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Ultra-processed foods in the global food system: The role of tobacco companies

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261–270 of 304 posts

Re: Ultra-processed foods in the global food system: The role of tobacco companies

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When people eat non-nutritious food it's not because the conglomerates are pushing it on them. It's because they choose it. Ah yes, the capitalist trick of blaming the consumer for structural failings. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-... - food desert map. Especially in food deserts, sometimes the only places to buy food are from gas stations. Guess what they serve? Toxic shit that someh…

Food deserts are a methodologically fraught concept. The inclusion criteria are basically arbitrary; vary the distance or income thresholds by modest amounts, and the maps change drastically. It also buckets everyone living in a census tract to the geometric center of that tract, so that people living five minutes walk from a grocery store still count as living in a food desert. On top of that, they don't account for…

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Re: Ultra-processed foods in the global food system: The role of tobacco companies

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You'd find plenty of definitions if you looked for them Having a greater number of competing definitions does not generally make a term more meaningful. (Take "art" for example.)

Who says they're competing?

Then it just has one definition, rather than plenty. You could have said that it's defined in many places. If you want to say that's what you meant, I won't argue semantics.

Re: Ultra-processed foods in the global food system: The role of tobacco companies

#264
post #46

Tobacco, wine and fresh bread are usually few of the consumables that in many western countries do not have to disclose their ingredients. Why do we allow this? Just behave like all others. Now we want to push for smoke-free societies: but non of ways to achieve this even dares to talk about "just make tobacco giants list all the ingredients/additives".

The rule for fresh bread varies from state to state because it's not considered interstate commerce, so it doesn't have to follow the federal labeling law. (There's a ton of hypocrisy about the use of the interstate commerce clause, but this part isn't completely stupid.)

It goes for all good produced and consumed in the same state, not just bread. Tobacco and alcohol actually are regulated federally even when produced in the same state (that interstate commerce hypocrisy I mentioned). They don't require ingredients lists but they do require licensing.

Where I live (Maryland), cottage industries have to include ingredients lists. Others require just allergens. Some have no regulations one way or the other.

Re: Ultra-processed foods in the global food system: The role of tobacco companies

#265
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know its just a joke, but Bill Hicks also constantly marketed himself and branded himself as an anti-marketing comedian. In his mind it was okay to promote yourself as a comedian but not promote your own business.

He didn't take out ads or anything. He lived his life the way he wanted to and spoke his mind. That's not 'marketing'.

I respect the hell out of Bill Hicks but the dude absolutely sat around thinking about marketing and getting his name out there. You have to if you want to be a working comic. Hell it’s not like he didn’t have an agent.

Re: Ultra-processed foods in the global food system: The role of tobacco companies

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One beer company tried to do it. But because beer has vitamins in it, they were prohibited from doing it as it might have made the beer seem healthy.

Can you provide a citation? Plenty of beers have nutrition information labels.

The assertion used to be true, but is out of date. The beer industry negotiated with the FDA and now they can include nutrition labels.

The wine industry is still working on it.

Re: Ultra-processed foods in the global food system: The role of tobacco companies

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One beer company tried to do it. But because beer has vitamins in it, they were prohibited from doing it as it might have made the beer seem healthy.

That sounds like a made-up Internet fact or urban legend.

It used to be true. It changed about a decade ago.

Re: Ultra-processed foods in the global food system: The role of tobacco companies

#268
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problems with chewing tobacco are well-known. BTW, colon cancer is rising among men in their 40s, and there is no known reason why.

Those problems are because of the tobacco. Zyn packets et al are just nicotine, and nicotine itself has not been shown to be a carcinogen.

Nicotine itself may not be a carcinogen, but its metabolites are. Nicotine itself has been demonstrated to be a tumor promoter by way of increasing tumor cell division in lung cancer and inhibiting apoptosis.

Quoting chemical highlight 25-1 from "Organic Chemistry" 6th edition by Vollhardt & Schore:

Nicotine appears to play a dual contributory role, because its metabolites are outright carcinogens and because the parent system itself, while not causing cancer, is a tumor promoter.

The metabolic pathway has as the initial step the N-nitrosation of the azacyclopentane (pyrrolidine) nitrogen. Oxidation and ring opening (compare Chemical Highlight 21-3) then take place, giving a mixture of two N-nitrosodialkanamines (N-nitrosamines), each of which is a known powerful carcinogen.

Upon protonation of the oxygen in the nitroso group, these substances become reactive alkylating agents, capable of transferring methyl groups to nucleophilic sites in biological molecules such as DNA, as shown below. The diazohydroxide that remains decomposes through a diazonium ion to a carbocation, which may inflict additional molecular damage (Section 21-10).

You can read more at https://archive.org/stream/VollhardtOrganicChemistryStructur...

Re: Ultra-processed foods in the global food system: The role of tobacco companies

#269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy it. If there are time-available constraints, do grocery delivery instead of takeaway, or buy good stuff instead of bottom-feeder stuff at the store. There are so many low/no-prep food options. I think the "Most people are too poor to eat things other than fast foot and flavor-blast Syrup chips" is a lie.

I'm glad we are finally getting some good, solid guidance around UPFs. Hey everyone, just buy "good stuff"! while it is quite funny how you turned around my "just spend way more money" advice as an actual suggestion, it really isn't particularly helpful because UPFs are a much, much broader category than "flavor-blasted" type products. A huge number of low/no-prep options are UPF, you just don't think so because they…

You can buy rice, beans and soy granulate in bulk and cook a chili in an hour that feeds a family for two days for the price of like a happy meal at McDonalds.

Re: Ultra-processed foods in the global food system: The role of tobacco companies

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really that baffling? People expect their bread to last more than two days, and it has to stay on the supermarket shelves longer than that. Of course you can cook your own bread and eat it quickly, but it's not very practical for a lot of people.

Bakeries are solved tech and work pretty well. The lazy even have a legion of delivery drivers to deliver it fresh now, too!

Is it really lazy to not be able to go the the store every couple of days? Seems like a lot of work and fuel consumption to avoid some preservatives, especially considering that there's no evidence of them being harmful.
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