Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Tax non-essential food items' that was published in Newsband

Tax non-essential food items

Levying additional taxes on non-essential food items that are rich in fat or calories can effectively alter food choices. There will be dip in consumption levels in foodstuff. Sugar-sweetened drinks will drop in intake. Such foods are also sold by branded restaurants and consumed by the higher middle and upper classes.

If our government is serious about reining in consumption of unhealthy food, then there are several measures it should quickly adopt. The first is to set a threshold limit for fat and/or calorie and tax all foods items that are above this limit. Bringing sugar-sweetened drinks and refined products under the taxable product list should be a priority. There is no reason why packaged food items that have high salt content should not be additionally taxed. Similarly, a very high rate of tax should be charged on food items that contain trans fats. Trans fatty acids pose serious coronary risks.

The food being sold in India market should be regulated and approved by competent authorities; be it a local shops or MNCs. Let us control health and safety concerns at the very beginning itself. Periodic testing and penalties will improve the quality significantly. Why should customers suffer by paying more for junk food? We should also tax non-vegetarian food to reduce global warming, which is a far greater threat than obese people.

Places like MacDonalds are heavily taxed already. The Government has no love for citizens, as there is lot of street food which is not healthy, which is not taxed. They are doing it only to make money. Agreed that there are popular food courts which are producing "food" items not conducive for promotion of good health. Some of them contain items which are not good for health, others are found to be producing items with high salt or sugar content. An international company producing noodles is using maida which is decidedly not good for health but this company puts up claims that its products are "good" for health and also puts wrong information on its packages that it contains wheat flour while it uses actually refined wheat flour which is nothing but maida.

Taxing energy rich fast food is a good idea. Slashing price for healthy supplement will not drag feet from pizza or burger corners. But merely taxing fat rich food is not the solution. Tax subsidies should be given to healthy foods like protein supplements, Soya products etc which will give positive push to the people to change their food habits.

All food items which do not conform to the World Health Organisation standards and specially those applicable to Indians should be heavily taxed. There is no reason why the Cola giants should be encouraged to go ahead with products which are proven to be health hazards especially for the youth of the country.