Food manufacturers will be told to reduce fats and sugars in their products as government advisers try to slim down Britons threatening to burden the NHS with obesity-related health problems.
Ready-made foods, TV dinners, chips, croquettes, biscuits, chocolate bars and fizzy drinks are all in the firing line as health and food standards officials endeavour to change our eating habits.
Recently published guidance on "safe" salt levels and the naming and shaming of food producers with "unacceptable" levels in their brands promise to be just the start of a concerted campaign to bring the industry into line.
Papers being considered by the nutrition panel, which includes health professionals, consumers and industry representatives as well as government officials, hint at a renewed determination to bring people's consumption closer to the diet health advisers think is best.
That means plenty of fresh meat, fish, fruit, vegetables and bread and much less packaged or processed food. The debate on the next steps is still in its early stages but Martin Paterson, deputy director general of the Food and Drink Federation, warned that the issue of diet and health should not be approached "in an old-fashioned food-Stalinist sort of way".
He said the government appeared too interested in prescribing people's diet alone, without addressing lifestyle choices, including declining interest in exercise.
The guidance on diet suggested in the draft papers is based on people's food consumption at home or from takeaways published in 1992. New figures are expected soon but the overall thrust is unlikely to change much. Intake of some foods and soft drink thought damaging to health may have got worse, especially since eating out has increased significantly in recent years.
Health advisers want people to reduce the amount of energy they get from fat, including that in meat products, chocolates, cakes, buns, cheese, butter and full milk, and increase that from carbohydrates. There have been huge increases in fizzy drink consumption, which now accounts for a large proportion of sugar consumption.
In England alone, obesity levels are three times what they were 20 years ago. A third of all deaths from coronary heart disease are now put down to dietary factors, and obesity is a major risk factor in diabetes.
Government agencies have in recent months appeared more ready to take on the food industry. Supermarkets and manufacturers are fiercely competitive and reluctant to fit in with what they see as increasingly tight diet straitjackets being demanded by government. They argue that their customers do not like anything that smacks of "nanny state" directives.
