PEOPLE who eat unhealthy foods should pay more tax, a Liverpool University scientist has claimed.

A widespread “intervention” is needed to prevent heart disease, according to Professor Simon Capewell, of Liverpool University.

Prof Capewell has blamed “unclear” information about healthy eating for the high cardiovascular disease death rate in a British Medical Journal paper.

He said: “In the UK and USA, we are eating far too much junk food.

“Although it is tasty, hidden within it is far more fat, salt, sugar, and in some cases trans fats, than we actually need.

“We’re also not eating anything like enough of the healthy stuff – not just fruit and vegetables, but also things like nuts and fish.

“They are simple commodities that our bodies crucially need.

“Folks who can read a label in a supermarket and make sense of it can make informed decisions about what they buy and eat.

“But there are a lot of people without a degree in biochemistry who can’t decipher the labels. It can be very confusing.

“Shops like M&S, Co-op and Asda deserve a lot of credit for their straightforward traffic light system. People find it easy to understand that green means good and red means bad.