Mouldy bread.

I understand the principles of business Davidhs. However, a country has a duty to protect its people from harm so it passes laws to protect them. Consequently minors can't buy alcohol in a supermarket, nor adults hard drugs. Cigarettes are now kept out of view. If those things were freely available on the shelves (as no doubt the distillers, tobacco companies and drug pushers would love them to be) they would be more widely used.

The harm done to health by processed "foods" and "drinks" is widely and thoroughly documented. We need to stop pretending that some (not all) diseases and illnesses are just bad luck, when they could actually have been prevented nutritionally. If it's worth trying to discourage the overuse of alcohol, nicotine and drugs, then it's time to widen the net to include damaging processed foods and not pretend that market forces and the freedom to choose are paramount here. People's health and lives ought to be.

We don't need "junk" food. It's not a treat. It is really "fake" food. How outraged and angry we would be if the NHS gave us fake drugs that made us sick, or the filling station sold us fake petrol that wrecked our engines! But we should reserve the right to feed our own bodies fake food? Even though we know it can make us ill? And while we're stuffing ourselves on our precious junk, we don't have room for and we lose our appetite for the healthy natural foods that weren't designed in a lab and made in a factory. Have you ever heard anyone finish their takeaway and fizzy drink and say oh, I could just fancy a bowl of cabbage right now?!

The thing worse than feeding ourselves fake food is giving it to children. The excuse given is that parents are tired, stressed and time poor. Many absolutely are all of those things, but we don't condone other forms of harm on those grounds. Many studies in schools - and prisons - have documented remarkable improvements in health, behaviour and learning ability when nutritionally rich food is provided. We shouldn't look the other way, but be demanding that healthy food is given its rightful status.

Well said happiyogi! I agree entirely.

I agree too, but I don’t get uptight about it, there is plenty of information about healthy eating, if others ignore it it’s not my problem

Thank you annepl.

Davidhs, I see it differently. I believe it is a problem for all of us, and I do care about it. Imagine the burden that'd be lifted from our NHS if it was freed from treating the diseases that people have eaten themselves into - some of the diabetes, cancers and heart disease for starters. (And many of those diseases are actually reversible through nutrition, but we've come to believe that medication and surgery are the only options. Doctors have woefully little education in nutrition.) And the exciting future for our world if we were raising bright, happy children fuelled by the nutrition their bodies need to become the wise creators of all our futures.

And, while I'm at it, the burden that would be lifted from the planet as it creaks under the ever increasing demands of growing more meat. That is unsustainable, and I don't feel easy about trying to live in a situation that we know can't continue but we feel isn't our responsibility. I don't want these issues to be our grandchildren's poisonous legacy.