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Ban Snacking on Trains

Snacks are probably high margin products -- hence a lot of advertising in an economy like ours. There has been a political decision to encourage people to overeat.
You might be onto something there. I just looked it up and snacks attract VAT at standard rate. So if I have a pork pie and an apple as a snack, no VAT. Crisps, chocolate, Coke, standard VAT on it all.
WRT margins, branded snacks may have decent margins. Supermarket crisps in multipacks come for nothing, you can be down to 10p a bag because the value is in the packing, handling and distribution. What's a bag of crisps, retail? Walkers standard size, 30g, 40g, whatever size they are, must be 50p by now. Peanuts (yes, I have manufactured these products, of course) are also more expensive if branded. Some of this is quality related, the cheap ones accept more broken, bigger size variation, and various countries of origin, but a lot of it is just related to paying for advertising and market positioning.
 
If going to London we usually time it to be lunchtime and take a small hamper or chill bag with sandwiches and a bottle of wine; sometimes G&T ingredients.

Aim for a decent sandwich with a token amount of bread.

Snack foods are usually overpriced and full of salt and fat so maybe should be banned or taxed highly wherever.

When I went to fat busters we had a peanut lady; she was addicted and they appeared on her diary most days. Needless to say not much fat lost there.
 
She can, to be frank, bugger off.

I take my own sandwiches and something (non-alcoholic) to drink, but I make sure that I leave the table as I found it (or, normally better). Rubbish is taken with me if there is no disposal facility.

Perhaps a ban on people with no grasp of the real world talking utter bollocks would meet with more favour.
 
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Given the dubious reliability of our local train services, there might be a reasonable defence that they’re not snacks, but emergency rations.

Yes! This sort of attitude will get you through a zombie apocalypse. It's only a matter of time...
 
Am in general agreement with the ban proposal - other than general good manners, in the underpass linking platforms at Bristol Temple Meads is a fetid outlet that has been serving pasty-shaped ...things to commuters for years, flooding the space with the outgassing of some petrochemical by-product tantamount to 'baked Tramp's flipflop with reconsituted-onion'. Consequently post-6pm the outbound services are full of people who consume the rancid delicacy, usu. messily, and even the new Hitachi trains with actual working vent systems cannot not keep up.

Hail, Dame: (for) those about to diet we salute you.
 
Am in general agreement with the ban proposal - other than general good manners, in the underpass linking platforms at Bristol Temple Meads is a fetid outlet that has been serving pasty-shaped ...things to commuters for years, flooding the space with the outgassing of some petrochemical by-product tantamount to 'baked Tramp's flipflop with reconsituted-onion'. Consequently post-6pm the outbound services are full of people who consume the rancid delicacy, usu. messily, and even the new Hitachi trains with actual working vent systems cannot not keep up.

How well I know that smell. I usually (back when I had a job) got a lungful of it when running late for the train to London at some ridiculously early hour, wondering if I had enough time to spare to buy a coffee from the AMT coffee stand thing.
 
I did the process validation and HACCP on that one. We had real trouble getting a 5-log kill on the flipflop without burning the recon onions. Ended up with a precook in synthetic stock, got it in with a bit of a nudge on the thermometer readings. Great bit of technology.
You should have put better mains leads on the thermometer, or is that what you mean by 'a bit of a nudge'?
 
It's a stupid idea. How would you possibly enforce it? I also highly doubt it will make any difference in tackling childhood obesity. Children would just wait until they're off said transport and get something then.

Some of her other ideas though deserve a hearing, especially on the promotion, advertising and discounting of junk foods. There needs to be better regulation around this and government should intervene if the big fast food chains don't take heed.

It is shocking that in some areas, more than 1 in 3 children are obese or overweight by the time they leave school.
 


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