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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

#251

Post by gerardnll »

hyperbole wrote: post #219
AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, diabetes pills are not really 'health products.' They are more like 'you fucked up your health, now try not to die' products. Even Nestle's low-fat and low-sugar "foods" are a far cry from "health products." You are being disingenuous by conflating the two, or even for suggesting that Nestle is in the business of selling "health products." Beyond that, however, I see a pretty big flaw in your reasoning…

> First of all, diabetes pills are not really 'health products.' They are more like 'you fucked up your health, now try not to die' products You can make the same argument about low cost sugary foods that originated from the same conglomerates - trade lower prices & time to avoid starving... if you can't afford to eat healthy you eat what's fast, affordable and tastes good. You can have your cake and eat it too, you…

In Spain we say "Pan para hoy, hambre para mañana". Which literally translated would mean "Bread for today, hunger tomorrow". Eat cheap and in the future your health will be paying for that, and it will be more expensive than eating healthy during your life.

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

#252

Post by revelation »

shawn-furyan wrote: post #245

The offerings of humongous multinational conglomerations are not coherent. You could generate stories of this type all day, because the offerings of the likes of Nestle, GE, J&J, P&G, Coca-Cola, et. al. are the results of the efforts of hundreds of thousands of employees (for each conglomerate) subdivided into thousands of business units [read sub-companies], each with its own goals, challenges, and many existing wit…

Of course there are whole divisions at Nestle dedicated exclusively to determining a cohesive path and synergies for "the whole of it". Nestle is highly vertically integrated. It is not at all this loose, random aggregate of business units you're trying to construct here.

Does it rise to the level of exacerbating diabetes and then selling diabetes drugs? Of course not. Are there people very aware of the "irony" in selling what is a main cause for T2 diabetes? Hell yeah.

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

#254

Post by lloyddobbler »

bduerst wrote: post #217
AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, diabetes pills are not really 'health products.' They are more like 'you fucked up your health, now try not to die' products. Even Nestle's low-fat and low-sugar "foods" are a far cry from "health products." You are being disingenuous by conflating the two, or even for suggesting that Nestle is in the business of selling "health products." Beyond that, however, I see a pretty big flaw in your reasoning…

How much of the cause of the diabetes endemic is Nestle though? Isn't lack of nutritional education more to blame? It's easy to come down hard on the smoking industry due to the chemically addictive nature and serious health hazards of the product, but there are many consumers who moderate their fat and sugar intake. And then there are diabetics who don't consume any Nestle products - so why can't they be given treat…

Agreed.

As someone with Type 1 diabetes (look up the difference if you don't know), I'm always interested in this distinction. Sugary foods neither "give people" nor cause Type 2 diabetes. A person consistently consuming too many sugary foods over a long period of time causes themselves to be at higher risk for Type 2 diabetes.

Cigarettes are a different beast, due to the chemically-addictive nature of them (although in this day and age, one could make the argument that people of all ages should know better than to start smoking, and should thus bear responsibility for the outcome - but that's another discussion for another time).

Cigarettes != sugar. End of story.

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

#256

Post by md224 »

gerardnll wrote: post #250
cisstrd wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a "health" product or not is of no value to the discussion here I think, we can debate all day long about what way of eating is correct or not, then let me put it in broader terms: Targeting different groups with different products that actually might have nothing in common or even be antagonists in a way, is nothing immoral or unusual. I used the term "health product" as an antagonist to their sugary product…

We are not talking about what is health or not, the sugar they sell is bad, that's it, there's no questioning, there are doctors that agree on that, non biased studies, half the USA is ill with diabetes, etc. Every company has to have a social responsability, I don't see it here. They are causing harm with their products and they also sell the 'cure'. (actually the best is not to eat any of their products, then you d…

> the sugar they sell is bad, that's it, there's no questioning

I dunno, I think sugar is pretty delicious. Not everything has to be about maximizing your lifespan, you know. A balanced life can include tasty stuff.

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

#257

Post by chimeracoder »

shawn-furyan wrote: post #245

The offerings of humongous multinational conglomerations are not coherent. You could generate stories of this type all day, because the offerings of the likes of Nestle, GE, J&J, P&G, Coca-Cola, et. al. are the results of the efforts of hundreds of thousands of employees (for each conglomerate) subdivided into thousands of business units [read sub-companies], each with its own goals, challenges, and many existing wit…

> This sort of story is pure narrative fallacy

My favorite of these are the articles which criticize health insurers who invest in things like tobacco products.

The point of insurance is to manage risk. Tobacco is indisputably linked to expensive health consequences down the line, so if there is an increase in tobacco consumption, that would generate more claims for health insurers down the line. Capturing some portion of the tobacco industry's profits in this case is an example of smoothing that risk[0]. Health insurers do a lot of really scummy and unethical things, but this is not an example of one.

[0] Of course, that assumes that health insurance is meant to act like insurance, which it by and large is not - health insurance is no longer about insurance at all. That, of course, is a separate matter altogether).

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

#258

Post by lotharbot »

gerardnll wrote: post #250
cisstrd wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a "health" product or not is of no value to the discussion here I think, we can debate all day long about what way of eating is correct or not, then let me put it in broader terms: Targeting different groups with different products that actually might have nothing in common or even be antagonists in a way, is nothing immoral or unusual. I used the term "health product" as an antagonist to their sugary product…

We are not talking about what is health or not, the sugar they sell is bad, that's it, there's no questioning, there are doctors that agree on that, non biased studies, half the USA is ill with diabetes, etc. Every company has to have a social responsability, I don't see it here. They are causing harm with their products and they also sell the 'cure'. (actually the best is not to eat any of their products, then you d…

> "the sugar they sell is bad, that's it, there's no questioning"

I question it.

There appears to be little-to-no scientific evidence that there are "bad" sugars and "good" sugars. From what I understand (I'm no doctor, just a person who reads a lot) the main problem is the volume of consumption, not "good" vs "bad" sugars. There's nothing wrong with a normal, healthy person having sugar in any of the forms Nestle sells, only with having too much of it.

Now, you could argue that they sell it in quantities that make it easy to have too much, but that's different from saying the sugar itself is bad.

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

#260

Post by lotharbot »

dragonwriter wrote: post #221
mikestew wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really brings things in perspective. It does, doesnt it? I mean, you'd think a math teacher of all people would know not to use "average" when they really mean "median". I always wondered whether Carlin was being ironic when he told the joke.

> you'd think a math teacher of all people would know not to use "average" when they really mean "median". I think a math teacher would be well aware that "average" can be used for "median", "mode", "arithmetic mean", or any of the other means (geometric, harmonic, etc.), as well as other computed values that are somewhere in the space bounded by the extremes of a data set, and would likewise be aware that, while in…

I like this comment so much that I reposted it to facebook. "Average" is, in fact, a generic term which we shouldn't freak out about too much.
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