Sounds like a sugar epidemic. Why are these ingredients not banned?
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Reducing sugar in packaged foods can prevent disease in millions
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Re: Reducing sugar in packaged foods can prevent disease in millions
#22But if sugar is addictive, as it seems it is, this would cost a significant fraction of annual revenue to food producers, so there's no way they'd do it. Even if it's not literally addictive, it's clearly attractive and they'd take a big hit.
Government can pass laws
Probably not so easily against a set of lobbies that includes some of the most powerful there are: agriculture, food and health insurance.
Re: Reducing sugar in packaged foods can prevent disease in millions
#23But if sugar is addictive, as it seems it is, this would cost a significant fraction of annual revenue to food producers, so there's no way they'd do it. Even if it's not literally addictive, it's clearly attractive and they'd take a big hit.
What baffles me is that artificial sweeteners exist and yet there is enough (imo) unfounded FUD about them that leads people to instead choose Sugar or Nothing (which inevitably translates to Sugar because of the pseudo-addictiveness you mention.) Is wireheading bad? Maybe, but if I'm going to be doing it either way I'd rather reduce the harm.
I don't know how true it is, but one thing I've heard about artificial sweeteners is that your body thinks it's sugar, and will make your body feel hungrier because it expects it to have the same calories as regular sugar. I still prefer them because I hate the sticky feeling sugary products leave on my teeth, but I've talked to people who think artificial sweeteners are pointless from a calories-in/calories-out POV due to how your body reacts to them. For all I know that's completely made up though, they might have learned that from Dr. Oz or other daytime TV shows.
Re: Reducing sugar in packaged foods can prevent disease in millions
#24Sounds like a sugar epidemic. Why are these ingredients not banned?
If refined sugar were invented recently, it would be another illegal white powder.
Re: Reducing sugar in packaged foods can prevent disease in millions
#25Eh. Sure, maybe you'd see these results if people actually reduced their total consumption. Would just cutting it in packaged foods and beverages actually accomplish that though?
Re: Reducing sugar in packaged foods can prevent disease in millions
#26American here. I generally stick to a vegan/vegetarian diet to try and work on my "numbers" from our company healthcare bio-screening. My woke moment was when I was told exactly how much sugar is in a teaspoon. 4 grams.
After that day I started seeing just how criminally insane some food products were and just how far most companies go to make sure you dont accidentally find out how much refined sugar you eat. tricks like changing portion sizes displayed to per-serving instead of per-package, or hiding behind vegetables and smoothie jargon for drinks to pass off a third cup of sugar as somehow healthy.
4 grams is a teaspoon. 3 teaspoons is a tablespoon. 4 tablespoons is a quarter cup.
EDIT: 3 teaspoons, is a tablespoon apparently.
Re: Reducing sugar in packaged foods can prevent disease in millions
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Government can pass laws
Probably not so easily against a set of lobbies that includes some of the most powerful there are: agriculture, food and health insurance.
We handle this by incarcerating all of the lobbyists, politicians, and other traitors engaged in regulatory capture, who have compromised our public health and national security.
Is this your argument for everything? There are lobbyists, therefore let's do nothing? I hope you support ending this sort of legalized corruption in general then.
Re: Reducing sugar in packaged foods can prevent disease in millions
#28Sounds like a sugar epidemic. Why are these ingredients not banned?
These suggestions are very extreme: ban ingredients, use artificial sweeteners. What about America means that you can’t just use less sugar and eat less sugar? Plenty of other countries don’t have this problem.
Sugar companies paying for studies on the dangers of fat were a great distraction. Nowadays high sugar content is ingrained in the culture. Some other countries are also increasing their sugar intake. Soda companies in particular drive this phenomenon.
Re: Reducing sugar in packaged foods can prevent disease in millions
#29American here. I generally stick to a vegan/vegetarian diet to try and work on my "numbers" from our company healthcare bio-screening. My woke moment was when I was told exactly how much sugar is in a teaspoon. 4 grams. After that day I started seeing just how criminally insane some food products were and just how far most companies go to make sure you dont accidentally find out how much refined sugar you eat. tricks…
3 teaspoons is a tablespoon.
Re: Reducing sugar in packaged foods can prevent disease in millions
#30But if sugar is addictive, as it seems it is, this would cost a significant fraction of annual revenue to food producers, so there's no way they'd do it. Even if it's not literally addictive, it's clearly attractive and they'd take a big hit.
That's absolutely the problem. The current equilibrium is the results of an arms race. If any one manufacturer just cut sweetening by 50%, they'd be be screwed. We'd have to do it all together to reset everybody's tastes, and that's unlikely to happen.
It's a similar dynamic to advertising. In theory, advertisements give us new information about products. In practice, the biggest spenders are companies you've heard of pushing products you're familiar with. Approximately everybody on the planet knows what a Coke takes like but they spend $4 billion per year, or about 10% of annual revenue. Would consumers like it to be 10% cheaper? sure. Would Coca Cola Inc like $4 billion extra in profits? Most definitely. But they have to advertise because their competitors advertise, so we're all stuck in a wasteful equilibrium.