'Food Policy' Report Calls for Worldwide Fight Against Sugar and Meat - Using Taxes

P. Gardner Goldsmith | February 6, 2019
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Remember when medicine wasn’t used as a political lever or as cover for politicians issuing mandates and dictates?

Admittedly, that was a long time ago, so you’d have to have a darn good memory, but it’s quite clear, looking at the alarmist and regulation-promoting “Lancet” report called “The Global Syndemic of Obesity, Undernutrition, and Climate Change” that busybodies are champing at the proverbial bit to not only appear highbrow by writing ponderous titles, they want government to tell people how to live and what to eat.

Reason’s Baylen Lynnekin did an excellent job drawing attention to this new report, and exposing the many classic examples of central planning the authors appear to desire, even as they make completely unscientific leaps about a magical connection between “obesity, undernutrition, and climate change”.

First the authors leave no room for doubt: they think man is causing atmospheric changes that are leading to catastrophic “climate change”. But, of course, in reality, as opposed to the fanciful world of the “Lancet” report, that’s far from proven. It’s especially difficult to claim that mankind is causing catastrophic “climate change” when the term itself was slid in a few years ago to replace their first bogeyman, “Global Warming”, because there was no measurable temperature increase on earth between 1997 and 2015.

Regardless, the “Lancet” authors decided to not only accept the assumption that man is causing “warming-but-we’ll-call-it-something-else-because-there-isn’t-any”, they decided to get high-brow and claim that this “climate change” is part of a “syndemic”. Writes Lynnekin:

The concept of a "syndemic"—basically, two or more related pandemics—is pretty novel. So is tying climate change to both the overconsumption and underconsumption of calories. But the solution the authors propose will sound frustratingly familiar. 

If you guessed regulation and possible taxation, you guessed right…

In short, their big fix is to treat food companies like tobacco companies and tax meats and sugary food and drink.

This is a perfect example of what happens when politics puts a saddle on science, or when scientists have a certain political agenda, regardless of the scientific method. The science becomes politicized, particularly when most major universities and “non-governmental organizations” are reliant on government grants and funding for their continued existence.

The “Lancet” authors made sure to stress that obesity and undernurishment are connected to “climate change”, because, of course, “too much” food is being grown, “too much” meat is being slaughtered from too many beasts being raised, and all of that is, yeah, you got it, leading to too much carbon and methane in the air, and that is causing another pandemic: climate-global-change-warming.

But don’t read that too closely, or you might notice some contradictions, such as the fact that “too much food” is leading to “undernutrition”, or the fact that all of these supposedly man-made problems are somehow like communicable diseases.

Writes Lynnekin:

For example, the third sentence argues that climate change is a pandemic. (The World Health Organization defines a pandemic as "the worldwide spread of a new disease.") A previous Lancet publication argued that physical inactivity—e.g., sitting on your couch habitually—is also a pandemic.

Ouch. But, remember, don’t read too closely, because you might not let them lead you by the hand to their preferred policy destination. And where does it all lead?

Regulation and taxation…

The report authors, for example, hail Mexico's national soda tax, Chile's backwards food policies, and "the progress seen in New York City during Michael Bloomberg's years as mayor," which, recall, were notable chiefly for the mayor's systemic attack on food freedom.

Yep.

And, lest one think this won’t happen beyond the confines the funky-town of NYC under former Mayor Bloomberg, recall the fact that the entire national government of England recently saw the introduction of a plan to mandate the portion sizes of foods and the condiments and toppings on pizzas, nation-wide.

It’s all an outgrowth of central planning and the control of healthcare that the UK government seized in 1947, and this can and will happen in the US and worldwide unless more folks become familiar with the principles of science, economics, and, especially, the principles of individual sovereignty and natural rights.

They all work hand-in-hand. Honest science steers clear of political funding. And honest economics recognizes that the entire reason people work and engage in voluntary transactions is to better their lives, to get more for less effort, not less for more effort. Taxes and regulations chained to food are the ultimate in counterfeit economics, the pinnacle in regression, from the modern day to the days of the caveman.

It is as bizarre as it is offensive, yet it gets published.

And one can bet that politicians are ready to quote it, in their never-ending quest to control their neighbors’ lives.

Bon appétit.

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