The offerings of humongous multinational conglomerations are not coherent. You could generate stories of this type all day, because the offerings of the likes of Nestle, GE, J&J, P&G, Coca-Cola, et. al. are the results of the efforts of hundreds of thousands of employees (for each conglomerate) subdivided into thousands of business units [read sub-companies], each with its own goals, challenges, and many existing within markets that are essentially disjoint from those of other business units under the same parent company.
This sort of story is pure narrative fallacy, because there is no person at Nestle that decided to exacerbate diabetes and then sell diabetes drugs to profit on the other end. Outside of that person existing, there's no story here. If you take away the conflation of a conglomeration with an entity of coherent offerings the premise crumbles.
On one level I agree with you, but the whole point of a corporate structure is to give a collective effort the legal identity of an individual so that administrative efficiency and profit can be maximized. It's no coincidence that virtually every stock-based corporation has a strictly hierarchical governance structure culminating in the office of a chief executive, notwithstanding the existence of boards and presidents. these chief executives are paid staggering amounts of money in return for managing the wealth and activities of the corporation productively.
Yet when we find examples of a large corporation creating a vicious circle with easily observable negative externalities, suddenly a corporation is a diffuse network of different products and market actors which is impossible to control, manage, or monitor, and whose activities must not be interfered with at the behest of regulators or the public itself, lest some intangible market equilibrium be disturbed.
It seems to me that this is an example of investors wishing to have their cake and eat it. Either they want the potential of high profits driven by a singular business vision...and which incurs responsibility for outcomes commensurate with the degree of executive authority available to the management, or they want a maximally free market of atomistic competition that is not subject to the whims of trusts, conglomerates and so on. Society cannot afford both options.
My favorite of these are the articles which criticize health insurers who invest in things like tobacco products.
The point of insurance is to manage risk. Tobacco is indisputably linked to expensive health consequences down the line, so if there is an increase in tobacco consumption, that would generate more claims for health insurers down the line. Capturing some portion of the tobacco industry's profits in this case is an example of smoothing that risk[0]. Health insurers do a lot of really scummy and unethical things, but this is not an example of one.
[0] Of course, that assumes that health insurance is meant to act like insurance, which it by and large is not - health insurance is no longer about insurance at all. That, of course, is a separate matter altogether).
Of course there are whole divisions at Nestle dedicated exclusively to determining a cohesive path and synergies for "the whole of it". Nestle is highly vertically integrated. It is not at all this loose, random aggregate of business units you're trying to construct here.
Does it rise to the level of exacerbating diabetes and then selling diabetes drugs? Of course not. Are there people very aware of the "irony" in selling what is a main cause for T2 diabetes? Hell yeah.
I don't disagree with you at all that there's probably not a scheming executive trying to maliciously mine and sell the spice of Arrakis, but it might be instructive to understand why large conglomerates like this might end up in such a position simply as a matter of emergent behavior.
You make some good points and it may not be a nefarious overall strategy to push sugar and then sell turn around and sell diabetes pills. They pushed sugary foods first so this is more of a hedge if anything. It's a story though.
A brand is a promise kept. What is Nestle's promise if they continue to expand in this manner? It's confusing and consumers don't like to get squeezed at both ends. Maybe they'll eventually transition over to a "a scientifically driven nutrition, health, and wellness company" as mentioned in the article, but that's a massive branding challenge for a 100 yr old company.
Nestle is a very big company making all kinds of products, and since ever more people are following the health and fitness craze, there are so many people obsessed with health, they want to profit from it. They want to adjust their company in order to guarantee future profits, that's actually (a) the most normal thing in the world and (b) a form of following consumer's choice and wishes.
I don't see how selling sugary products for those who buy them and selling health products for those who prefer them is any kind of evil moral conflict. No matter if "health product" means low-fat low-sugar foods or pharmaceutical products.
Scepticism is good, control and regulation is good, blind condemnation is not, not sure what the article is representing. For me it actually is healthy scepticism, some of the comments here are more condemnation I presume.
First of all, diabetes pills are not really 'health products.' They are more like 'you fucked up your health, now try not to die' products. Even Nestle's low-fat and low-sugar "foods" are a far cry from "health products." You are being disingenuous by conflating the two, or even for suggesting that Nestle is in the business of selling "health products."
Beyond that, however, I see a pretty big flaw in your reasoning here. Given your argument, can you not then extend your theory on guaranteeing future profits to also include the strategy of selling both the problem and the solution? This, too, is a very 'normal' thing for large, multi-national manufacturers of consumer goods to be engaged in.
Nestle, along with Coca Cola and Kroger, is a well-known corporate supporter of programs such as SNAP in the US, and is also one of the largest benefactors from said programs. I am a full-on capitalist, but that does not mean that we ought to give a pass to the morally-flawed existences of companies like Nestle, which leverage its influence in the State to reap greater profits.
My local drugstore sells both kinds of products too. If it's evil for Nestle, it's arguably even more evil for Walgreens, since that's where the consumer is making their purchasing decision.
The other day I went to buy some canned refried beans. When I read the label, I noticed that it contained refined sugar. WTF?!? There should be no need for sugar in refried beans! After recovering from the shock, I went to another grocery store, where I found refried beans without sugar.
Why does this happen? Obviously, sugar tastes good. That has to be why companies add it to all sorts of things. However, if most people were like me, they would read the label and refuse to buy anything that unnecessarily contained sugar. The companies doing this would lose money, and soon stop doing it. But the opposite has happened. Why?
There can only be one explanation: most consumers are dumb. However, when you read about stuff like this in the mainstream media, it's always framed as if "big evil corporations" is the whole problem. That "average Joe" has a low intelligence is never mentioned. Of course, the media wants as many consumers as possible, too, so calling most of their potential readers/viewers stupid is probably a bad strategy, even though it's the truth.
> it's always framed as if "big evil corporations" is the whole problem
So, you have evidence of food that shouldn't have sugar in it but does in fact have sugar anyway. And you conclude that it's the consumer's fault, because they're stupid, and not the company that puts the sugar in?
Humans have lots of biological and mental weaknesses that can be exploited for profit. Preferring highly caloric food is one of them. It seems fairly pessimistic to call that "dumb". Before the invention of mass produced food, preferring sweet things was an evolutionary advantage. That fact is now being used against you, and all of us, in a big conspiracy called "marketing".
There can only be one explanation: most consumers are dumb.
Or other people have different tradeoffs between short-term pleasure and statistical long-term health. You can define that as "stupid" if you want, but I'm guessing there are plenty of things that you do because you enjoy them that you would not do if maximizing health were your sole priority.
I don't know if dumb is the right word. Ignorant is probably most apt.
I want you to think about all of the food that's in your house. Eliminate anything that you would consider intentionally sugary like candy, confection, soda, etc. Now how much of a time consuming task would it be to scrutinize every label for needlessly added sugar? Consider how many people would be willing to do that to check for some extra sugar?
And that's why, I believe, companies can throw extra sugar in their products without most of the public being none the wiser. Not only would you have to check your current inventory, you'd have to stay abreast of the issue every time you went shopping. If you went shopping for the entire month like me, you'd spend an extra hour in the store reading labels to check for newly added sugar.
Really? You're surprised that people in general don't make the most healthy dietary choices? Given the almost epidemic rise of obesity and related issues in the West and particularly in the US?
Your conclusion is arrogant, unfair, unhelpful, and unactionable. To be fair, the "corporations are evil" conclusion is similarly unhelpful.
This is actually a prime example of a coordination problem [1]. We're going to have to do better than just pushing the blame around if we're going to do something about it. For instance, obesity is a bigger problem among the poor than the well-to-do. Why? One of the most trivial reasons is the fact that unhealthy food is also inexpensive!
There can only be one explanation: most consumers are dumb.
You know how that makes you sound? Like a 9/11-was-an-inside-job, "we never went to the moon" conspiracy theorist. "There can be only explanation: the majority people aren't as enlightened as I; wake up sheeple!"
But let's go with that: people are dumb. Assuming that to be true, are you arguing for or against regulating what goes into a can of refried beans? As you've already proven, people are not capable of making sense of nutritional labels, therefore it is not fair to put the onus on those who are incapable, I see no other option than to regulate the industry with heavy oversight for the good of those who are not as enlightened as you.
Just thinking out loud here, but what options open up to us if we don't assume we're smarter than everyone else?
This is the equivalent of RTFM or the 15 page terms of service documents that no one can possibly read. Sure it makes sense in some cases but you can't use it as an excuse to shift the burden to the consumer however you like.
A person doesn't necessarily have to be dumb to fall for these traps. Consider if you had been at the grocery store, particularly exhausted from the day, and just wanted to grab some ingredients. Maybe today you don't notice the added sugar. Today your brain was just spent. Does that make you a dumb consumer all of a sudden?
Most of us average Joe's and Jane's have a lot to juggle in our heads at any given moment. Can I please be excused for not scrounging several stores for sugar free beans, palm oil free chocolate, free range chicken, ethically sourced coffee, etc.? I'm not dumb, it just happens to be that the beans with the sugar are right here in front of me, I have other things to do, and I value my time considerably more than I value this one ethical preference, at the moment.
Default and convenient choices are what consumers respond to. Producers responded to basic biological facts like needing sugar and salt and fat, and so now we're in a place where I can get a Big Mac more cheaply and easily than I can get a cold veggie sandwich. I'm not dumb, I'm busy.
if most people were like me, they would read the label and refuse to buy
Well, obvious conclusion is obvious: people are not like you. Especially since you said earlier:
WTF?!? There should be no need for sugar in refried beans!
So why would you expect people to read the label for a product that clearly names what it should contain?
There can only be one explanation: most consumers are dumb.
In light of the above, I can offer another explanation: most consumers are too trusting. Distrust takes mental effort, so people pick their battles. I would not have read the label for a can of refried beans either.
(as an aside: I believe this is where many Europeans would say that this is what food standards are for, to which many Americans would respond: wtf regulation)
A bit harsh to make a blanket statement about intelligence; people just need information which isn't being readily provided or is being drowned out with too much information. The collective actions seem counterintuitive to people paying attention, but paying attention requires time - which doesn't come easily if a swath of the population is busy with two part-time jobs and recovering with reality TV in the meantime.
I feel like shifting the blame towards consumers only shirks the responsibility that companies have to act responsibly. How much longer are we gonna excuse companies that only act in their self interest just so we don't have to do anything about it?
EDIT: Whether people like it or not, free market forces don't always offer the best outcome. We stopped depending solely on free market forces when we put in place anti-monopoly laws. We've identified that regulation is needed in some cases. Lets use it damnit.
Adding to the varieties of other explanations countering your "one explanation:"
1.) Time. Although I'm (perhaps overly) sensitive to which foods are healthy and which aren't, I often find myself eating sub-optimally simply because I can't muster the time/energy to make something healthy, do the resulting dishes, etc... And veggies can be some of the most labor intensive. Or, you want a quick snack that's also really healthy? Here's $5 for a small bag of kale chips (see "Cost," below.)
2.) Skill. It's taken me a while to learn to cook well enough that much of what I make is at least on par with (non-gourmet) restaurant food.
3.) Cost. Compare the beans with sugar to higher end -- organic, in particular -- varieties.
Wherever the baseline intelligence quotient of John Q. Public sits on an absolute scale, when we're discussing something as critical and universal as food distribution, it should be pretty easy to accept that, at a minimum, the median IQ should be accommodated. It should be easy for the consumer to understand what's in the food he's going to eat. Manually picking up every food item and reviewing the list of ingredients by hand in the middle of grocery store does not comport with this; this is a matter of efficiency more than a lack of the intellectual faculty to process a list of ingredients (though when half of those ingredients are impenetrable chemical names that only commercial food chemists understand, it makes even more sense to skip it).
Lament the average consumer's lack of gross intelligence all you want, but the fact is that it's irrelevant in this circumstance. Food distribution should be accessible and understandable by nearly all adults, and if it's not, it's a systemic failure, not an individual one.
This is especially true now that all of the food for sale in a typical grocery store is altered by chemists. This artificial manipulation should cause us to be more careful about food, not less.
It is absolutely true that nearly every food item in the mainstream grocery store contains superfluous sugar, including foods that you wouldn't expect or think about. While many stores will carry one or two SKUs of a particular product without sugar, you have to be really careful to pick out the right one. For instance, canned pears come "in heavy syrup" (i.e., drenched in sugar) by default. They also offer pears in "light syrup" (i.e., sugar added). There are various combinations of heavy/light syrup canned pear offerings, and then, at the very back, you may luck out and find one can of pears "in water".
These aren't Oreos -- people are buying canned fruits and vegetables because they are trying to be healthy, and the corporate grocers are pulling a fast one on them by dumping large helpings of sugar into everything to try to make the food more addictive (and thereby, increase sales).
Corporate profiteering absolutely plays a massive role in the obesity epidemic. Discounting that is playing into their hands at the peril of public health.
"Why does this happen? Obviously, sugar tastes good. That has to be why companies add it to all sorts of things."
There are more reasons. Googling "uses of sugar":
"Although the main reason for the use of sugar is its sweet taste, sugar has many other functions in food technology. The most important among these are that added sugar in foods acts as a sweetener, preservative, texture modifier, fermentation substrate, flavouring and colouring agent, bulking agent."
Another explanation: EVERY can of beans at a mass supermarket like Safeway has the same ingredients. You have to go to Trader Joe's or Whole Foods to avoid the national brands. Many people don't have that option or choose to use it.
The truth is you can add enough corn syrup, fat and salt to pretty much any cheap low quality ingredient to make palatable. Often, the available or cheaper option is not the healthiest. I don't blame consumers for having to make that trade off.
Personally, to find products that I enjoy that aren't loaded with sugar beyond reason (29g vs an equally enjoyable 6g per serving?), I had to visit four shops. That's not something you should have to do for each food product you purchase.
Someone that doesn't go to those lengths certainly isn't stupid either.
On a vaguely related note, Mars Foods is planning on changing its labeling to indicate approx how often you should eat their products [1].
This was most likely a preemptive move on their part, presumably to counter the anti-sugar law being mooted in the UK.
My guess is that their argument will be that people should have the choice to eat unhealthily as long as they do it in moderation. If so, I would tend to agree but I think I'm inclined to moan about a lack of personal responsibility so I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask.
Diabetes is not always a byproduct of over consuming sugar and a company producing sugary snacks and diabetes pills does not force or even encourage over consumption of sugar.
I'm far from being a fan of Nestlé, but there are better arguments against their conduct than a single quote from the CEO years ago, misquoted and out of context.
That was my first thought when I saw the headline. Water is a human need.
All that out, however, I do actually agree with some of what is being done. I'd seriously prefer to eat a gummy candy than swallow a pill - no matter how small a pill is, I can only swallow one at a time. Patients with dementia get crushed medicines mixed with jelly or another substance here - and a pre-mixed solution of some sort would be easier on everyone. It'd be a bonus if we can have the extended release stuff in edible form. Children wouldn't mind taking medicines so much.
I just wish it weren't what I consider evil people (from the water stuff) doing it.
It's the Wall-e Scenario. If we can find a way to continue to consume cheap, shelf-stable, nutrient-dense food; while at the same time repairing our bodies from the side effects, we can be fat blobs living and consuming and growing the economy.
And whether that's unilaterally a bad thing may not be a settled question. The top 5 drugs in the US[1] are remedies for problems caused by advanced society - a statin, antacid, blood thinner, inhaler and antidepressant. They enable many of the affordances we provide for ourselves.
> In a 2013 review of published research, scientists affiliated with France’s national scientific institute wrote that sugar and sweets “can not only substitute [for] addictive drugs, like cocaine, but can even be more rewarding and attractive.” Although sugar is “clearly not as behaviorally and psychologically toxic,” cravings for it can be just as intense, they said.
So... how do we measure behavioral and psychological toxicity? What does that actually mean?
Feels like they're trying to escape cognitive dissonance with weasel words here.
"On Oct 18 the US company Genzyme announced it had formalised an agreement to acquire Cell Genesys for approximately US$350 million. This move follows an agreement by the pharmaceutical division of Japan Tobacco, the world's third-largest tobacco company, to purchase the rights to therapeutic and preventive lung-cancer vaccines under development by Cell Genesys and another American biotechnology company, Corixa. If the vaccines are approved, Japan Tobacco will find itself in the unusual position of marketing products that cause, prevent, and treat the same disease."
Murray, S. (1999) Kill or cure, confused messages from Japan Tobacco. The Lancet, 354(9188), p.1456.
Nestle is trying to avoid the trap Coke and McDonalds fell into: Only offering unhealthy food choices and loosing the young generation of health-conscious consumers. They can't go the Wholefoods way since organic is inherently more expensive and harder to scale. Nestle is a food-tech company that wants to feed the globe. Now they try to do it in a more healthy way. I don't know why Bloomberg is so negative about that.
The supplement works best for those with an MTHFR gene defect, where the body does not create enough 5-MTHF (L-methylfolate). I have c677t heterozygous type mutation and I take 5mg of a generic brand. It helps with methylation process which is very complicated, so I won't try to paraphrase. There is a decent amount of information online you could read up on, though. I would not suggest 5-MTHF for people who do not have the genetic defect, though I imagine a very small dose per day may be helpful, but then again I am no doctor.
What if the article were "Walmart Wants to Sell You Both Sugary Snacks and Diabetes Pills"? Because, I mean, Walmart does sell both of those in their stores.
There's a lot of discussion on here about stupid consumers vs evil corporations, etc. As is often the case, the blame lies with just about everyone involved to some extent. The US government choose to promote a low fat diet with it's original nutrition guidelines in the 70s [4] which led the public to demand the food companies to produce low fat everything in the 80s and into the 90s. It's now emerged that there was little evidence to support the health benefits of a low fat diet.
When you remove fat from food it becomes unpalatable unless.... you add sugar. Thus the increase in added sugar in just about everything which has helped to contribute to the rise of obesity and metabolic syndrome and all the diseases that come with it from diabetes to fatty livers, heart disease, etc.
So who's to "blame"?
The government in some ways, even though they seemingly meant well when recommending low fat diets (they're just now beginning to recommend reduced sugar and ease up on fat warnings).
Food companies in some ways who seem to have known about sugar's addictive properties and engineered their food to keep you coming back for more rather than keeping you healthy [3].
Consumers in some ways for not reading labels, exercising more, reducing portions, etc. But who could blame you when the government and the food companies were trying to convince you that what you were eating was good for you? (unless you had time to dive into the research yourself but let's face it, that's not an option for 99% of people)
One of the best explanations I've read of not just why sugar (fructose to be specific) is bad for you (in the quantities Americans but also most of the world eats it at) is the book "Fat Chance" by Robert Lustig [1]. You can also get a glimpse into his arguments via his youtube lectures [2].
[+] [-] shawn-furyan|10 years ago|reply
This sort of story is pure narrative fallacy, because there is no person at Nestle that decided to exacerbate diabetes and then sell diabetes drugs to profit on the other end. Outside of that person existing, there's no story here. If you take away the conflation of a conglomeration with an entity of coherent offerings the premise crumbles.
[+] [-] anigbrowl|10 years ago|reply
Yet when we find examples of a large corporation creating a vicious circle with easily observable negative externalities, suddenly a corporation is a diffuse network of different products and market actors which is impossible to control, manage, or monitor, and whose activities must not be interfered with at the behest of regulators or the public itself, lest some intangible market equilibrium be disturbed.
It seems to me that this is an example of investors wishing to have their cake and eat it. Either they want the potential of high profits driven by a singular business vision...and which incurs responsibility for outcomes commensurate with the degree of executive authority available to the management, or they want a maximally free market of atomistic competition that is not subject to the whims of trusts, conglomerates and so on. Society cannot afford both options.
[+] [-] chimeracoder|10 years ago|reply
My favorite of these are the articles which criticize health insurers who invest in things like tobacco products.
The point of insurance is to manage risk. Tobacco is indisputably linked to expensive health consequences down the line, so if there is an increase in tobacco consumption, that would generate more claims for health insurers down the line. Capturing some portion of the tobacco industry's profits in this case is an example of smoothing that risk[0]. Health insurers do a lot of really scummy and unethical things, but this is not an example of one.
[0] Of course, that assumes that health insurance is meant to act like insurance, which it by and large is not - health insurance is no longer about insurance at all. That, of course, is a separate matter altogether).
[+] [-] revelation|10 years ago|reply
Does it rise to the level of exacerbating diabetes and then selling diabetes drugs? Of course not. Are there people very aware of the "irony" in selling what is a main cause for T2 diabetes? Hell yeah.
[+] [-] bane|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] exclusiv|10 years ago|reply
A brand is a promise kept. What is Nestle's promise if they continue to expand in this manner? It's confusing and consumers don't like to get squeezed at both ends. Maybe they'll eventually transition over to a "a scientifically driven nutrition, health, and wellness company" as mentioned in the article, but that's a massive branding challenge for a 100 yr old company.
[+] [-] cisstrd|10 years ago|reply
I don't see how selling sugary products for those who buy them and selling health products for those who prefer them is any kind of evil moral conflict. No matter if "health product" means low-fat low-sugar foods or pharmaceutical products.
Scepticism is good, control and regulation is good, blind condemnation is not, not sure what the article is representing. For me it actually is healthy scepticism, some of the comments here are more condemnation I presume.
[+] [-] AndrewUnmuted|10 years ago|reply
Beyond that, however, I see a pretty big flaw in your reasoning here. Given your argument, can you not then extend your theory on guaranteeing future profits to also include the strategy of selling both the problem and the solution? This, too, is a very 'normal' thing for large, multi-national manufacturers of consumer goods to be engaged in.
Nestle, along with Coca Cola and Kroger, is a well-known corporate supporter of programs such as SNAP in the US, and is also one of the largest benefactors from said programs. I am a full-on capitalist, but that does not mean that we ought to give a pass to the morally-flawed existences of companies like Nestle, which leverage its influence in the State to reap greater profits.
[+] [-] malz|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hinkley|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jensen123|10 years ago|reply
Why does this happen? Obviously, sugar tastes good. That has to be why companies add it to all sorts of things. However, if most people were like me, they would read the label and refuse to buy anything that unnecessarily contained sugar. The companies doing this would lose money, and soon stop doing it. But the opposite has happened. Why?
There can only be one explanation: most consumers are dumb. However, when you read about stuff like this in the mainstream media, it's always framed as if "big evil corporations" is the whole problem. That "average Joe" has a low intelligence is never mentioned. Of course, the media wants as many consumers as possible, too, so calling most of their potential readers/viewers stupid is probably a bad strategy, even though it's the truth.
[+] [-] dahart|10 years ago|reply
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_(food)
> There can be only one explanation
Why/how have you arrived at this conclusion?
> it's always framed as if "big evil corporations" is the whole problem
So, you have evidence of food that shouldn't have sugar in it but does in fact have sugar anyway. And you conclude that it's the consumer's fault, because they're stupid, and not the company that puts the sugar in?
Humans have lots of biological and mental weaknesses that can be exploited for profit. Preferring highly caloric food is one of them. It seems fairly pessimistic to call that "dumb". Before the invention of mass produced food, preferring sweet things was an evolutionary advantage. That fact is now being used against you, and all of us, in a big conspiracy called "marketing".
[+] [-] orangecat|10 years ago|reply
Or other people have different tradeoffs between short-term pleasure and statistical long-term health. You can define that as "stupid" if you want, but I'm guessing there are plenty of things that you do because you enjoy them that you would not do if maximizing health were your sole priority.
[+] [-] noxToken|10 years ago|reply
I want you to think about all of the food that's in your house. Eliminate anything that you would consider intentionally sugary like candy, confection, soda, etc. Now how much of a time consuming task would it be to scrutinize every label for needlessly added sugar? Consider how many people would be willing to do that to check for some extra sugar?
And that's why, I believe, companies can throw extra sugar in their products without most of the public being none the wiser. Not only would you have to check your current inventory, you'd have to stay abreast of the issue every time you went shopping. If you went shopping for the entire month like me, you'd spend an extra hour in the store reading labels to check for newly added sugar.
[+] [-] Sharlin|10 years ago|reply
Your conclusion is arrogant, unfair, unhelpful, and unactionable. To be fair, the "corporations are evil" conclusion is similarly unhelpful.
This is actually a prime example of a coordination problem [1]. We're going to have to do better than just pushing the blame around if we're going to do something about it. For instance, obesity is a bigger problem among the poor than the well-to-do. Why? One of the most trivial reasons is the fact that unhealthy food is also inexpensive!
[1] http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
[+] [-] mikestew|10 years ago|reply
You know how that makes you sound? Like a 9/11-was-an-inside-job, "we never went to the moon" conspiracy theorist. "There can be only explanation: the majority people aren't as enlightened as I; wake up sheeple!"
But let's go with that: people are dumb. Assuming that to be true, are you arguing for or against regulating what goes into a can of refried beans? As you've already proven, people are not capable of making sense of nutritional labels, therefore it is not fair to put the onus on those who are incapable, I see no other option than to regulate the industry with heavy oversight for the good of those who are not as enlightened as you.
Just thinking out loud here, but what options open up to us if we don't assume we're smarter than everyone else?
[+] [-] borplk|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nefitty|10 years ago|reply
Most of us average Joe's and Jane's have a lot to juggle in our heads at any given moment. Can I please be excused for not scrounging several stores for sugar free beans, palm oil free chocolate, free range chicken, ethically sourced coffee, etc.? I'm not dumb, it just happens to be that the beans with the sugar are right here in front of me, I have other things to do, and I value my time considerably more than I value this one ethical preference, at the moment.
Default and convenient choices are what consumers respond to. Producers responded to basic biological facts like needing sugar and salt and fat, and so now we're in a place where I can get a Big Mac more cheaply and easily than I can get a cold veggie sandwich. I'm not dumb, I'm busy.
[+] [-] tremon|10 years ago|reply
Well, obvious conclusion is obvious: people are not like you. Especially since you said earlier:
WTF?!? There should be no need for sugar in refried beans!
So why would you expect people to read the label for a product that clearly names what it should contain?
There can only be one explanation: most consumers are dumb.
In light of the above, I can offer another explanation: most consumers are too trusting. Distrust takes mental effort, so people pick their battles. I would not have read the label for a can of refried beans either.
(as an aside: I believe this is where many Europeans would say that this is what food standards are for, to which many Americans would respond: wtf regulation)
[+] [-] Nagyman|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thecrow1213|10 years ago|reply
EDIT: Whether people like it or not, free market forces don't always offer the best outcome. We stopped depending solely on free market forces when we put in place anti-monopoly laws. We've identified that regulation is needed in some cases. Lets use it damnit.
[+] [-] msluyter|10 years ago|reply
1.) Time. Although I'm (perhaps overly) sensitive to which foods are healthy and which aren't, I often find myself eating sub-optimally simply because I can't muster the time/energy to make something healthy, do the resulting dishes, etc... And veggies can be some of the most labor intensive. Or, you want a quick snack that's also really healthy? Here's $5 for a small bag of kale chips (see "Cost," below.)
2.) Skill. It's taken me a while to learn to cook well enough that much of what I make is at least on par with (non-gourmet) restaurant food.
3.) Cost. Compare the beans with sugar to higher end -- organic, in particular -- varieties.
[+] [-] cookiecaper|10 years ago|reply
Lament the average consumer's lack of gross intelligence all you want, but the fact is that it's irrelevant in this circumstance. Food distribution should be accessible and understandable by nearly all adults, and if it's not, it's a systemic failure, not an individual one.
This is especially true now that all of the food for sale in a typical grocery store is altered by chemists. This artificial manipulation should cause us to be more careful about food, not less.
It is absolutely true that nearly every food item in the mainstream grocery store contains superfluous sugar, including foods that you wouldn't expect or think about. While many stores will carry one or two SKUs of a particular product without sugar, you have to be really careful to pick out the right one. For instance, canned pears come "in heavy syrup" (i.e., drenched in sugar) by default. They also offer pears in "light syrup" (i.e., sugar added). There are various combinations of heavy/light syrup canned pear offerings, and then, at the very back, you may luck out and find one can of pears "in water".
These aren't Oreos -- people are buying canned fruits and vegetables because they are trying to be healthy, and the corporate grocers are pulling a fast one on them by dumping large helpings of sugar into everything to try to make the food more addictive (and thereby, increase sales).
Corporate profiteering absolutely plays a massive role in the obesity epidemic. Discounting that is playing into their hands at the peril of public health.
[+] [-] giardini|10 years ago|reply
There are more reasons. Googling "uses of sugar":
"Although the main reason for the use of sugar is its sweet taste, sugar has many other functions in food technology. The most important among these are that added sugar in foods acts as a sweetener, preservative, texture modifier, fermentation substrate, flavouring and colouring agent, bulking agent."
[+] [-] madengr|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] malz|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fucking_tragedy|10 years ago|reply
Personally, to find products that I enjoy that aren't loaded with sugar beyond reason (29g vs an equally enjoyable 6g per serving?), I had to visit four shops. That's not something you should have to do for each food product you purchase.
Someone that doesn't go to those lengths certainly isn't stupid either.
[+] [-] lucozade|10 years ago|reply
This was most likely a preemptive move on their part, presumably to counter the anti-sugar law being mooted in the UK.
My guess is that their argument will be that people should have the choice to eat unhealthily as long as they do it in moderation. If so, I would tend to agree but I think I'm inclined to moan about a lack of personal responsibility so I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask.
[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-36051333
[+] [-] kazinator|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] teamhappy|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mhurron|10 years ago|reply
I don't see what the actual problem is.
[+] [-] cies|10 years ago|reply
...and they want to "own" the water.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_pb6r8VNWk
[+] [-] piquadrat|10 years ago|reply
http://www.nestle.com/ask-nestle/human-rights/answers/nestle...
I'm far from being a fan of Nestlé, but there are better arguments against their conduct than a single quote from the CEO years ago, misquoted and out of context.
[+] [-] return0|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Broken_Hippo|10 years ago|reply
All that out, however, I do actually agree with some of what is being done. I'd seriously prefer to eat a gummy candy than swallow a pill - no matter how small a pill is, I can only swallow one at a time. Patients with dementia get crushed medicines mixed with jelly or another substance here - and a pre-mixed solution of some sort would be easier on everyone. It'd be a bonus if we can have the extended release stuff in edible form. Children wouldn't mind taking medicines so much.
I just wish it weren't what I consider evil people (from the water stuff) doing it.
[+] [-] fche|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hammock|10 years ago|reply
And whether that's unilaterally a bad thing may not be a settled question. The top 5 drugs in the US[1] are remedies for problems caused by advanced society - a statin, antacid, blood thinner, inhaler and antidepressant. They enable many of the affordances we provide for ourselves.
[1]http://www.m.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/news/20110420/the-10-mo...
[+] [-] md224|10 years ago|reply
So... how do we measure behavioral and psychological toxicity? What does that actually mean?
Feels like they're trying to escape cognitive dissonance with weasel words here.
[+] [-] chris_wot|10 years ago|reply
Murray, S. (1999) Kill or cure, confused messages from Japan Tobacco. The Lancet, 354(9188), p.1456.
[+] [-] mheiler|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amelius|10 years ago|reply
Any ideas on how this supplement works? And how many people would benefit from it?
[+] [-] jamble|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0xmohit|10 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.kwiknic.in/
[+] [-] qaq|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] powera|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] z3t4|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] etaty|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thisjustinm|10 years ago|reply
When you remove fat from food it becomes unpalatable unless.... you add sugar. Thus the increase in added sugar in just about everything which has helped to contribute to the rise of obesity and metabolic syndrome and all the diseases that come with it from diabetes to fatty livers, heart disease, etc.
So who's to "blame"?
The government in some ways, even though they seemingly meant well when recommending low fat diets (they're just now beginning to recommend reduced sugar and ease up on fat warnings).
Food companies in some ways who seem to have known about sugar's addictive properties and engineered their food to keep you coming back for more rather than keeping you healthy [3].
Consumers in some ways for not reading labels, exercising more, reducing portions, etc. But who could blame you when the government and the food companies were trying to convince you that what you were eating was good for you? (unless you had time to dive into the research yourself but let's face it, that's not an option for 99% of people)
One of the best explanations I've read of not just why sugar (fructose to be specific) is bad for you (in the quantities Americans but also most of the world eats it at) is the book "Fat Chance" by Robert Lustig [1]. You can also get a glimpse into his arguments via his youtube lectures [2].
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Fat-Chance-Beating-Against-Processed/d...
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
[3] http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/food-cravings-engineered-by-in...
[4] http://time.com/3702058/dietary-guidelines-fat-wrong/
[+] [-] jamesrcole|10 years ago|reply