The Science of Addictive Junk Food (2013)

"Government has no business telling me what to eat."

Which is just nonsense, and not only because the decision on what to eat is driven by genetics that did not evolve in the presence of modern processed foods. Government isn't telling you what to eat if it keeps companies from selling the worst junk food. If you want to make junk food yourself, you're welcome to (and it will probably be a lot healthier than what you buy, too, and taste better, subjectively, because you made it), but the problem with junk food is the economy of scale. Companies can cheaply make stuff that tastes great without being healthy, so why would you bother with more expensive or healthier food, or anything you have to spend time making yourself? It's about shifting incentives, not banning anything. They counter that freedom applies to corporations too, and you're banning corporations from doing things, which leads to the "do corporations deserve the same freedoms?" argument.

The conservatives' position goes beyond unwise and into the realm of hypocrisy, because conservatives have no problem when government wants to tell me I can't grow salvia divinorum (yes, in my state it's banned), or poppies, or marijuana plants, but forbid a company from distributing disgustingly unhealthy lunchables or soda and they lose their minds.

(I should add that another part of the problem is that both conservatives and libertarians pretend the costs of eating badly only affect the people making the choice, which isn't true. Particularly with the changes to healthcare, everyone buying their own insurance during open enrollment, and maybe everyone (I don't know, are there any plans where premiums are segmented by behavior other than tobacco use?), is in a gigantic pool where no separation by diet is allowed, even if it were practical which it's not. And if everything were privatized and pools segmented by diet, there would still be costs to others, because people in those pools have more health problems that negatively affect not only their own, but their relatives' and friends', happiness and productivity. Which works if their friends in turn exert influence back to eat healthier, but that)

Right now someone can buy a pound of ground beef for around $3-4. After tax that represents around 30 minutes of labor for a minimum waged employee.

It is absolutely remarkable that our lowest skilled, lowest productivity workers, can afford a pound of beef for 1/2 an hour of work.

Obviously there are clear environmental issues here, and we are not taking into account all the externalities associated with meat production. But that figure above, and what it represents in terms of human nutrition, should be breathtaking.

If you accept that raw/unprocessed food is healthier than processed, and that vegetables are healthier than meat, then this must be true, because processing food requires energy and raising livestock requires feeding the livestock.

If this is not true in practice, it will be due to perverse taxes and subsidies.