To remind: Human beings have taste buds

Bernard Levin used to remind us all of the dangers of the Single Issue Fanatic. Those who would insist upon the perfection of the one, single, issue and fail to recognise that all of life is a series of trade offs. His advice was that these anti-Molesworthian swots, gurning over their slide rules, should be paid no heed. We seem to have made the opposite decision and given them political power over us:

Bran flakes rich in fibre and vitamins will be deemed junk food under “counter-intuitive” Labour health reforms.

The reason?

Under the plans, officials want to update the UK Nutrient Profiling Model (NPM) to include naturally occurring “free sugars” when determining what is healthy or unhealthy, alongside refined sugar.

And, yes, there is the thought that prepared tomato sauce will now have fewer tomatoes in it given the sugar content of tomatoes (despite Levin’s insistence they are indeed fruit, even tho’ they are usually dusted with salt, not sugar).

The most important line(s) to use are these:

They added that fortified breakfast cereals would become totally unpalatable if changed to reduce their sugar content, encouraging people to add their own unmeasured sugar or move away from the high-fibre option altogether.

Human beings have taste buds d’ye see? Therefore no planning from the centre is going to be able to insist that all exist upon a diet of drear. Because humans just won’t do that. We’ve those centuries, millennia even, of the spice trade to teach us that little lesson.

Or, to be more Sowellian about it, there are trade offs in anything. And the more the gurners insist upon everyone doing it their way the more everyone else is going to avoid said insistences. So, you know, stop trying to micromanage society and get on with the actual job of government - enabling people to do more of what they wish.

Tim Worstall