Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How the food lobby fights sugar regulation in the EU [pdf]

corporateeurope.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 176 posts

Re: How the food lobby fights sugar regulation in the EU [pdf]

#31

Post by mathgeek »

rayiner wrote: post #19
zajd wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The funny part is the best dietary advice is just "eat a good variety of things and don't eat too much". Going in to Whole Foods makes me want to blow my brains out.

Why? Whole Foods is great. For example, if you're too busy to pack your lunch, there is a great cafeteria where you can get simple food with lots of veggie options at whatever portions you want. The quality of the meat, bread, and produce is a cut above (though I hear it's just par for course in terms of what you can get in "normal" EuropeN grocery stores).

I think the complaint is that Whole Foods is selling you the idea that the small subset of "healthy" brands they are promoting is what you should be exclusively eating. They're a great store as far as options, but the Kool-aid they're pouring can be a little annoying at times.

Re: How the food lobby fights sugar regulation in the EU [pdf]

#32

Post by yodsanklai »

monkeybuz wrote: post #24
legulere wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That requires humans to be perfectly rational like a homo economicus [1], but in reality people aren't. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_economicus

No it don't. You're free to choose unhealthy products, but aren't forced to choose them. Just live healthy and promote your lifestyle to other persons, that is the best thing you can do for yourself and for any other person without harm.

> You're free to choose unhealthy products, but aren't forced to choose them

It's not that simple. For instance, kids aren't free to choose what they eat or drink and they can't make rationale decisions. Many adults lack the proper information and so on...

Re: How the food lobby fights sugar regulation in the EU [pdf]

#33

Post by Aelinsaar »

tdkl wrote: post #27
mark_l_watson wrote: post #21

This also shows the true evil of the TTP and TTIP trade deals: corporations can sue any government if their laws affect the corporation's profits. Pure evil. The article has the example of Mexico being sued for their protective laws.

It's not just evil, I presume in the future there will be civil wars because of that - people who'll have enough vs. corporations.

And we'll only have seen it coming in our discussions and fiction for what... almost a century? Total shock!

Re: How the food lobby fights sugar regulation in the EU [pdf]

#35

Post by superswordfish »

coldcode wrote: post #13

I despise the corn lobby more. They ensure the high tariffs on imported sugar in order to protect the corn prices to produce corn syrup instead of using raw sugar. Only the US has soft drinks made with HFCS simply because of the tariff on imported sugar.

Just as bad is how it's made trash-grade corn the preferred livestock feed.

Re: How the food lobby fights sugar regulation in the EU [pdf]

#37

Post by MustardTiger »

coldcode wrote: post #13

I despise the corn lobby more. They ensure the high tariffs on imported sugar in order to protect the corn prices to produce corn syrup instead of using raw sugar. Only the US has soft drinks made with HFCS simply because of the tariff on imported sugar.

Canada has HFCS pop too.

Re: How the food lobby fights sugar regulation in the EU [pdf]

#38

Post by tomp »

twoodfin wrote: post #30
tomp wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very libertarian, but I view "liberty" primarily as an individual thing; I don't subscribe to the notion that corporations are people or have human rights. I think it's most certainly in the interest of us all that the governments enforce certain rules and protect us in some ways, as long as there are ways to avoid the rules . For example, killing is forbidden, except euthanasia (in certain countries). Hedge fund…

If I were trying to run a small bakery or confectionary under all the terms (and more, presumably) of your last paragraph, I'd have a hard time believing you took my individual liberty (or that of my customers) very seriously.

Again, something that is solvable with smart regulation. E.g. some rules apply only for businesses with more than $100k turnover, or $1M or whatever. Alternatively, your customers need to sign a statement that they will pay out of pocket for any medical costs resulting from eating your sugar (similar to "sophisticated investors" and hedge funds).

But then again, as I said above, I see business as a privilege, not a right. After all, you could also say that your individual liberty is being infringed by taxes - but you can always move to a deserted island, stop using the services provided by the governments, and pay no tax!

Re: How the food lobby fights sugar regulation in the EU [pdf]

#39

Post by throwaway5834 »

Throwaway because I don't like posting about medical conditions.

So, I'm a diabetic. It means I have to check everything and you know, 5-15g of extra sugar isn't something I can't just take into account I have to at least know.

As such I'm always surprised at all the things that 'happen to' have 50% by weight in sugar (HFCS etc). I know that stuff like stevia exist @ 0 calories, and may taste a little bit worse but in my case it's something delicious with stevia or maybe no dessert - then it's fine if it's not perfect, you know?

So what I don't get is since taste-wise cutting to 0 sugars and all stevia retains like 70%-80% of taste (with the exception of when the sugar is an important structural ingredient as with a meringue), why basically every product doesn't come in stevia and normal versions?

Like, honey nut cheerios? Fine, stevia or artificial sugar version / normal version. They don't even need price parity or anything like that.

I just don't get it.

Coke and Pepsi do this right. I drink lots and lots of coke!

always diet or zero, or pepsi max.

I don't really get why something like, say, breakfast cereals, don't have "coke zero / diet coke" versions where it's artificial. I know it can be done, since I can do that myself from a box of artificial sweetener. It can't be a lack of demand - since by that metric, diet coke wouldn't exist.

so I just don't get it. Take something like peanut butter, super healthy except for the added sugar which means I can't just eat it with abandon. Why wouldn't Jif peanut butter make a crappy version with artificial sugar. It's sugar-Jif or nothing for me (and many other people.) Same goes for like every second item in a store.

why aren't there stevia Oreos, etc. these things just don't exist. why not? I can't eat oreos but I'd eat the shit out of stevia oreos and so would a ton of people.

a lot of people just wanna eat sweets. they don't care just how good it tastes. You ever seen a fat guy turn down a donut because it didn't look good? Nobody cares about the taste... it's the taste of sweetness that we crave. . . .

there must be a conspiracy of some kind here too. (I say this tongue in cheek, I don't actually see any conspiracy I'd just like to understand it better.)

Re: How the food lobby fights sugar regulation in the EU [pdf]

#40

Post by monkeybuz »

a_thro_away wrote: post #29
monkeybuz wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just don't buy sugar products. Without a government, a corporation can only be strong, when their customers are spending enough money. With a government a corporation can grow out by regulations/subsidies. Regulations are destroying small competitors, not the big corps themselves.

How could we not buy "sugar products" when it is added without knowledge everywhere? Wouldn't your point of view also require removing labels; after all gov. regulation put them there. Sugar corp would sell to ag corp, with no transparency. How would we know how much sugar and compare? I know that humans over the past 50 years have been terrible judges on their own.

Yes, this is a big problem, but if you're waiting for the government to solve this problem, you'll wait a long time.

The humanity have to build new organizations that help the masses in picking up the right choices and we need new corporations that we can trust. Just have a look at the open source movement, where even commercial companies are opening their source code to improve to build up on trust. We need corporations that put labels of ingredients on their products. But if we force companies to do so, we're destroying the start up resources a new company needs to grow.

Post reply on HN