Chef Jamie Oliver has been charming television audiences with his cooking and humor since his cooking show “The Naked Chef” debuted in 1999. His brand has expanded since 1999 to include a host of cookbooks, restaurants, advertising deals, and televised cooking programs, including “Jamie Oliver’s Food Tube” and “Drinks Tube” which introduces guest chefs and bartenders collaborating with Oliver. During his meteoric rise to fame, Oliver has become a champion for healthy eating and ending childhood obesity, both in the United Kingdom and beyond. Now, he’s advocating for a sugar tax as his latest move to help end obesity.

In 2010, Oliver launched the show “Jamie’s Food Revolution” as the first step in his Food Revolution Campaign. “Jamie’s Food Revolution” aimed to introduce healthy food into school districts where obesity ran rampant by reforming school lunch programs. Earlier this year, Oliver addressed the UK Parliament, calling for government intervention in children’s diets to prevent obesity. He presented his own Obesity Strategy, in which he outlines the policy changes that the UK must make to protect the health of the next generation. Oliver also launched a petition asking for the government to introduce a tax on soft drinks with added sugar in conjunction with the documentary “Jamie’s Sugar Rush,” which publicizes sugar’s links to obesity and type 2 diabetes. When the government failed to introduce the tax on soft drinks, he introduced his own version of the tax in the restaurants he operates. In an interview with The Sunday Times, Oliver stated that

I’ve seen first-hand the heartbreaking effects that poor diet and too much sugar is having on our children’s health and futures. Young children are needing multiple teeth pulled out under general anesthetic and one in three kids [is] now leaving primary school overweight or obese. Soft drinks are the biggest single source of sugar among school-age kids and teenagers and so we have to start here.

Prime Minister Cameron has dismissed the sugar tax in the past, but last week, The Commons’ Health Committee (a panel of representatives that Oliver testified to earlier this year) called for the introduction of a sugar tax in the UK. This call for action, combined with Public Health England’s October 2015 report, has revived the feasibility of passing a sugar tax in the near future. The sugar tax would be part of a larger program to combat obesity in the UK, which would aim to limit soft drink advertising and the sale of large quantities of soft drinks. This crackdown on soft drinks may be successful, as it was in Mexico where a 10 percent tax on sodas led to a 6 percent reduction in consumption, but it is important to remember the massive backlash against Mayor Bloomberg’s 2010 proposal to limit soda consumption in New York. It has been argued that reducing obesity will come from cultural shifts rather than taxes that negatively impact the poorest sectors of society. Oliver has defended the tax by citing its success in other countries and has continued to promote the tax despite criticism about the efficiency of the tax and about Oliver’s own motivations.

The British case may have significant impacts on sugar consumption debates in the United States. If the UK can introduce a sugar tax that successfully reduces consumption and improves national health, Mayor Bloomberg’s dream may be revisited as a national reality. At this moment, we don’t have a celebrity champion for the cause, but if Oliver is successful in the UK, he may expand his petition for a sugar tax globally. The American public should keep an eye on the sugar tax battle in the UK, because the momentum that Oliver has stirred up may soon cross the Atlantic.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

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A thrifty friend used to point out that the savings at a store sale are misleading. While a shopper can save money on a marked down item, he would save even more if he refrained from purchasing it in the first place, since they probably do not actually need it. One is lured in by the promise of a lesser burden, in this case financial. This concept applies to the disposal process as well.

Composting is a process by which food scraps and other organic leftovers are added to a specially prepared soil so as to create a nutrient-rich mixture. This is a sustainable practice for several reasons.

1. Composting lessens the amount of trash we produce, which ultimately ends up in a landfill. One can break this process down further: consider the reduced amount of air and noise pollution that would result from fewer garbage trucks traveling the roads, or the reduced number of garbage bags produced (and the environmental consequences of the manufacturing process therein).
2. Composting is recycling at its maximum. This special soil often serves as the site for small gardens, or even larger scale agricultural purposes. Composting uses waste to produce something new by natural means. Even formal recycling, which is still a vital practice in which everyone should partake, requires a detailed mechanized process of breaking down and re-manufacturing the products in order to be redistributed.
3. Composting instills a sense of community participation and teamwork. Its sites are often locally oriented. People feel like they are pitching in and doing their part both to help the earth as individuals and as group, and working toward a more sustainable future.

A  recent New York Times article detailed the growth of the New York City school composting program, which started in 2012, and now includes more than two hundred schools. Again, this is a fantastic program and participants are confident that eventually public school composting will be city wide. The program does not encourage children to pursue healthier eating habits. The author of the article, Al Baker, quoted one school’s assistant principal who offered consolation by explaining that even though the children are not eating the healthy foods more, at least it’s not going to waste. Part of this sticky situation is a series of city health regulations that forbid the redistribution of foods once the packages have been opened, Baker clarifies. Therefore, when the children take the healthy foods on their trays and then do not eat them, it goes to composting instead of trash so this helps balance things out.

While this is true, composting offers us a buffer against wasteful lifestyles and slightly reduces the environmental consequences that would result. Rather, it is up to us not to depend on new practices as excuses for bad habits. We would be better off with a more successful attempt at getting children to eat healthy, or at the very least, not take the food on their trays if they absolutely will not eat it. The less we take, the less we dispose, which is a better practice regardless of the means of disposal.

We must be cautious not to be lulled into a false sense of accomplishment like when we buy store items on sale. I recently worked at a conservation society fundraiser where it was made known to the guests that food scraps would not be trashed, but composed, keeping with the organization’s philosophy. I was astounded by the amount of uneaten food that went into these receptacles. What was the cause of this? Of course, we as Westerners have been criticized by others, and rightly do not hesitate to criticize ourselves, for our overindulgence and lack of appreciation for the great gift that is a full belly three times per day. This seemed excessive, though. Could it be that people were less conflicted about not finishing their food because they knew that it would be composted and not trashed?

Fortunately, composting is probably here to stay. It offers us many opportunities and we should take advantage of them. The very fact that the concept is catching wind is indicative of the general trend in consciousness toward environmentally friendly behavior. But we must be cautious not to become too dependent on it, content to sit back and create waste knowing that somebody else will take care of the problem and turn negative impact into something positive and productive for us. Composting should be a calling card inviting us to take action on our own initiative.

Whether it’s burning fewer fossil fuels, recycling plastics, or finishing our vegetables, the path to sustainability lies not just in improved technologies or more efficient practices, but in responsible individual consumer decisions.

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Franklin R. Halprin (@FHalprin) holds an MA in History & Environmental Politics from Rutgers University where he studied human-environmental relationships and settlement patterns in the nineteenth century Southwest. His research focuses on the influences of social and cultural factors on the development of environmental policy. Contact Franklin at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Ksd5 via Wikipedia]

Franklin R. Halprin

Franklin R. Halprin holds an MA in History & Environmental Politics from Rutgers University where he studied human-environmental relationships and settlement patterns in the nineteenth century Southwest. His research focuses on the influences of social and cultural factors on the development of environmental policy. Contact Frank at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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