James O’Brien reacts to food tsar suggesting cake in the office is harmful
18 January 2023, 15:29 | Updated: 18 January 2023, 15:34
James O'Brien gives his take as a top food tsar suggests bringing cake into the office is harmful
James O’Brien has given his response to the story of a food tsar suggesting cake in the office is harmful.
James cautioned his listeners not to hastily criticise words from Chairwoman of the Food Standards Agency Professor Susan Jebb as a “nanny state” warning.
Professor Jebb told the Times: “We all like to think we’re rational, intelligent, educated people who make informed choices the whole time and we undervalue the impact of the environment.”
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She added: “If nobody brought in cakes into the office, I would not eat cakes in the day, but because people do bring cakes in, I eat them. Now, OK, I have made a choice, but people were making a choice to go into a smoky pub.”
The Professor continued: “With smoking, after a very long time, we have got to a place where we understand that individuals have to make some effort but that we can make their efforts more successful by having a supportive environment. But we still don’t feel like that about food.”
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James said with caution: “Consider for a moment the obesity crisis, consider also…America”, saying that some people are “just enormous” and asked listeners to consider the health implications of that.
He felt that “free market vampires in Tufton street” have not thought through how “you save a ton of money if people are healthier”.
“Crucially for me, people would just be a lot happier”, James added, and said that when unhealthy food is linked to mental and public health, he realised the food tsar has “got a point”.
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“What we’re doing is…putting tobacco and sugar in the same sort of category - not actually illegal or criminalised but enormous amounts of state-sponsored effort being put into minimising the amount we consume”, he said.
James added that there should be more of a focus on being “healthier”, not necessarily being “thinner”, and posed this question to his audience at the end of his monologue: “Should cake be banned from the office?”
