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The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

nytimes.com

81–90 of 219 posts

Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

#81

Silly: spoonfeeding junk-food CEOs facts about obesity, in the vain hope they'll take their share of responsibility. What, did anybody imagine they didn't know they sell the food equivalent of crack to our kids? They're not idiots; they make money doing this, and are responsible to shareholders.

Responsible to their shareholders to avoid the deluge of lawsuits that will come; it will be like tobacco, you can see the tide turning. That was their chance to change course.

Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

#82
post #8
post #6

" small but crucial move: the industry should use the expertise of scientists — its own and others — to gain a deeper understanding of what was driving Americans to overeat. " LMAO, they probably employ dozens of scientists trying to figure how to get people to eat more. Could the speaker have been any more clueless? He would have been better off pushing some solution that had been user tested not to hurt sales. E.g.…

Yes, they sit around in smoke-filled rooms scheming about how to make kids fatter and fatter. They in fact would like nothing better than if all children died of diabetes before they reach puberty. They do like we all do. Try to develop a product, test it, refine it, in order to sell more of it. One of the common mantras here is that its good to do A/B testing to get better conversion. But when General Mills does it,…

Fucking right it's evil. That's because actions get moral consequences from results.

Once a year or so I end up in Vegas for a weekend. Every time, I look at all the electronic games and think, "Man, I could build something much more engaging and compelling than slot machines." And then I start thinking about cool products.

After about 10 minutes of this, I wake up and say, "But that would be wrong!" because I've finally gotten as far as thinking about the moral consequences of making Vegas even stickier.

I've turned down lucrative offers from entrepreneurs for similar reasons. If I get rich by making the world worse, it's just an elaborate scam, taking advantage of weakness and ignorance to fill my bank account.

Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

#83
post #33
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taubes actually started the mainstream reexamination of fat over 10 years ago with his New York Times Magazine article "What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?": http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-... The key point is that it is only very specific varieties of fat that matter for heart disease. It goes in to much more detail than his opinion piece for those looking for more info.

Taubes is a dogmatic cherry-picker.

Not sure why your comment is being upvoted, since it offers no evidence whatsoever to support your claim that Taubes is a cherry-picker.

Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

#85
post #33
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taubes actually started the mainstream reexamination of fat over 10 years ago with his New York Times Magazine article "What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?": http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-... The key point is that it is only very specific varieties of fat that matter for heart disease. It goes in to much more detail than his opinion piece for those looking for more info.

Taubes is a dogmatic cherry-picker.

Perhaps you could provide some, I don't know, facts or reasoning or something?

Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

#86
post #7

It amazes me that this article still pushes the agenda that "fat makes us fat." If there's one thing that hasn't proven out at all , it's that fat makes us fat! The NY Times has even run other articles saying as much: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/opinion/sunday/what-really... (by Gary Taubes, whose book "Why We Get Fat" is a must-read.) The problem with "low-fat" processed food in particular is that the fat is o…

I think we all share the frustration of research being unable to give us conclusive answers about what works and what doesn't. Seems like good portions of nutritional studies over the past 100 years were either misinterpreted or even influenced by interested parties. We, the consumers, are paying the price.

Oh we do have answers on many questions. Just not 100% sure, because detailed experiments on humans are kind of hard to get through the ethic committee. Reading the available Pop science books/articles on nutrition however will probably just confuse people than help them.

What kind of questions do you have?

Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

#87
post #20

I do occasionally enjoy pointing out to people that the soda/pop/cola they've bought is a drink designed to disappear. The water is carbonated, so that you do not savour the drink but immediately try to gulp it down. There is phosphoric acid and a surprising amount of sodium, which both make you salivate, so that you briefly feel that you're refreshed -- and then your saliva is depleted so that your mouth goes dry. T…

Thank you, I actually never researched this. It is different than drinking green tea, where i juggle it inside my mouth, play around with taste then swallow it :)

Yeah, one of the things I like about drinking a good cup of hot coffee or tea is that spending a half hour or so savoring a single cup feels perfectly natural. There's a time limit in that it'll eventually get cold, but with a good pot and a good mug it's not all that hard to spend all day drinking tea without actually consuming all that much of it.

Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

#88
post #73

"The snack that Dunn was proposing to sell: carrots. Plain, fresh carrots. No added sugar. No creamy sauce or dips. No salt. Just baby carrots, washed, bagged, then sold into the deadly dull produce aisle." Ha, I've actually been doing this since I was a teenager. It's really fantastic for managing junk food cravings, which arise not because I'm hungry , but because I just like to have something to chew on while I wo…

He seems to have brought his junk food carrots to market, except for one thing: they now contain 200mg of sodium.

http://www.babycarrots.com

Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we're overweight because we overeat and don't exercise.

This, plus a million. Nobody wants to take responsibility for their own diet these days. Stop feeding your kids luncnables and prepare them a damn lunch! Put the chips down, and don't buy shit with HFCS in it. Make your own damn pasta sauce (Crushed tomatoes, green onion, and garlic, it's about as easy at buying prego, but with a million less sugars/salts) Walk places and take the stairs. (brief side note, living in…

Bleh.

I may as well respond by bringing up the mother of three who works 12 hour shifts at walmart was expelled from highschool and never had even the most basic idea of food preparation or culinary training. I suppose she should simply 'bootstrap up' like the rest of us did when we were in that situation. Hah, oh that's right, the vast majority here are college educated and in the top 15% of income earners.

This gets us nowhere. It's a circular argument that has been done to death.

If you want to argue that I (me personally) should know better, absolutely, if you want to argue someone in the bottom 50% should know better then go volunteer at a shelter.

Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

#90

... "As a culture, we’ve become upset by the tobacco companies advertising to children, but we sit idly by while the food companies do the very same thing. ..." Why aren't parents more responsible for their children's health? As a parent myself, I know how damn hard it is for kids to eat anything consistently, especially "healthy" foods, such as fresh fruits and vegetables. And our kids have snacks in moderation. It…

Because they spend 50% of their waking hours in school where it is impossible to monitor exactly what they're eating. Parents do take responsibility for what their kids eat at home. The alarm comes from schools marketing unhealthful food to them when we can't be there to ensure they make good choices.
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