Healthy food

Healthy food

I think the Maori party are on the right track and a real vote winner with the idea of taking GST off "Healthy Food". To me it would be a step in creating a more healthier lifestyle for a lot of people and the low waged or beneficiaries would really benefit from this by being able to afford to give their kids if they have them a good and balanced diet.

Naturally there is some objections to this from other politicians and one has to wonder what their true motives are. Do they not want a healthier society?

Would this bring down the price of Subway?  If so I'm 100% for it without knowing any of the specifics.

I would prefer the removal of GST from all food. If you remove it from 'healthy' food, you run into problems of what exactly is healthy, and it will turn into a bureaucratic nightmare.

I wish they'd take the GST off healthy relationships

I like the idea of removing GST from Fruit and Vegetables, makes them cheaper to purchase and it easy to put into those groups rather than 'healthy food'

What about any food in it's 'natural state;? no additives etc... I'm all for it, not just for myself but more for families who eat rubbish processed foods because they are cheaper.

You don't know the difference between what's healthy and not healthy? Are you 3?

Discounts on healthy food effective, research says
Wellington, July 13; NZ Press Association

Auckland University nutrition researcher Cliona Ni Mhurchu studied shoppers given a 12.5 percent discount on Heart Foundation approved items for six months

New Zealanders are more likely to buy, and keep buying, healthy food when given an initial discount equal to GST, public health researchers say.
In a randomised study of supermarket food purchases, shoppers were given a 12.5 percent discount on Heart Foundation approved items for six months.

At the end of the discount period shoppers were buying 11 percent more healthy foods, and six months later, with no price incentive, purchases were still healthier, Auckland University nutrition researcher Cliona Ni Mhurchu told the New Zealand Doctor magazine.

At the end of the trial, fruit and vegetable purchases were 10 percent higher than the baseline.

Dr Mhurchu said she was surprised there was an effect on purchases after one year.

"It was entirely possible that once the discounts were removed they would stop [buying more healthily], but there was still an impact...we viewed that as a very positive thing," she said.

Despite the findings, Dr Mhurchu said it was not clear if removing GST from healthy food would change eating habits.

New Zealand Medical Association president Peter Foley today said doctors were concerned about the cost of healthy food choices.

"It's not just about GST ...lots of things could be done to make healthy foods more affordable," he said.

It would be difficult to identify healthy food for GST purposes, he said.

Finance Minister Bill English has said the Government does not intend to create GST exemptions for healthy food.

NZPA WGT sm mgr gt

I'd disagree with this, as an example, A franchise of Fishboys opened in Kilbirnie about 18 months ago, and it only lasted about 3 months. Obviously it's price point wasn't attractive enough to compete against Leo's and other local chippies.
Another example is the supermarkets, Pak n Save in Kilbirnie is almost constantly busy (given the number of cars in the car park), and Woolworths across the street will be sitting half empty.

I listened to the woman who published the report quoted above being interviewed on Radio National this morning, she said that when people were offered a discount of the "healthy food" the ended up buying 1kg more of the healthy food each trip, and even when the price was subsequently increased, they continued to purchase more healthy food, whereas educating people about making healthy choices had no impact whatsoever.

That's quite telling really. In a similar vein, consumer preference surveys (before and after purchase) show that while people may have certain ideals and values/principles - when it comes to buying food, price and food safety (to a lesser degree) are major determinants.

Fizzy drink is so much cheaper than milk (and don't even get me started on bottled water).

Petrol is cheaper than Milk and that is a friggen disgusting position for this country to be in. We make the damn dairy products. Why do we have to pay what countries we export to pay?

Seriously? For example - some people would argue white bread is healthy, others would argue white bread is not. There would have to be a measure of exactly how much sodium per weight would be deemed 'unhealthy' with anything even slightly over that attracting GST. Is fruit juice healthy, or due to sugar content is it unhealthy?

No, i'm not three, but I have enough experience to know that policy makers trying to define 'healthy' food with the input of lobbyists would lead to crazy loopholes like what used to be (and may still be) in Aussie where a precooked chicken was taxed, while an uncooked one didn't.aitkenmike2010-07-15 16:05:10

Right - quick five minutes on the Woolworths online shopping - cost on 1 simple meal for 1 of mince and two veg

500g Standard butchery mince $6.50 - 1 serve = $3.25
1kg brown onion $1.95                          1 serve = $0.40
1kg unwashed potato $2.05                  1 serve = $0.50
1 cabbage $1.69                                    1 serve = $0.85
12 oxo stock cube $2.69                        1 serve = $0.22
500ml home brand olive oil $5.38           1 serve = $0.10

Total                                                       1 meal = $5.32  

compare that with value/combo meals on offer at the fast food joints or fish and chip shops - it really isn't a wholly attractive offer based on your priorities on a cost/benefit analysis in terms of the effort put in to make the meal - and go shopping  - as opposed to popping to the fast food outlet and picking the food up ready made.

if you take 12.5% off the cost of the healthy food - the meat and veg, the cost comes down from $5 to  to $4.38, meaning a total cost of $4.70 per meal - where you starting to get into realms of a significant price difference in eating healthily as opposed to fast food.

Given that in the paper that some poorer families are saying they cant even afford the $3 co-payment on medicine prescriptions, making fresh, healthy food available at an attractive cost, and significant difference to fast food, should be a priority.

 

This. Don't be stupid Buffon.

I understand and appreciate the complexities of such policies, but I don't think Government should be dismissing it outright. The cost of fruit and vegetables is ridiculous. Tomatoes are like $8. That's madness. Someone must do something.

Agreed

and it's not so much the cost but how awful these huge tasteless, chemically enhanced veg is over here. The Carrots "look" fantastic - at least 3 times the size of carrots I remember as a kid, but if you eat one they taste of nothing. I grew up in East Anglia, a place  that I must admit poured tons of sh*t into the fields when I was a kid but you could still actually taste what the veg was supposed to be.


Sorry guys but I think us and other generations before us have royally f*cked up the planet.

Maybe you should take hospitality class at school so you can learn for yourself boyo.

Whats wrong with eating 310, 350, 520, 410 plus loads of sugar and salt?? Oh and colour added!

Actually, none of this is simple at all.

While it may seem like removing GST from healthy food will make it cheaper the reality is that removing GST (or changing its rate) on any section of foods will actually increase the price of all foods.

Why? simply because compliance costs will increase.

Someone has to work out what does and does not have GST on it, someone has to do all the differential pricing and updating all the computer systems etc plus lots of other things right through the supply chain. Who pays for all of this extra work?

We do.

So, when you make a change like this you are actually more likely to increase a households overall food bill, not reduce it.

Sorry, not a supporter.

But hey, on the plus side, it would create a lot more jobs and reduce unemployment.





Malky2010-07-15 23:05:08

Well as someone on the radio said - it's not removing GST from the items, it's zero-rating the GST on the items - which would be a hell of a lot easier than removing GST.

For the national supermarkets, once what was to be zero rated was agreed, it would be a team working for a couple of months to program the system, then you would roll it out, and update the shop floor prices overnight during a weekend.

How about a degree in metabolic biochemistry?

Is that what you have? If so 

You still haven't really answered my point though. Lets go through one example - veges are healthy, sure. Frozen veges, they're healthy too, no problem. Potatoes are a vegetable and some frozen fries have the heart tick, so some frozen fries are ok, are all frozen fries? What about cooked fries from a takeaway shop if they are oven baked?
For each type of product, there would be lobbyists arguing their position and the rules would end up being as laughable as you seem to think one of my degrees is - its obviously no NZQA level 4 in hospitality.aitkenmike2010-07-16 14:55:34

Leaving aside the complexities of what is healthy and what isn't, I find myself a bit undecided on this.

The research demonstrates that discounted "healthy" food encourages behaviour change (buy and consume more healthy food, and by extension proportionately less junk food) which presumably results in a better outcome.

However subsidising or discounting to change behaviour is very social engineering-esque.

There is a public good versus individual choice issue here and although I see there is a clear public good outcome I still feel a bit uneasy about such an approach.

What's your stance on smoking?

And the millions of $ spent by the fast food chains on advertising and manufacture of children's toys for happy meals isn't social engineering.

The public still have a choice whether or not to buy the healthy food, the gov/some just want to make it a more attractive choice to buy healthy food.

Don't smoke, don't like being in a smokey environment.

Do I think the govt should tax the sh!t out of smoking and make smokers into social pariahs? Not really.

The tax I can rationalise if it goes towards health care, but still think there is a bit of government saying "we know what's best for you so take your medicine and shaddup."

Um. I haven't said that at all.