Denmark introduces fat-related food tax | Hacker News Reader

Denmark introduces fat-related food tax

bbc.co.uk

45 pointsalexholehouse36 comments

In my recent research into nutrition, there is good evidence that saturated fat isn't the enemy.

The science for nutrition in humans is very difficult to pin down - there are just too many external variables, and the human body does a fantastic job in working with whatever it gets as a fuel in the short term that masks a lot of what is bad.

Personally, I'm convinced there's something that rings true in the Paleo movement, and I'm trying that out now to see how it works for me.

As someone considering paleo, I'd be interested to hear what studies you thought well supported the claim that saturated fats aren't the problem and why you thought those studies were more reliable than the ones that indicte the contrary.

This guy is an interesting read, he's a medical doctor and there's a lot of technical stuff that you may need to lookup to see if hs's actually BSing or not - http://www.archevore.com/

There's a lot in there about why the Common Wisdom is built on bad science - the big one is the 7 Countries paper that cherry picked the countries to get the results they wanted, and ignored the 14 countries that didn't show the required results. This is where Saturated Fat = Bad came from.

The book Good Carbs, Bad Carbs opened my eyes to why Atkins works - lots of science references in there.

With personal experimentation this year, I'm beginning to work out what I can eat and not have problems in the short term. This experience is lining up with the paleo diet. It's much harder to tell if the long term problems will follow the same way, but if I feel physically better now, that can't be bad. I am thinner, healthier, more muscular and have better endurance than at any other point in my life, and I'm 44.

YMMV

One interesting point that the Archevore points out is that the reason Very Low Carb works is because the lack of insulin spikes causes the cravings to go away, and you tend to eat fewer calories. If these calories have a lot of saturated fat, this tends to make you fuller sooner, and without cravings, you stop eating sooner during a meal.

I have experienced exactly this phenomenon.

My experience: I went from 22% bodyfat to 12% in 4-5 months of archevore. I didn't do the diet to lose weight; that was just a nice side benefit (and the most noticeable/measurable effect). My exercise was consistently low over this period.

The book "Good Calories, Bad Calories" (Taubes) provides solid evidence (i.e. well-referenced studies) against various forms of the lipid hypothesis. While Taubes' own theory of obesity hasn't really stood up over time, the book contains a lot of good research.

"While Taubes' own theory of obesity hasn't really stood up over time"

can you elaborate on that?

Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease:

http://www.ajcn.org/content/early/2010/01/13/ajcn.2009.27725...

For those of you who wonder if this is a good idea or whether or not it will improve the general health of the population.

Don't worry about it, the Danish government has promised not to increase the tax rates (in fact it was one of the cornerstones of their campaign so they couldn't abandon it) since then they have looked in all sorts of places and for all sorts of excuses for how to increase revenue without actually raising taxes.

In other words this is just an excuse for more revenue, nobody (not even the government) expect this to actually improve the health of the average dane (which is about as bad as the health of the average American twenty years ago). Add to it that we have single payer public health care here and it should make it clear why they try to get away with this stupidity.

The entire thing is even more stupid because the government who created this tax lost the recent election but the parties who won haven't cancelled the law (despite the fact that they could increase the tax rates without breaking any of the promises they made during the election).

"the health of the average dane (which is about as bad as the health of the average American twenty years ago)"

- Could you elaborate on this a bit more? I have lived both in Denmark and in the US and you really can't compare an average Dane to an average American (average Dane lives far far more healthy life than an American counterpart and has by far higher level of health care service). Not to mention the Danish health care system which is far superior to any other health care system I have ever witnessed. It should be a role model for all the other countries.

The experiment I'd like to see would be for some country with an obesity problem to make it so that prepared food must be priced proportionally to its calories.

I think one of the reasons for obesity is that it is really really easy to get a ridiculous amount of calories without realizing it. Most people would not eat half a large pizza for lunch every day--they would be aghast at eating that many calories. Yet a large combo from a fast food burger joint can easily have more calories than half a large pizza, and many people will eat that every day. (And I'm not talking about getting the biggest, most decked out burger offered...I'm talking middle of the line, such as a double at a place that offers singles, doubles, and triples).

I realize there is much more to healthy eating than just watching calories, but for most people in obese first-world countries the problems from obesity dwarf any other nutritional problem they are likely to have, so first things first.

Diet soda is free!

No, No. You still have to pay a deposit for the plastic bottle.

What country would force food to be priced proportionally to its calories - N. Korea, Cuba, or maybe that's the next step for Denmark?

Do you really want to see that experiment?

Welcome to the wonderfull life of socialist Denmark. Were you're sure the Government will control what is good for you and what is not good for you.

The newly elected government in Denmark campaigned on the promise of NOT making some much needed reforms to the Danish social care welfare system (about half of the Danish population recieves benefits from the stated one way or the other), so now they are trying to gather money anywhere they can, to keep this promise.

This tax is not a well thought out tax, intended to increase the general well-being of the Danish population, it's the first of a long run of weird taxes we'll see from the newly elected Danish Government.

This is political FUD at its best.

The extra fat fee is results of a law passed in March, under the old conservative government. It's just coming into effect now starting October 1st. It's not an act by the the newly elected government. That government barely picked its cabinet 24 hours ago. Not even Stalin could manage to create, approve and roll out to all relevant parties a new set of rules within 24 hours.

If you dig into this page, you can see that it passed 102-1, with only the Liberal Alliance voting against: http://www.ft.dk/samling/20101/lovforslag/l111/beh3/16/forha...

So it was a law initiated by the Conservative side and with joint support of both left and right side parties (except the ultra liberal one and the far-left Good Looking Peoples' Party).

Obviously the new government is not going to cancel a law they voted for themselves but this is a conservative-initatied law.

As for new government "gathering money where they can", due to the inclusion of a famously centric party (amusingly called "The Radical Left", not to be confused with the right wing conservative party called "Left" which was part of the previous government) we're looking at a set of financial changes likely to benefit workers - tax on work will be decreased and the far left parties had to drop their ideas of an extra "millionaire tax".

Rather than go through with some weird vague idea of making everyone work 1 hour per week with no extra pay, the government will increase the retirement age as part of financing.

It's an interesting problem, in the abstract.

If a government could drastically improve the lives of its citizens by applying a negative incentive (an indirect freedom limiter) to perform one particular act, should it?

Or should people make the right choice on their own, and/or let the market sort it out?

What if the act is so fun that people typically don't forgo it?

What about the Slippery Slope? Where do you draw the line and restrict the governmental power?

I don't know. I know there are ideological answers here, but I don't think those are the best answer.

Madison posed a similar question a long time ago.

Would it be wonderful, if, under the pressure of all these difficulties, the Convention should have been forced into some deviations from that artificial structure and regular symmetry, which an abstract view of the subject might lead an ingenious theorist to bestow on a Constitution planned in his closet, or in his imagination?

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers/No._37

It can also be looked in this manner.

It costs a society to have sick members, by taxing products that cause sickness the government can use the money raised to offset the cost of the sickness.

> It costs a society to have sick members, by taxing products that cause sickness the government can use the money raised to offset the cost of the sickness.

Except that things aren't that straight forward.

BTW - would you support a tax on child-bearing by folks who are likely to have "at risk" children? (It's pretty easy to identify those people.)

Hmm, I might support your last idea. Especially if it was complimented with an effort to make adoption of children to suitable couples easier/cheaper.

> Except that things aren't that straight forward.

Such as?

Re Babies:

There examples of both tax being charged and bonus being paid for having children depending on what is needed by the society. China has the One Child Policy, a successful attempt to reduce their burgeoning population. Australia has a Baby Bonus which pays parents of middle income or less families when they have a baby.

Babies are an interesting one as depending on the population growth they are either a public service or public menace.

With all of the confusing misinformation out there, there is plenty that we do know, based on sound science. The Harvard School of Public Health is a great resource that distills what scientific research has shown us about nutrition (as opposed to what lobbyists have influenced the USDA to tell us about nutrition).

More info here: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-...

And an overview here: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating-p...

The big thing that sticks out here, and makes all the science hard to prove or disprove, is that no-one actually sticks to the diet they are assigned in a trial!

Almost everyone agrees that you shouldn't eat the processed crap - but after that, the results become harder to get out of trials.

The internet seems to love the notion that fatty foods do not lead to fatty people. My personal experience is that it does. Fat is slower to metabolize than any other macro-nutrient. If you don't exercise, this might not apply. But if you do, you need carbohydrates for energy, and you don't need much fat. Any excess fat you do consume is harder to burn.

Go read Good Calories, Bad Calories to learn the real science behind nutrition (as opposed to "personal experience").

My personal experience is consistent with the simple fact-based reasoning that I laid out. I may give this book a read though. The missing factor that many people seem to miss is that exercise is a bigger factor in health than diet, and you can't exercise effectively (at least endurance exercise) without carbohydrates.

My personal experience is totally opposite to yours. Eating fats makes me more energetic and more fit at the same time.

However, I'm strict with the 'no carbs' thing. If you mix fat and carbs nothing you say is conclusive.

I never quite understood how people would come to the conclusion that eating fat makes you fat.

They're examining an insanely complicated biological system with all sorts of intricate feedback loops and then singling out one type of nutrient basically because it weighs less per calorie.

While most danes don't mind high taxes in general, this is one of those taxes that only makes sense on the surface. I think it's fair to say the foundation is shaky at best - extra tax on olive oil and nuts because they are fatty? Really?

Saturated fat makes you fat? Tell that to this guy: http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/

No. Saturated fat tax makes the government purses slightly heavier.

This has nothing to do with health.

You can find a blog to support any cockamamie idea you like.

"Homeopathy doesn't work? Tell that to this guy!"

"Astrology is bunk? Tell that to this guy!"

"Having sex with a virgin doesn't cure AIDS? Tell that to this guy!"

That guy doesn't appear to have done a lot of legitimate scientific research, so I'm not sure why anybody would listen to him over all the people who have. And all his videos of his kid eating unhealthy stuff as though it has any significance at all make my quackdar start blaring. Like, when the kid learns to walk, is he going to post videos of her running across tracks in front of an oncoming train to prove that's just fine as well?

Maybe you can judge him by the company he keeps and who he speaks with in these matters? Others, who "have done a lot of legitimate scientific research" in the areas of obesity and health look up to him as a well respected researcher.

You really need a better attitude about approaching these things. :(

I don't see how skepticism is a bad attitude to take when approaching alt-med theories. The vast majority is utter fiction.

He certainly sounds unorthodox - serving puree of pig hearts casseroled in wine to his baby.

Part of the reason why half of America is morbidly obese is not because the food is cheap, but because the food triggers endocannabinoids and you literally become addicted and suffer withdrawal symptoms from food that is quite literally killing you .01% per meal.

Tax it all you want, if you want to solve the problem you gotta put a surgeon's general's warning on 95% of food America eats as "This food will cause you to die if you eat more than x grams per day".

What I want is a little indicator on every food item at the store, a number as the percentage decrease in overall health when this food is fed every meal to various animals. A score of how long this food will cause a monkey to die if he eats X grams per day. It might be a shocker to see the healthfood isle filled full of foods that will cause you to die if you eat it every day.

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