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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

#151
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…

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…

> peddle garbage to children who generally lack the capacity to make a healthy informed decision

I don't know many kids that do the shopping :)

It's parents that choose the sugary breakfast cereals for their children. I think many have the capacity to make a healthy, informed decision, but for some reason they do not. Marketing is likely at least part of the reason.

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

#152
post #29
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...

When do you draw the line of "encouraging" and "this is what people actually want." I know that sugary cereals are bad for me, no one is encouraging me to eat them, but sometimes I really want Fruity Pebbles. The fact is that kids like sugary cereals, adults like sugary cereals, and a company is there to provide that product. I see nothing wrong with that.

But let's also point out that fact that diabetes is -not- caused by sugar consumption itself. There is a genetic strain, and there is a strain caused by obesity. Does sugar lead to obesity? Yes, it can, but it does not directly cause diabetes. This is an important distinction.

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

#153

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…

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)

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

#154

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…

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.

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

#155
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.

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

#156
post #118

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 t…

Do you feel that a consumer is responsible for what they put in their body?

If they never tasted the food, they would miss out on this "marketing." The fact remains, if those manufacturers have always produced their beans with sugar, then they should not be at fault. If those companies changed their recipe to contain sugar after they found people grey addicted to it, there should be a label to warn the consumer that a change has suddenly been made.

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

#157

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…

Sugar removes acidity. I would add some sugar to home made tomato sauce sometimes. Sugar is bad, but it's got some qualities as well. The same could be said about many things we still eat/drink/breath, but the problem with sugar is that we just use too much of it.

sugar does not reduce acidity, it masks it.

Bicarbonate of Soda reduces it, and brings the sugar already present to the fore.

a micro pinch in the tomato sauce makes it bite less and reduces digestive acidity reflux from eating a tomato based meal(spag.sauce)

jrjr

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

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read a few books on nutrition, you will learn that refined sugar is unhealthy. This is not hard for anybody with half a brain to figure out. As for working two part-time jobs etc., many of the people doing this buy status symbols like SUVs, iPhones, big houses etc. If they didn't buy so much unnecessary stuff, they wouldn't need to work so much.

I need that stuff to get laid though.

Find a lady that likes debt free men and try to make her happy.

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

#159
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.

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

So we should remove all choice that isn't considered safe? Who decides what is safe?

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

#160

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…

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.

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