Health

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Tony Falkenstein wants a tax on sugar. He is very vociferous about it and we have discussed his position before. The MacDoctor explained the fallacy of a tax on sugar quite well too.

Still there is a clamour for such silliness and so at every opportunity such silliness must be rebutted.

There are now calls for sugar to be treated and taxed in the same way as alcohol because it is alleged that sugar is toxic. There is an article promulgating this exact premise in Nature magazine. The control freaks are out in force clamouring their support for such a tax.

Sugar meets the same criteria for regulation as alcohol, the authors wrote, because it’s unavoidable, there’s potential for abuse, it’s toxic, and it negatively impacts society. They write that sugar is added to so many processed foods that it’s everywhere, and people eat up to 500 calories per day in added sugar alone. Sugar acts on the same areas of the brain as alcohol and tobacco to encourage subsequent intake, they wrote, and it’s toxic because research shows that sugar increases disease risk from factors other than added calories, such as when it disrupts metabolism.

 

Yes sugar is a contributor to the alleged obesity epidemic, however I would argue that indolence is a bigger contributor. Andrew Carroll objects though because to simply label sugar as inherently evil goes against the basic science and nutrition facts of sugar:

Any regular reader on the blog knows of my interest in obesity, and my concern that we are failing to address the problem adequately. But this seems to go a bit too far. There are legitimate reasons that we don’t allow children to purchase and/or consume alcohol. Sugar (as glucose), on the other hand, is necessary for life. It’s in lots of food, not just processed foods. And just because something “can” be abused doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be allowed to have it.

There are data that show immediate and serious consequences of drinking. As far as I know, no such data exist for sugar, teased apart from other unhealthy nutrients. We can have a serious and evidence based discussion of how food and tax policy subtly shapes our eating habits without resorting to age limits on a substance that the brain needs in order to survive. That’s not productive, and might even drive people away. The obesity epidemic can likely only be overcome with sustained societal behavior change. We need to work, with people, not against them.

Tony Falkenstein does great work with philanthropy in other areas but make no mistake that his drive for a tax on sugar and the flip side of his thoughts, the positioning of his own water company is more about shifting his huge inventory of water coolers that is currently collecting dust in warehouses than it is about stopping sugar addiction.

Tony Falkenstein, who ironically sells water to Kiwis, wants to tax sugar and fat as a way fo tackling obesity.

Unfortunately his article is almost totally wrong in fact and in direction.

His suggestion that we tax sugar is so wrong medically as to be funny, MacDoctor explains:

Fast forward to the present day and most OECD countries have no shortage of food at all. In addition, carbohydrates are the easiest energy source to produce and therefore the most abundant in the types of food we eat.  Worse, most carbohydrates are in a form that is readily metabolised straight to glucose (so-called high glycaemic index food). Should you have the gene for insulin resistance your sugar levels will gradually rise as your poor pancreas tries to cope with the sugar load. Eventually the pancreas loses the fight and you develop diabetes (note: not everyone with this gene will develop diabetes)

Immediately one can see the absolute pointlessness of a sugar tax. Potatoes, white bread, rice and pasta become sugar in the body as fast as pure cane sugar and nearly as fast as glucose powder. Taxing sugar is like sticking your finger in the dyke when the tsunami alarm has just gone off. And taxing carbohydrates in general is just adding a tax to nearly all food.

It is the combination of plentiful food and high levels of easily accessible cheap carbohydrates that has produced both the diabetes and the obesity epidemics. This is unlikely to be easily changed because plentiful, cheap food is a GOOD thing, despite the few disadvantages. There is no famine in New Zealand and even the poorest of people should not go hungry (some, of  course, do, but that is not usually due to food being unobtainable).

Falkenstein then also compares sugar to tobacco. The MacDoctor tears that apart as well:

Mr Falkenstein suggests we are all addicted to sugar in the same way that people are addicted to tobacco. This is a very poor analogy. We are wired to like the taste of fats and carbohydrates in our basic genes because these are the high-calories foods we need to consume in order to survive. We are not in any way wired to like burning tobacco. While I have some sympathy for the view of Mr. Falkenstein that the health industry uses false advertising techniques similar to the tobacco companies, I should point out that Mr. Falkenstein himself in the CEO of a bottled water company, surely the biggest health con of the lot!

Be that as it may, the food industry in general is merely responding to what people like to eat. We want tasty fats and carbohydrates. Therefore, that is what they provide and advertise. Unlike, tobacco, which requires a certain amount of peer pressure and brand-generated desire to produce a habit, the food industry merely has to produce something appetising. The product will then continue to sell itself.

If Falkensteins proposals were looked at for implementation, probably by idiots like the Labour party then what would be taxed:

 What we should be looking at with a critical eye is exactly what would be taxed in this regime proposed by Mr Falkenstein, because we are not simply talking about candy bars and coke.

• Honey 80% sugar
• Packet mixed nuts and raisins 27% (without raisins 5%)
• Tomato sauce 16% sugar (Baked beans 8.2%)
• Fruit juice 10.4%
• Peanut butter 5%
• Milk 4.2%
• Bread 2%
• Packet of Pringles 1%

Now, when you can explain to me how a packet of Pringles in a child’s lunchbox is somehow better than a packet of nuts and raisins, I will agree that a tax on sugar is a good thing.

Falkenstein also suggests a tax on fat, without going into too much detail on that, since he didn’t, that is the dumbest idea of all. If we want to look at taxing anything in a bid to halting obesity it should be wheat.

The single biggest thing that helped me deal with depression wasn’t drugs, wasn’t psychologists, wasn’t anything other than getting fit. Most of what I did was simple, I walked. Every time I feel depression stalking me I go for a walk and I don’t mean a sooky walk around the block I mean a good brisk 8-10km.

Dr Mike says so too:

Reading up a bit more about a wheat free existence. I think I may give it a go:

This message to eat more “healthy whole grains” has, I believe, crippled Americans, triggering a helpless cycle of satiety and hunger, stimulating appetite by 400 calories per day and substantially contributing to the epidemic of obesity and diabetes. And, oh yes, adding to the double-digit-per-year revenue growth of the diabetes drug industry, not to mention increased revenues for drugs for hypertension, cholesterol, and arthritis.

It is therefore my contention that eliminating all wheat from the diet is a good idea not just for people with gluten sensitivity; it’s a smart decision for everybody. I have experience in my heart disease prevention practice, as well as my online program for heart disease prevention and reversal, with several thousand people who have done just that and the results are nothing short of astounding. Weight loss of 30, 50, even 70 pounds or more within the first six months; reversal of diabetes and pre-diabetic conditions; relief from edema, sinus congestion, and asthma; disappearance of acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome symptoms; increased energy, happier mood, better sleep. People feel better, look better, eat fewer calories, feel less hungry, are able to discontinue use of many medications — just by eliminating one food from their diet — ironically a food that they’ve been told to eatmore of.

It is imperative that we break our reliance on wheat. It will require nothing less than an overthrow of conventional nutritional dogma. There will be battles fought to preserve the status quo; the wheat industry and its supporters will scream, yell, and claw to maintain their position, much as the tobacco industry and its lobbyists fought to maintain their hold on consumers.

If the health benefits of a wheat-free diet sound hard to believe, why not conduct your own little experiment and see for yourself: simply eliminate all things made of wheat for four weeks — no bread, bagels, pizza, pretzels, rolls, donuts, breakfast cereals, pancakes, waffles, pasta, noodles, or processed foods containing wheat (and do be careful to read labels, as food manufacturers love to slip a little wheat gliadin into your food every chance they get to stimulate your appetite). That’s a lot to cut out, true, but there’s still plenty of real, nutrient-dense foods like vegetables, fruit, nuts, cheese and dairy products, meat, fish, soy foods, legumes, oils like olive oil, avocados, even dark chocolate that you can eat in their place. If after that 4-week period you discover new mental clarity, better sleep, relief from joint pain, happier intestines, and a looser waistband, you will have your answer.

Name this product, here are the clues:

It is a common food, consumed every day by most people, that:

• Increases overall calorie consumption by 400 calories per day
• Affects the human brain in much the same way as morphine
• Has a greater impact on blood sugar levels than a candy bar
• Is consumed at the rate of 133 pounds per person per year
• Has been associated with increased Type 1 Diabetes
• Increases both insulin resistance and leptin resistance, conditions that lead to obesity
• Is the only common food with its own mortality rate

Answer after the break:

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Denmark is getting one. And for good reason. If someone is fat they cost all tax payers a lot of extra money because they eat too much food and don’t exercise enough.

Denmark is to impose the world’s first “fat tax” in a drive to slim its population and cut heart disease.

The move may increase pressure for a similar tax in the UK, which suffers from the highest levels of obesity in Europe.

Starting from this Saturday, Danes will pay an extra 30p on each pack of butter, 8p on a pack of crisps, and an extra 13p on a pound of mince, as a result of the tax.

The tax is expected to raise about 2.2bn Danish Krone (£140m), and cut consumption of saturated fat by close to 10pc, and butter consumption by 15pc.

“It’s the first ever fat-tax,” said Mike Rayner, Director of Oxford University’s Health Promotion Research Group, who has long campaigned for taxes on unhealthy foods.

Problems with obesity are going to cost the New Zealand taxpayer billions, and it is time we had an honest debate about making fat bastards pay for their lifestyle choices.

Lets broaden the tax base by taxing fat bastard food and not using quite so much income tax to fund keeping fat bastards alive. Unfortunately the Danes experiment won;t work because they are taxing the wrong things. Instead of taxing foods with fat in them they need to be taxing things with carbohydrates in them, that is a much broader tax base to start with and secondly will actually address the issue.

You would think that after 50 years of telling people to eat less fat to get thinner we would have a whole heap of thin people, instead we have the exact opposite with the high focus on carbohydrate rich foods. The obesity epidemic is being caused by the health professionals forcing us to carb load.

Tony Ryall is once again politician of the week and well on track for politician of the year with the news in the Herald today of his great progress in Health.

The reduction in the number of people earning less than $90,000 reflects savings through efficiencies in back office-type operations and projects that have been completed.

The ministry has reduced its operational funding from $237 million in October 2008 to a current budget of $213 million. Savings have been redirected to Crown funding to buy frontline health services.

Chopping out the bureaucrats and redeploying to the frontline. No wonder there isn’t a single health bad news story hitting the headlines.

Health Minister Tony Ryall said he was not bothered by an increase of five ministry employees above the $90,000 line. “It reflects the fact they have fewer people, but more senior people.”

He said the ministry was on track to be down to 1290 positions by the middle of this year and its reductions so far had allowed $20 million a year to be redirected into health care from 2008/9 and a further $10 million this financial year – a total of $50 million so far.

When Mr Ryall announced a re-organisation of health administration in October 2009, with the creation of a National Health Board in the ministry and shared back-office functions for district health boards and possibly the ministry, the ministry employed 1475 staff.

He indicated then that a further 400 positions could shift from the ministry to a shared services agency, leaving the ministry/board with 890 staff.

Keep chopping Tony, keep chopping.

mōmona

(stative) be fat, fatty, obese, in good condition, rich, fertile.

from The Maori Dictionary. Now we can see why Maori have such a problem with obesity. Their word for fat-arse means “in good condition”.

Then there is the news about losing weight “the Maori Way”.

What is that?

“First drop your pie” was the lesson for one of the Hastings crew who cycled into Parliament Grounds yesterday to prove to Associate Health Minister Tariana Turia that their weight loss programme is working.

Reminds me of Ricky Gervais’s solution for obesity and the ensuing outcry over his comments when fatties decided that they were like poofs and couldn’t help shoving pies into their face.

His response is priceless.

I heard someone on the radio once say that they were tired of the prejudice aimed at the overweight. They said something like “you’re not allowed to make fun of gay people, so why are you allowed to make fun of fat people? It’s the same thing.”

It’s not the same thing though, is it? Gay people are born that way. They didn’t work at becoming gay. Fat people became fat because they would rather be that way than stop eating so much. They had to eat and eat to get fat. Then, when they were fat they had to keep up the eating to stay fat. For gayness to be the same as fatness, gay people would have to start off straight but then ween themselves onto cock. Soon they’re noshing all day getting gayer and gayer. They’ve had more than enough cock… they’re full… they’re just sucking for the sake of it. Now they’re overgay, and frowned upon by people who can have the occasional cock but not over indulge.

When a doctor tells me that that’s how you become gay, I’ll stop making jokes about fat people.

In the fight against Methamphetamine won’t we need is openness not secrecy. What is more ridiuclous is a quick google search establish that the details of this sportsman have already been published and yet a court now wants to retrospectively cover things up.

According to Judge Harvey that is a-ok by the law. In combatrting drugs and drug use secrecy isn’t going to help.

A Bay of Plenty sportsman who collapsed and died after using methamphetamine and cannabis during a training session has had his identity concealed by the courts.

At an inquest into the man’s death in Tauranga yesterday, Coroner Wallace Bain suppressed the name of the deceased, as well as any significant identifying details, following a request from the man’s family.

The court heard how the man collapsed while resting during a heavy training session, which followed him smoking about five puffs of methamphetamine – also known as P – from a pipe and consuming cannabis head mixed with tobacco.

The amount of cannabis consumed was described as being three times larger than the usual cones of cannabis, being the size of a “compacted jaffa lolly.”

After collapsing, the man began convulsing, with the seizures lasting for three to four minutes.

Well that’s nice of the coroner but the horse bolted weeks ago. We know that he was a sportsman, we know he used methamphetamine and we know he is dead. Quite why this is now suppressed is beyond belief.

It’s almost like the judiciary were holding their collective breathes to see what Judge Harvey would do and now he has delivered the smacking normal dispensing of secrecy has resumed.

Low income New Zealand families would have to spend up to a third of their income to eat healthily, a researcher says.

A separate study reveals about 40 per cent of New Zealand households go hungry, skip meals or scrimp on ingredients because they are not “food secure”.

Food security is a key topic for discussion at a national dietitians conference in Dunedin that started yesterday and runs until tomorrow.

Professor John Coveney, associate dean at South Australia’s Flinders University, said yesterday people in low socio-economic groups were more likely to have a diet-related disease such as diabetes, heart disease and some cancers.

His Australian research, which will be presented at the conference, showed low income families would have to spend up to one-third of their weekly income on buying a shopping basket of healthy food.

In comparison, a “healthy food basket” cost just 9 per cent of income for high income families.

A low income family would normally spend about 18 per cent of its income on food.

Riiiight, and the cost to buy some seeds/vege plants and maintain a vege garden is?