The food industry pumps out poor-quality food because there's a decent profit in it (and there's demand). Obviously, the food industry is not solely responsible for the obesity problem but it could do more to educate people on nutrition and good food standards. Warning labels on ultra-processed foods might also help.
As regards information, what do you want? Every bloody night on the TV there is a slew of food programmes. Last week there was Jamie knocking up a chicken pie for £1 a head and a load of other stuff, Bakeoff, Saturday kitchen, In The Factory, you can spend more time watching food being made than most people actually spend doing it. In fact we do. How much more education do you want? The point is that the public watch all this and then go for something easy because they are knackered after work and it's easier to let someone else do the work. The days where women didn't go to work and spent time making their own pastry, walking from the butcher's to the greengrocer's to get fresh veg and coming home to peel potatoes are gone. We're all wealthy enough to live on takeaways and ready meals if we want to.
Of course the food industry bears responsibility for obesity. It's not just that it creates high-calorie, low nutrition junk that's cheaper and more convenient than preparing food from fresh ingredients, it's spent decades and fortunes on political lobbying and misinformation to protect its interests just as the oil and tobacco industries have done.
Here we go again. The food industry manufactures what people want to buy. It's that simple. I've got a cupboard full of inexpensive high quality food that cost me next to nothing - chicken at £2 a kilo, carrots at 60p a kilo, frozen peas at £1 a kilo, onions at 60p a kilo, cabbage at 50p each, fresh milk at £1.60 for 4 pints (I was paying this 25 years ago) and so on. I could buy chocolate and cakes instead, but I don't.
It's not just that it creates high-calorie, low nutrition junk that's cheaper and more convenient than preparing food from fresh ingredients
I wish we were that clever. It's not cheaper, see the examples above. It may be more convenient, well, yes, obviously it's more convenient to buy a pizza than it is to mix dough and grate cheese, but that's the point of food manufacture. Most people don't construct their own houses either, because it's easier to buy one that's already been built.
high calorie low nutrition junk
Buy the chicken, carrots and cabbage I pointed at upthread instead of a packet of biscuits then. It's dirt cheap. I had a can of lentil soup for lunch. Cost? About 50p. Low nutrition? Not really, it's a pile of veg and water, some shreds of ham and lentils in a tin. Labour to prepare? 2 minutes in a microwave. As gratifying as a McDo burger meal, cost £4-5? Probably not, but there are queues outside McDo and 2 supermarkets within 200 yards of the place with piles of tins of soup and fresh bread.
As for political lobbying, let's have a look at how well that went with the recent sugar tax:
Govt: "Soft drinks contain too much sugar and are responsible for obesity, we're going to tax them to reduce consumption"
Industry "You can't do that, it's our livelihood, sugar's a natural food, nobody forces you to drink it. If you do this we'll have to reformulate everything and it will cost thousands"
Govt "Bollocks. Suck it up, we're doing it and you can STFU"
Industry "Harumph harumph. Bloody got to reformulate now."
Cue pretty well every mass market soft drink now coming in under 5% sugar to duck the tax, surprise surprise. Sugar consumption reduced nationally, artificial sweeteners industry cock-a-hoop, soft drinks consumption undiminished.
it's spent decades and fortunes on political lobbying and misinformation to protect its interests just as the oil and tobacco industries have done
Bollocks. Likening food manufacturing to tobacco is f**ing cheap. Lobbying, see sugar tax above. The food industry doesn't lobby any more than any other organisiation with a vested interest. Everybody lobbies, that's why they set up working groups with industry representatives, because civil servants can't be expected to be up to date with every industry. As for misinformation, examples please.
