Like letter-writer Linus Didier, I too was flabbergasted by the Government's decision to charge VAT (Value Added Tax) on butter (healthy) but not margarine (unhealthy). And while I fully support Dr Rowley's clear intention that we should eat healthy (local) as opposed to unhealthy (imported processed junk), it appears that those who prepared the zero-rated list are not fully au courant with what is healthy and what is not.
Assuming that the idea was to remove VAT from items that are healthy, then, for example, white bread, whole wheat bread (in fact, all products that are derived from modern-day wheat), margarine, brown sugar, baby formulas and baby milk substitutes should not be on the zero-rated list. Whereas items like butter, cheese (not only cheddar and rennet-free) and coconut oil should be. (I would go further and, once again, advocate that everything should be done to make coconut oil, the healthiest oil on the planet, as affordable as possible to the general population. We can start by removing the 40 per cent duty and now VAT on it.)
Having said that, I was particularly pleased to see that the team preparing the lists got it right in many cases. The VAT list now includes table salt, vegetable oils, bottled water, fruit-flavoured drinks (sugar-water with artificial flavour added), processed food and other so-called fruit drinks, to name a few.
I have a general rule (with a very few exceptions) which has served me well: it is not healthy to eat or drink any commercially prepared food that comes in a pack, tin or bottle. I guess it's just another way of saying that over 90 per cent of what is sold in our supermarkets is not healthy for human consumption.
But I digress. The margarine saga started in the 1950s when the food and edible oil industries started a campaign to demonise butter in order to get the public to buy their products. Despite the evidence that polyunsaturated (vegetable) oils are a cancer risk, these oils continue to be widely used. We tend to forget that a product does not have to be good for us to use it. We just have to be convinced that it is. (Plastic bottled water and certain "health" supplements readily come to mind.) This is where "good marketing" (lies, damned lies and statistics) come in.
For those interested, the intrigue involved in the butter/margarine war is well-documented in a landmark scientific article, The Oiling of America, by Dr Mary Enig and Sally Fallon. If the world now knows that trans fats are very bad for our health, it is Enig to whom we must give thanks.
It was as a graduate student in the early 1980s that she began investigating the trans fat content of factory-produced food. In the article, she also details her battles with the food giants (Kraft, Lever Brothers, Mazola, to name a few) and the US government, for the truth about trans fats to be revealed. A Google search for "oiling of america" will find you the article as well as a two-hour YouTube video on the same topic.
Noel Kalicharan