No to state regulation of eating habits

Hungary's government has announced plans to levy a special tax on foods considered to be unhealthy. However it remains unclear when the tax will be introduced, which products it will affect and how high it will be. The left-liberal weekly Magyar Narancs doubts the merits of the move: "For now the government is leaving us to guess exactly which foods and additives will be on the list: fat, sugar and salt can panic and caffeine is trembling in the corner. Even if there were some kind of expert nutritional consensus ... we would still have our doubts: why should the state decide what Hungarians eat? ... It's naïve to believe that the consumption tax on 'junk food' will heal Hungary's deficient health system and that the revenues will end up in the pockets of doctors and nurses to deter them from leaving the country. ... Presumably the administrative cost of levying a hamburger tax will gobble up most of the revenues."

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