Sauce For The Goose

A scientist in England has announced that he has figured out why so many of us are fat, and that he knows just what to do the save humanity from itself.

We are all familiar with the argument that the way to reduce our dependence on expensive foreign oil is to tax it and all its by-products to the skies, and with the higher prices will come reduced usage. Most of us also understand that there are other dominoes that fall in this sequence, but having accomplished job #1, who cares.

Prof.Boyd Swinburn figures that the same approach that made Europe what it is today economically, can make the whole world the picture of health that is found today in Somalia. Yup: Simply raise taxes on food, and people will eat less of it, and thus is obesity conquered.

D'wife tells me that the price of food has been going up as long as she can remember, and as far as she can tell, it hasn't done her any good at all. Of course there are two easy answers to this.
1. It's because the technique hasn't been tried hard enough. What we need is a 1-200% price increase in the cost of food to really show noticeable results. and...
2. It has helped. Think how much heavier you'd be without the steady increase in food prices all these years.

You suggest this. I have a well-developed sense of self preservation that prevents me.

Of course, committing 40% of our corn crop to motor fuel is a big step to accomplishing the same thing under the radar, as it were.