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November 22, 2004
Calorie Tax

U.S. agribusiness now produces about 3,800 calories of food a day for every American – about 500 more calories than it produced 30 years ago (and at least a thousand more calories than most of us need to consume daily). So how did business deal with the problem of oversupply? By persuading us to eat more.
Too much stuffing

St. Louis-based Hardee’s said its new burger boasts two 1/3-pound slabs of Angus beef, four strips of bacon, three slices of American cheese and some mayonnaise — all on a buttered, toasted, sesame seed bun.

The "Monster Thickburger" will cost about $5.49, Hardee’s said. But chowing down on the 1,420-calorie burger, which contains 107 grams of fat, will cost around $7 with fries and a soda.
Hardee’s unveils new ‘Monster’

Obesity-related illnesses cost the U.S. economy an estimated $120 billion a year in medical costs and lost productivity. (first article)

Proposal:  A $0.001 health tax per calorie. With 2,500 calories per day per person this would result in $273 billion in revenue per year which could be spend to finance basic healthcare for all.

Any takers?

Posted by b on November 22, 2004 at 20:03 UTC | Permalink
Comments

Thanks but no, have to pass this one. Just looking at the picture makes me feel sick and bloated.

Posted by: Fran | Nov 22 2004 20:30 utc | 1

Revamping the tax structure on food would be better served by taxing Agribusiness out of existence, so we could revitalize Organic Family Farms which is an urgent national priority.
Aside from that, eating too much food & too much fat is what one does if one isn’t addicted to anything else & is seeking compensation for the Machine stripping the flavor from food & the connectedness from Life. I prefer addressing the underlying issues.
If you want to tax consumption of anything, tax the War Dept. for each bullet, Bomb & Tank- that’s the Real Death Tax, not the obscenely misnamed Estate Tax.

Posted by: jj | Nov 22 2004 20:31 utc | 2

I’m with jj and Fran.
However, if you want to organize a food tax per-mile-transported, I’m your man. Local food would hole agribusiness and support smaller farmers (both organic and non).
Meaninglessly, I nominate $.01 per pound per 100 miles, but maybe I should look if there are real proposals on this with rational numbers.

Posted by: Citizen | Nov 22 2004 20:57 utc | 3

By the way, a transportation tax on moving food around would really hurt the burger chains.

Posted by: Citizen | Nov 22 2004 20:58 utc | 4

Not a fan of any form of limitation of personal freedoms. If you want to eat yourself to death, drive without a seatbelt or take your own life, I believe it’s your right. You own your life, not the state. Everyone has something they’d like to opt out of when it comes to paying for others. Silly injuries caused by extreme sports, croc-wrestling, skiing in marked avalanche zones. At some point, this will lead to people spying on your dinner table to see that you’ve had the requisite servings of leafy greens… or else. We all pay for each other and accept each other’s foibles. No one is really going to eat and smoke themselves into a wretched state of health, then laugh about how others are paying for their medical costs: instant cures don’t exist and you will be in too much physical agony to think it was ‘worth it’.

Posted by: kat | Nov 22 2004 21:05 utc | 5

Farm America Tax
making the economy safe for local farmers

Posted by: Citizen | Nov 22 2004 21:25 utc | 6

I’m very much with Kat on this one. What are those custodians of health really worried about? “…cost the U.S. economy an estimated $120 billion a year in medical costs and lost productivity”. Of course. We only have a right to exist as long as we are productive. When I first went to the US, I was surprised that people seemed far more ‘polarised’ than in Europe: very weight-conscious or extremely fat. The less-than-ideal-but-not-really-fat part of society seemed to me much smaller than I was used to. Still, I am not too keen on the advice offered by the prophets of efficiency. Too much fat on their minds.

Posted by: teuton | Nov 22 2004 21:34 utc | 7

Citizen: Just tax oil, and it will increase the cost of food transportation. In fact, if unions and the average American employee were any smart, they’ll ask for a highly punitive global (read: international, worldwide far-reaching) oil tax, and make sure the US will have one internally and on all its corporations. it’s the easiest way to cut off the profits most of rapacious firms make by outsourcing jobs to Asia – ok, that won’t help for the helpdesk and call centres, but no more cheap car from Far East, no more cheap sweatshop in Thailand, because the mere transportation costs will make anything US-made competitive with it.
Kat: That’s personal responsibility: You want to eat to death, which involves a huge amount of healthcare because you’ll be a fat ill guy for years and years, which will need surgery and various treatments, and a huge variety of daily pills, then it’s just fair to make you pay for it instead of dumping all the costs on the collectivity at large.
We have tried freedoms for everyone, and the current US is where it led us.
I think I’m gonna hire Bernhard as one of my economic advisors when I’ll be master of the universe 😉

Posted by: Clueless Joe | Nov 22 2004 21:37 utc | 8

Some body is eating my calories. I want then all, every day!
Sure, drive w/o a seat belt, but if I catch you not strapping in your kids, I will whip you with the buckle end of a seat belt. Ok, I won’t, but that would really piss me off.

Posted by: Stoy | Nov 23 2004 1:30 utc | 9

Stoy, it ain’t that simple. This is America – Everything is Garbage. Excuse me, I mean Profit is God, Fuck Everyone Else – No Ownership No Responsibility Investor Greed Driven Capitalism. I have a friend whose 7 yr. old was killed while snuggly in his car seat w/his Mother’s arms around him, when their SUV was hit by SUV behind. The driver of the rear SUV was neither insured nor paying much attention to the road.
However, the child was killed because the buckle of the child’s seat put a hole in his heart. (By the time the hospital restarted his heart, the blood to his brain had been cut off for too long.) Turns out the industry knows of this design defect & couldn’t fucking be bothered to redesign them so they don’t kill children. The hole it left in his family’s life will never be repaired.
And No, it hasn’t been fixed yet!!! Be Careful what you wish for.
(Since Am. didn’t develop until the Age of Mass Production, it’s fitting that it would pioneer the Industrialization of Food.)

Posted by: jj | Nov 23 2004 2:27 utc | 10

Don’t blame the huge amounts of fat @fast food franchises on “Americans”. Women have been asking them for low-fat salads forever. They refuse to provide it.
Hardee’s burger is prob. competition w/the ultra-reactionary Carls Jr. for the adolescent male buck.

Posted by: jj | Nov 23 2004 2:30 utc | 11

I’m sure some of the working poor in the US today (not too mention around the world) would gladly take any of those extra calories per day. Civilization really took a seriously pathological turn when the PTB decided to put food under lock and key. (’bout 5,000 years ago by some estimations… when opportunistic and agressive agriculture became the name of the game)

Posted by: Kate_Storm | Nov 23 2004 5:44 utc | 12

NYT OpEd Food Without Fear

There is an ecology of eating. Like any good ecosystem, our diet should be diverse, dynamic and interrelated. In 1984 Americans were spending roughly 8 percent of their disposable income on health care and about 15 percent on food. Today, those numbers are essentially reversed. An ever-more reductionist diet – protein this year, carbohydrates next year – ignores plant and animal systems loaded with genetic complexity, and the benefits that complexity passes down to us.
So as you’re getting ready for Thanksgiving, think of yourself less as a consumer of the harvest bounty and more, in the words of Carlo Petrini of the Slow Foods movement, as a co-producer. Try to remember what you know intuitively: that we can’t be healthy unless our farms our healthy; that the end of the food chain is connected to the beginning of the food chain; that we can’t lose touch with the culture in agriculture (it dates back to before Dr. Atkins). To the extent possible, shop at farmers markets for your Thanksgiving foods. Try to choose diversity over the abundance that the big food chains offer. Your food will be tastier, fresher and more nutritious. You’ll be able to have your cake (and your bacon and your bread and your potatoes) and eat it too.

Posted by: Anonymous | Nov 23 2004 7:20 utc | 13

@Stoy:
I agree with that completely. Minors aren’t legally responsible for themselves so you err on the side of caution until they’re of age. And that’s why I understand all the anti-smoking legislation here in Canada… it’s about the second-hand smoke you inflict on others who don’t want to get cancer from your habit.
@Clueless Joe:
I just don’t think someone who’s made themselves so sick that they need surgery, treatments and dozens of pills a day is going to be OK with their constant medical ailments just because the health care is free. I think they will wish they’d taken better care of themselves, and the sincere regret of such people will do more to dissuade others from living that way than financial penalties ever will. A little bit of “sin tax” is OK, but we go overboard with that in Canada, and it doesn’t work. They try to make it more and more expensive and inconvenient to drive so people will take public transit, but it doesn’t work, because transit hasn’t been improved and there are no other positive incentives. More carrot and less stick would be nice.

Posted by: kat | Nov 23 2004 15:01 utc | 14

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