Veggie noodles

Veggie noodles promoted by none less than the President of the Strong Republic of the Philippines is also known by its nickname VAT noodles owing the moniker to its alleged funding source, the Value Added Tax. The nutrition news, wheat noodles fortified by adding yellow squash, did not receive universal acclaim. The hoopla was mocked by the political opposition as hype, and well it might be.

First of all, Nature worked untold millenniums to produce squash and wheat and are nutritious foods in their unaltered form. Noodles is man’s puny attempt to improve on Nature, wasting some of the nutrients and adding costs in the process. Secondly, it is misleading to declare that VAT funded the development, as the product was one of the outputs of Department of Science and Technology/Food and Nutrition Research Institute in their thrust (funded by tax money) to develop better mouse traps or reinvent the wheel. The product and recipe, Canton Noodles with Squash, can be accessed at this site.

Caution is advised on the nutrition label. It fails to list the sodium content, and microbial plate counts are worthless after leaving the factory. Most of all, the wheat flour could be the white flour variety (stripped of its bran nutrients and therefore bad for diabetics).

The Philippine Daily Inquirer headlined Binay slams Arroyo’s VAT-sponsored veggie noodles  

The yellowish veggie noodles may have been funded by the government's value added tax, but it would still be subject to the same tax when sold in the markets -- even to the poorest people, the intended beneficiaries. An opposition leader on Saturday pointed out that the poor who will buy the vegetable noodles will still have to pay for its VAT, and it won't really help the poor cope with rising prices of food and fuel.

“Even as the VAT was used to fund the production of the veggie noodles, the poor will still have to pay for the VAT on these same noodles,” said Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay,

 president of the United Opposition, adding: “It’s like frying them in their own fat…”