Eat healthy

The food we eat every day contains increasing levels of sugar, fat and artificial additives. For children especially this is unhealthy and likely to shorten their life expectancies. While public concern over obesity rises, political pressure on the food industry remains insufficient to remedy Europe's dangerous eating disorder.

The main reason why ready-made food contains so much sugar and fat is that these ingredients are cheap, easily hidden in fast food and difficult for consumers to detect.

A healthy diet including lots of fresh fruit and vegetables is possible. But it is difficult to promote. The UN's World Health Organisation has created the slogan Five a day! encouraging us to eat at least five portions of fruit or vegetables a day and make more conscious choices about the food we consume. The campaign aims to reverse the trend of increasing cases of diabetes and heart diseases.

But as well as consumers making informed choices about their diets, EU policies must include the precautionary principle towards food. This means that instead of subsidising market intervention and destroying un-sellable surpluses, the EU should promote healthier diets in schools, canteens and restaurants and increase the consumption of fruit and vegetables. It should take this campaign as seriously as it does the campaign against the consumption of tobacco. Together with public health organisations the European Greens will continue to lobby and fight to make our food a source of health and joy!

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