You can get 150ml cartons of cream at Morrisons (and other supermarkets I’m sure) which I believe are the size of a small pot of yoghurt.
Like the Puritans this lot have already started an insidious campaign to ban Christmas
Who have? What have they done?

Previous govts. tried the same policy with smoking, and eventually it worked.
Then what happened? We started to eat instead and became obese.
Or some of us. There are still many skinny smokers here.

Fennel I don’t think it was health education that changed people’s behaviour around smoking.
It was banning it in public places.

Did people start eating too much to compensate for not smoking? I thought obesity started rising before the bans on smoking were introduced.

janeainsworth The difference is that people can't give up eating and there isn't the same kind of social stigma.

The thing that interests me is that people seem to know more about micro-nutrients (vitamins, minerals, etc.) than they do about getting the balance and quantities of macro-nutrients (carbs, fat, protein) right. I suspect that's because dieting is a multi-billion pound/dollar business.