Food and the law, what could be better? Session I

October 3, 2007 at 7:41 pm · Filed under eating, law

The menu: grilled lamb, tabbouleh, hummus, homemade falafel, some kind of delicious grilled and buttered pita, baba ghanoush, thin buttery cookies filled with melted chocolate, coffee, chai

The topic: taxing fat

The proposed plan of our “special guest”: the taxing of common fatty foods….but….wait for it…only for people who are fat! You would be required to get your BMI read and if you are over 25, which apparently is the limit for people who are normal and not obese, you would be subject to the tax at grocery stores and restaurants, etc. I kind of forget the next part, there is a card, and people who are fat get the card? Or maybe people who are not fat get the card. Anyway, there is some kind of card and that’s how the tax gets applied. So when the server comes to your table at the restaurant, everybody pulls out their card and you don’t have one, so your part of the bill gets taxed. According to our guest, this creates an economic incentive as well as a public humiliation factor. The guest likens this to cigarettes which carry an additional tax and also has the public shaming element, which includes the guest riding past you on his bike while you are smoking outside the school and him laughing and yelling at you (which sounds worth it just to try).

A two hour discussion followed involving the many disputes people had with this plan, including the discriminatory effect on the poor, the idea of American food culture as embracing of poor diet and poor exercise habits, etc. We also discussed the tax taking other forms, like higher insurance premiums and companies having to pay large class action settlements (although admittedly there were many causation and proof problems with that idea).

Overall, excellent food as usual, and fun, lively discussion and debate of a legal and yet non-law school nature, which I am appreciating more and more these days. I’ll keep everybody posted throughout the semester on this course.

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