Nestlé Wants to Sell You Both Sugary Snacks and Diabetes Pills • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by fucking_tragedy » Mon, May 09, 2016, 1:38 PM UTC

jzwinck wrote: post #53

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...

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…

The market forces companies to peddle garbage to children who generally lack the capacity to make a healthy informed decision in the face of multimillion dollar campaigns designed to get them to consume sugary cereal?

> 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 shopping carts, in the mornings, and in their mouths.

This sounds a little too just-so.

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

#112

Post by Kristine1975 » Mon, May 09, 2016, 1:40 PM UTC

piquadrat wrote: post #80

parennoob wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is showing the clip of what he actually said, which is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWkA-uAPXCE#t=2m10s He does absolutely say that "NGOs bang on about water being declared a human right", at the time when he is relaxed, and even bringing up some Austrian folk song about water. He says absolutely nothing about limits, or just being careful. The page you linked is a great example of corporate damage co…

That video cuts off right before Brabeck states his own view. Thanks for proving my point that his quote is often taken out of context. Here's a longer one https://youtu.be/7iGj4GpAbTM?t=192 He states that he thinks it would be better to give water a price so that we are aware of its value, and take specific measures to provide access to water to people who can't afford it. Not the worst idea ever to fight water wast…

I doubt people in third-world countries are unaware of the value of clean water.

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

#113

Post by Kristine1975 » Mon, May 09, 2016, 1:41 PM UTC

piquadrat wrote: post #41

cies wrote: post #14

> Nestlé Wants to Sell You Both Sugary Snacks and Diabetes Pills ...and they want to "own" the water. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_pb6r8VNWk

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.

Why exactly should I believe anything Nestlé's marketing department says?

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

#114

Post by trbvm2 » Mon, May 09, 2016, 1:41 PM UTC

Nagyman wrote: post #78

jensen123 wrote: post #72

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 pe…

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.

"people just need information which isn't being readily provided" The breakdown of the nutritional value of every food stuff is literally right in front of the consumer's face. I'm not sure information availability is a core issue there. It takes less time to check a food label than it does to respond to a text message or check Facebook.

If I had to guess I would say prioritization and budgeting are core issues here. It really is a very similar problem to financial budgeting. In this view we are balancing a calorie budget against time, money, emotional state, and health so the categories are different but the question is still the same as in finance. This could also be a likely culprit since we do not tend to teach this topic well and Average Joe seems to be about as bad at personal finance as he is with personal wellness.

Perhaps more training on prioritization, goal setting, and delayed gratification is part of the solution?

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

#115

Post by emodendroket » Mon, May 09, 2016, 1:43 PM UTC

lake99 wrote: post #109

emodendroket wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tee…

Children like sweets more than adults, sure, but the amount of sugar in the average diet is extremely high compared to like a century ago.

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

#116

Post by vidarh » Mon, May 09, 2016, 1:44 PM UTC

mhurron wrote: post #38

djrobstep wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, they do encourage exactly that. Stating the obvious, the choices people make are a function of the choices available to them.

So people didn't over eat sugar until there were diabetes pills?

He's saying that people didn't overeat sugar until they were given sufficiently easy access to significant quantities of sugar to make it easy to overeat it.

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

#117

Post by ptaipale » Mon, May 09, 2016, 1:46 PM UTC

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…

One thing is that selling water from some place enables the source to be developed. E.g. enable better water treatment technology and eliminate losses. It may very well actually improve availability of water.

Sale of drinking water is not really much of a problem, anywhere; the amounts consumed by drinking are small compared to everything else, and the development of treatment capability may well offset them.

Selling water in bottles is a problem because of the bottles (trash, materials, energy), but that is another thing. Supplying water to other uses (industry, agriculture) is a problem because the amounts are vastly bigger than with drinking water.

To be honest, I trust the English Wikipedia here more than the German...

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

#118

Post by dahart » Mon, May 09, 2016, 1:47 PM UTC

jensen123 wrote: post #72

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 pe…

> Why does this happen?

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".

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

#119

Post by cousin_it » Mon, May 09, 2016, 1:48 PM UTC

cynicalkane wrote: post #106

gurkendoktor wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If by "manage" you mean "make sure the scarce resource goes to the highest bidder". That's not the same as maximizing overall happiness, because purchasing power ≠ capacity for happiness. In fact it's often the reverse. The person who can get the most happiness from a glass of water might be the least able to afford it.

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

#120

Post by ptaipale » Mon, May 09, 2016, 1:48 PM UTC

johndevor wrote: post #108

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...

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.

Is this really true?

Over here (EU), the purpose of a corporation does not have to be maximising profit (although that is the default) and CEO does not have to use every legal method to maximize profit, at all costs.