After The Crusade Against Carbon Dioxide, The Jihad Against Junk Food
by Governments seem to be very keen to go to war these days – especially against us, the people who elected them. We have had the war on smoking, the war on carbon dioxide, the war on anti social behaviour and the war on drugs. The war on alcohol is in full swing, now they are talking about a war on obesity.
And what is the purpose of these wars? An excuse to raise taxes of course. A fat tax is one of the poroposals being considered.
Having brought up children of our own, my wife and I could have told him ant self respecting child would eat cold vomit in preference to couscous.
The expression of snobbery through the issue of food has a long history. As John Carey showed in his book The Intellectuals and the Masses, in the early twentieth-century writers and thinkers who were allergic to working-class folk frequently attacked the tinned food consumed by less well-off people. “Tinned food offends against what the intellectual designates as nature: it is mechanical and soulless”, said Carey. They saw tinned food as “an offence against the sacredness of individuality”. And so it is today. For all the spouting of medical statistics and health facts in the jihad against junk food, really it is driven by an elitist view of certain types of food as “soulless”, unnatural, too easy and too cheap. It is not a matter of taste to these people but a matter of class and class hatred, cunningly disguised as a health campaign. The very last thing they would want to see is the working class eating salads, vegetarian pastas, home cooked stews and casseroles (as many do it must be said,) that would undermine the carefully constructed sense of superiority these affluent professionals depend on for their self esteem.
It would of course be irresponsible to close without saying this article does not intend to encourage people to eat badly. A varied diet and moderately sized portions ought to be enough to keep our digestive system in good shape, stave off obesity and and keep the waistline under control. Moderation is the key. It’s OK to pig out sometimes but not every day, it’s OK to be self indulgent but don’t let it become a habit. A burger is delicious occasionally but do you really want to eat the same every day? And most of all, never let the prejudices of elitists dictate who you are.
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