James Capon responds to a Guardian editorial on the health select committee's call for radical action to regulate food markets. He argues that while the MPs' report is welcome, a flaw in British food policy risks being repeated: the 'high in fat, salt or sugar' framework itself.
Flawed nutritional science still shapes labelling
Capon states that the 'high in fat, salt or sugar' framework combines three nutrients as though they carry equivalent blame. However, evidence on weight gain and type 2 diabetes points to sugar and refined carbohydrates as the primary drivers, not fat. Salt matters, chiefly when combined with sugar, but the body needs salt to function. Fat matters because without it many fat-soluble vitamins will pass through the body. We need no sugar at all.
'The low-fat, calorie-controlled orthodoxy inherited from last century's flawed nutritional science still shapes labelling,' Capon writes. This orthodoxy encourages manufacturers to strip out fat and replace it with sweet-tasting substitutes, while ticking the 'healthier' box.
Target the ultra-processed food model
To hold supermarkets and manufacturers to account, the target must be sharpened. The culprit is the ultra-processed food model itself: products engineered for shelf life, craveability and margin, using cheap sugar and refined starch as primary ingredients. Ice-cream or potato crisps sold on rare occasions are fine, but the food system that has made them the cheapest, most heavily advertised, most convenient choice is the problem.
Capon argues that we shouldn't need to romanticise the Greggs sausage roll as a national treasure. Consider it a treat, not a staple. That's the shift in our relationship with ultra-processed food that this report should be pushing for – one built on carbohydrate and sugar reduction, not a blunt fat-and-salt panic that has already failed us.
