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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

#41
post #14

> Nestlé Wants to Sell You Both Sugary Snacks and Diabetes Pills ...and they want to "own" the water. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_pb6r8VNWk

Can we stop this "Nestlé thinks water isn't a human right" BS already?

http://www.nestle.com/ask-nestle/human-rights/answers/nestle...

I'm far from being a fan of Nestlé, but there are better arguments against their conduct than a single quote from the CEO years ago, misquoted and out of context.

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

#42
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, let a company supply a substance to intentionally harm people so they can sell them a cure? I can see that going down well in other industries. The automobile industry can engineer metal fatigue into their axle joints and sell you replacements. Microsoft can build bugs into Windows and sell you critical updates to fix the flaw. Chair makers can sell you chairs with legs attached by screws that are slightly too…

They already do this is a more ethical way. Planned obsolesce and all of that. They know it's going to fail in 10 years when they sell it to you with a 5 year lease. Windows has bugs and they will fix some of them in the next release for sure, every time. You can sue for certain things and also bring the government down on them so I guess that's most likely what keeps them from doing more outrageously nefarious thing…

Yeah, I did factor that into consideration. However, planned obsolescence is fairly unethical also and many European nations are legislating to force companies into stating how long they believe their products should last for. And in Australia our consumer law deliberately uses the word "reasonable" to prevent companies from setting arbitrary time limits on product warranty specifically to limit unreasonable attempts at planned obsolescence.

In terms of Windows having bugs - unless you are a dyed in the wool conspiracy theorist who hates everything Microsoft stands for then it's fairly self evident that Microsoft doesn't intentionally introduce bugs into their products.

But a Tobacco company exists solely to hook their customers on their products. There sure is planned obsolescence, but the ones who they plan on becoming obsolete and thus discarded are their customers!

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

#43
post #2

It's the Wall-e Scenario. If we can find a way to continue to consume cheap, shelf-stable, nutrient-dense food; while at the same time repairing our bodies from the side effects, we can be fat blobs living and consuming and growing the economy. And whether that's unilaterally a bad thing may not be a settled question. The top 5 drugs in the US[1] are remedies for problems caused by advanced society - a statin, antaci…

We will probably become fatter and at the same time remain very unhappy about it. People don't get sexually attracted by fat people.

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

#44
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, let a company supply a substance to intentionally harm people so they can sell them a cure? I can see that going down well in other industries. The automobile industry can engineer metal fatigue into their axle joints and sell you replacements. Microsoft can build bugs into Windows and sell you critical updates to fix the flaw. Chair makers can sell you chairs with legs attached by screws that are slightly too…

"let a company supply a substance to intentionally harm people" Isn't that just a loonie interpretation? Making Butterfingers available for sale don't "intentionally harm" anyone. Surely you're not working on an "attractive nuisance" sort of legal theory here.

List me all the positive health qualities of cigarettes and I'll see if I can give you a fuller answer.

P.S. If you are smoking Butterfingers you are doing it wrong.

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

#45
post #32
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The leading cause of diabetes is poor diet. Nestle is selling you foods that if consumed in large quantities will absolutely result in you becoming a diabetic. It's called vertical integration and it's not accidental.

> if consumed in large quantities And when consumed in moderation, has no adverse affect. Poor diet is you, not a company. Nestle is simply going where the money is. If you need diabetes pills because of your poor decisions though, that is your fault.

You're right that responsibility ultimately lies in the individual, but people aren't silos. If advertising didn't work, people wouldn't do it. Some responsibility must be given to those who try to convince others to do unhealthy things.

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

#46
Nestle is trying to avoid the trap Coke and McDonalds fell into: Only offering unhealthy food choices and loosing the young generation of health-conscious consumers. They can't go the Wholefoods way since organic is inherently more expensive and harder to scale. Nestle is a food-tech company that wants to feed the globe. Now they try to do it in a more healthy way. I don't know why Bloomberg is so negative about that.

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

#47
post #14

> Nestlé Wants to Sell You Both Sugary Snacks and Diabetes Pills ...and they want to "own" the water. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_pb6r8VNWk

Can we stop this "Nestlé thinks water isn't a human right" BS already? http://www.nestle.com/ask-nestle/human-rights/answers/nestle... I'm far from being a fan of Nestlé, but there are better arguments against their conduct than a single quote from the CEO years ago, misquoted and out of context.

They do think it is their right to buy publicly owned municipality water and then sell it back to the public.

I mean with soda at least they are putting a few cents per gallon into it.

There should be a truth-in-advertising law they makes the bottle labels say "filtered publicly owned water $1".

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

#48
post #14

> Nestlé Wants to Sell You Both Sugary Snacks and Diabetes Pills ...and they want to "own" the water. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_pb6r8VNWk

That was my first thought when I saw the headline. Water is a human need. All that out, however, I do actually agree with some of what is being done. I'd seriously prefer to eat a gummy candy than swallow a pill - no matter how small a pill is, I can only swallow one at a time. Patients with dementia get crushed medicines mixed with jelly or another substance here - and a pre-mixed solution of some sort would be easi…

> Children wouldn't mind taking medicines so much.

This assumes children can only tolerate maximally-sweet foods like fruit juices, soda, cookies and candy. This fundamental assumption that kids won't eat healthy foods is very dangerous.

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

#49
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not both? It's an arms race. Why not supply both sides?

What, let a company supply a substance to intentionally harm people so they can sell them a cure? I can see that going down well in other industries. The automobile industry can engineer metal fatigue into their axle joints and sell you replacements. Microsoft can build bugs into Windows and sell you critical updates to fix the flaw. Chair makers can sell you chairs with legs attached by screws that are slightly too…

"What, let a company supply a substance to intentionally harm people so they can sell them a cure?"

Let's not forget our history here, since it wasn't exactly all that long ago. For decades, the consensus has been that the root cause of dietary issues is excessive fat in the diet, not sugar. Sugar was on the top of the food pyramid not because it was "bad" for you, but merely because it displaced other better things. I've been flame-roasted on HN in the last few years for being on the anti-sugar side, because consensus science and official government positions were strongly against the idea. It still isn't even the consensus today that sugar is the problem.

(My read on the current situation is that the evidence strongly indicates that sugar is a major problem, though probably not the only one, and that the government is moving as quickly as it can to adjust its recommendations while never having to admit they were in any way wrong, which is a process that takes many, many years of little slight tweaks so that at every point they have cover to claim this is what they were saying all along. Such moral cowardice where they'd rather let millions of people continue hurting and dying rather than take even a hint of responsibility is why I don't take my scientific cues from the government and recommend against anyone else doing it either.)

Trying to show that Nestle is "deliberately harming" people would require basically claiming that they should have known all nutrition science and government position was wrong and to some extent is wrong, since treating "Sugar is bad" as consensus is still premature!

(The mercy is that nobody has ever said it's good for you, unlike transfats, so nobody really looks at you too weirdly if you drop it out of your diet.)

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

#50
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the worst offense. The iPodization of water is real. I try to avoid buying water whenever I can. If people like us who have a voice will just quietly switch to bottled water or very expensive home filtration, then we will have failed our civic duty.

Almost everywhere I travel outside of NYC the question pops up: is tap water safe to drink? New York is notoriously proud of and vocal about this local amenity. Achieving a universal standard in this area would go a long way towards putting a significant dent in the bottled water scam.

> is tap water safe to drink?

As someone who lives across the pond, it never ceases to amaze me that this question needs to be asked at all. Is tap water safe to drink? I wouldn't take "no" as an answer unless I'm in some remote third-world country that has known issues with the availability of drinking water. And yet...

Not saying tap water here tastes great everywhere (far from that), but you can be pretty sure it won't cause you any physical harm.

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