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Nestlé Wants to Sell You Both Sugary Snacks and Diabetes Pills

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Re: Nestlé Wants to Sell You Both Sugary Snacks and Diabetes Pills

#101

Post by kidmenot »

mseebach wrote: post #63
kidmenot wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is tap water safe to drink? As someone who lives across the pond, it never ceases to amaze me that this question needs to be asked at all. Is tap water safe to drink? I wouldn't take "no" as an answer unless I'm in some remote third-world country that has known issues with the availability of drinking water. And yet... Not saying tap water here tastes great everywhere (far from that), but you can be pretty sure it…

Good for you, but this is what the International Association for Medical Assistance to Travellers has to say about Italy: > Drinking water is chlorinated and has no ill effect on the local population. However, some strains of e. coli (naturally occurring bacteria found in your gastro-intestinal system) may be present in very small concentrations in the local water supply. Some local strains are different than those t…

This is not a case of "good for you", it's just that I find it sad that locals of a developed country have to choose to drink bottled water over tap water because the latter could harm their health.

That being said, for travelers it sure might take a while to adjust to local conditions. I never had such problems when traveling to Spain, Austria, France, Hungary and Slovenia, but I do understand that each body copes differently with things it's not used to.

Re: Nestlé Wants to Sell You Both Sugary Snacks and Diabetes Pills

#102

Post by Evgeny »

jerf wrote: post #49
chris_wot wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, let a company supply a substance to intentionally harm people so they can sell them a cure? I can see that going down well in other industries. The automobile industry can engineer metal fatigue into their axle joints and sell you replacements. Microsoft can build bugs into Windows and sell you critical updates to fix the flaw. Chair makers can sell you chairs with legs attached by screws that are slightly too…

"What, let a company supply a substance to intentionally harm people so they can sell them a cure?" Let's not forget our history here, since it wasn't exactly all that long ago. For decades, the consensus has been that the root cause of dietary issues is excessive fat in the diet, not sugar. Sugar was on the top of the food pyramid not because it was "bad" for you, but merely because it displaced other better things.…

the root cause of dietary issues is excessive fat in the diet, not sugar.

Anything excessive in the diet will lead to gaining weight and eventually to obesity.

I can not say which will lead to diabetes faster, consuming extra 1000 calories daily in fat or in sugar, but in terms of fat gain results will be similar.

The government recommendations are most unfortunate, as they concentrate on macronutrients. So when *fat is bad" people will start eating sugary snacks, and when eventually it changes to "sugar is bad", fat will be added to everything instead of sugar.

It would be more positive to suggest eating more whole, unprocessed foods, but I'm sure political issues will never allow that.

Re: Nestlé Wants to Sell You Both Sugary Snacks and Diabetes Pills

#106

Post by cynicalkane »

gurkendoktor wrote: post #75
piquadrat wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we stop this "Nestlé thinks water isn't a human right" BS already? 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.

That's fascinating. I've been boycotting Nestlé for many years based on documentaries and articles in German-language media. I've just tried to dig up some English articles for the first time, but they are much harder to find. Compare the German-language version of Nestlé criticism on water: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestlé#Trinkwasser ...to the English one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestlé#Bottled_water Ther…

> Nestlé does not seem to believe in water as a human right. Otherwise, why sell water from areas where it is already scarce?

Selling is often the best way to manage scarce resources, particularly in the presence of a government that cannot be trusted to effectively ration them.

Most reasonable people don't object to companies selling food or clothing.

Re: Nestlé Wants to Sell You Both Sugary Snacks and Diabetes Pills

#107

Post by Erwin »

maus42 wrote: post #83
jzwinck wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their marketing is designed to sell cereal. People unfortunately are happiest (short term) to consume sugary cereal. They really are. I met a breakfast food operative in the supermarket once. I told him I thought his company should offer a low sugar version. He said everyone tells them to do so, but once it's on the shelves it does not sell. People want less sugar in the abstract. But they love sugar in their shoppin…

...extra tax for high-sugar products?

We tried a tax on fatty foods in Denmark and it was a huge mess. People would just drive to Germany to get the stuff, and managing it was an administrative nightmare: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/business/global/fat-tax-in...

Re: Nestlé Wants to Sell You Both Sugary Snacks and Diabetes Pills

#108

Post by johndevor »

jld89 wrote: post #29
mhurron wrote: post #10

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 don't see what the actual problem is.

"does not force or even encourage over consumption of sugar." Actually they do encourage you to eat a lot of sugar. Specially children. Their marketing campaigns are specially tailored to that objective. Just look at the cereal advertisements, most of their cereal brands have a lot of sugar in them. If that is not encouraging over consumption of sugar I don't know what is...

As a CEO in the US you're legally obligated to maximize profits. In that sense I don't see this as a problem with Nestle, more so the greater system in which Nestle sits.

Re: Nestlé Wants to Sell You Both Sugary Snacks and Diabetes Pills

#109

Post by lake99 »

emodendroket wrote: post #87
pavel_lishin wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Look, we're not encouraging over-consumption of sugar. It's just that we know that people will over-consume sugar, and we make food packed with sugar, and we market it to those people."

I'm sure they'd say something like that, but it is false. People were not eating gobs of sugar for breakfast until someone came up with sweetened breakfast cereal and marketed it.

I used to eat a lot of sweets when I was young. Not for breakfast, because that's not the customary here, but at all other times. I liked that stuff. As I grew older, I lost my taste for all that. I have seen this pattern in so many other people too. Kids like sweet stuff. As long as they are active and are in the normal weight range, I don't see any reason to discourage it either, except at night, after brushing teeth.

Re: Nestlé Wants to Sell You Both Sugary Snacks and Diabetes Pills

#110

Post by curiousgeorgio »

aedron wrote: post #70
jld89 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"does not force or even encourage over consumption of sugar." Actually they do encourage you to eat a lot of sugar. Specially children. Their marketing campaigns are specially tailored to that objective. Just look at the cereal advertisements, most of their cereal brands have a lot of sugar in them. If that is not encouraging over consumption of sugar I don't know what is...

Marketing potentially harmful products to children should simply not be allowed. It is well-accepted that children lack the experience and power of judgement to properly evaluate marketing claims. A product sold as breakfast, that consists of 25% sugar, absolutely qualifies as harmful.

Do you also think all marketing for alcohol should be banned? It is "well-accepted" that many adults lack the judgement necessary to prevent over-consumption of alcohol.

A product designed to impair judgement absolutely qualifies as harmful.

How about McDonalds? Or Coca-Cola? Should we just ban all marketing because we're no longer adept at making responsible decisions for ourselves and our children?

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