Denmark Backslides Down a Sugar-Coated Slippery Slope and Vows to Abolish Fatty-Food Tax

Denmark’s brief flirtation with bland, culinary joylessness has ended, thanks to overwhelming public support for fatty foods. The Danish government recently announced that it will be abolishing a tax on foods that are high in saturated foods, which is really just government code for all the most delicious foods like butter and and ice cream.

Under the tax (which was introduced in October 2011), foods containing for than 2.3 percent saturated fat were subject to a surcharge, about 16 kroner (or $2.70) per kilo (2.2 pounds) of saturated fat in a product. This meant that the price of a 250-gram package of butter, for instance, rose by 2.20 kroner. That may not seem like too onerous a price hike, but it was enough, according to health authorities, to inflate food prices in Denmark and convince Danes that they would hop over the border to Germany, where they could eat all the sausages they wanted.

The tax was part of an effort to discourage Danes from eating unhealthy foods. According to the Danish National Health and Medicines Authority, obesity is becoming a significant public health problem in Denmark — 47 percent of Danes are overweight, and 13 percent are obese. Needless to say, a similar tax on sugar that was moving through the government pipeline has been scrapped because the people need their little indulgences. Without fattening dairy products, insurrection is really just a bad day at work and a stale piece of sprouted-grain bread away from tearing a country apart.