An article from the researchers from the University of Oxford on Nature Climate Change would show, with certified numbers, the effects we could obtain, globally, penalizing certain food.
According to the researches of English experts, there would in fact be a solution to help connecting the improvement on the health of the population and the reduction of gas carbons. It’s the idea of introducing taxes on certain food categories like meat, some milk based products and vegetable oils.
Of course, as the authors highlighted, we cannot consider introducing that tax immediately and without explanations, because people wouldn’t understand it. The demonstration comes from Denmark, where a tax on saturated fats resisted only for one year, exactly because nobody ever explained the reason why it was introduced. Instead, we should behave how also Mexico did, where the tax on sodas is working properly, also because it has been useful to give schools free water dispensers.
An example that has also been followed by some USA cities, like San Francisco and the Bay Area, Albay, Oakland and Boulder. The signal of a real change is clear, and is reinforced by the more frequent news about smaller or bigger communities where the tax has already been introduced.
On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean instead, the British government has already proposed to tax sugary drinks and the effects should be put into practice since April 2018, giving the companies time to adapt. Meanwhile, the Spanish Minister of Finances announced the intention of the government to establish themselves the same taxation, in order to push people to consume healthier products and beat obesity and illnesses like diabetes. The new tax, whose details have not been explained yet, should produce at least 200 million Euros income.
It’s clear that adopting those measures in every country would be difficult, but a research like this nurtures the debate on measures to adopt and puts this matter under the spotlights. An element that is usually rarely debated since it’s considered inadequate for the people, that are likely to consider restrictions on food extremely unpleasant.
Anyway, the experiences on sugary drinks, already adopted in various countries and cities all over the world, show that certain measures can have an unexpected and long lasting efficacy, because they change the habits.
This happens especially when the new taxes are integrated into plans that are finalized to improve the health and are compensated by other positive measures such as the simultaneous removal of the taxes from fruit and vegetables.
