The Decline of ‘Big Soda’ • Hacker News Board

Re: The Decline of ‘Big Soda’

#71

Post by tdkl » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 6:45 PM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #11

lemevi wrote: post #5

Just take some time next time you're in a supermarket and walk down the cereal aisle, it's just incredible. It's all sugar and carbohydrates in colorful cartoony boxes meant to appeal to children. Just a cup of cereal has many calories and people and children eat huge bowls of this stuff. So I think an anti-cereal campaign might also help. I often wonder what would happen to national obesity rates if cereal aisles in…

Or if they just stopped advertising it. In the UK the government tried to ban food advertising to children but there was massive lobbying from Kellogg's and they dropped it.

Regarding Kellogg's , they also started the whole "Breakfast is healthy and most important meal in the morning" BS. Since I've started intermittent fasting 16/8 (from 20.00 to 12.00) I've been loosing fat easily.

Re: The Decline of ‘Big Soda’

#72

Post by dang » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 6:46 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #2

Submission from 18 minutes earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10324311 Submission from 19 hours earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10321396

A small number of reposts is ok if a story hasn't had significant attention yet [1]. After that, we bury reposts as dupes.

This is the main device for migitating the randomness that otherwise dominates which stories make it off /newest [2]. Basically, it's ok to roll the dice a few times.

If we see a good-by-HN's-standard story that fell through the cracks, we've been emailing the submitters and inviting them to repost it. We invited coloneltcb to repost this one. This is the latest in a series of experiments that I've written about at [3] and [4] if anyone's interested.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9828818

3. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8790134

4. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9866140

Re: The Decline of ‘Big Soda’

#73

Post by maxerickson » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 6:46 PM UTC

pkaye wrote: post #68

klenwell wrote: post #25

When Mr. Nutter was fighting the soda tax battle, he kept a bottle of Mountain Dew and a container with 17 teaspoons of sugar — the amount in the bottle — on the table in the center of his office. It was a good “conversation piece,” he said, about the surprising number of calories in a typical soda. I think this is key. Better information and transparency is having an effect. I'm glad to hear we're approaching a poin…

I never understood how soda doesn't feel like it has 17 teaspoons of sugar in it because I've made lemonade with 2-3 teaspoons of sugar and it feels just as sweet.

That's probably a 20 floz container, which gets you halfway or so.

Re: The Decline of ‘Big Soda’

#74

Post by lfjmfkekdk » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 6:46 PM UTC

littletimmy wrote: post #33

lfjmfkekdk wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That will certainly not pass the first amendment test.

The first amendment shouldn't really apply to corporations. We already limit the advertising of tobacco, for example. Sugar is as harmful.

That's not true. There is a scientific consensus on cigarettes and lung cancer. There is certainly no scientific consensus on sugar and diabetes/cancer.

If the first amendment should apply to corporations, should the New York Times be restricted on what articles it can print? What about the movie documentaries you see on Netflix?

Re: The Decline of ‘Big Soda’

#75

Post by free2rhyme214 » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 6:49 PM UTC

lemevi wrote: post #5

Just take some time next time you're in a supermarket and walk down the cereal aisle, it's just incredible. It's all sugar and carbohydrates in colorful cartoony boxes meant to appeal to children. Just a cup of cereal has many calories and people and children eat huge bowls of this stuff. So I think an anti-cereal campaign might also help. I often wonder what would happen to national obesity rates if cereal aisles in…

If man made it, don't eat it.

Re: The Decline of ‘Big Soda’

#76

Post by wpietri » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 6:53 PM UTC

caseysoftware wrote: post #57

klenwell wrote: post #25

When Mr. Nutter was fighting the soda tax battle, he kept a bottle of Mountain Dew and a container with 17 teaspoons of sugar — the amount in the bottle — on the table in the center of his office. It was a good “conversation piece,” he said, about the surprising number of calories in a typical soda. I think this is key. Better information and transparency is having an effect. I'm glad to hear we're approaching a poin…

That's why we haven't had anyone start smoking in decades.. Soda sales are down but obesity is still up, so the calories are coming from somewhere. If you believe the other common stories, we're drinking the calories. I'd wager they come from the rise of coffee-based beverages - which would not be considered soda - but I don't have data to back that up.

And I expect juice drinks are part of it as well. Same high levels of sugar and low levels of fiber. The calories aren't as empty, but they're still much easier to consume than whole fruit.

Re: The Decline of ‘Big Soda’

#77

Post by wpietri » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 7:02 PM UTC

neverartful wrote: post #53

Like many of the posters here, I realize that much of the food and drink sold is unhealthy. On the other hand, I don't think that nanny state regulations are the answer. Plenty of unhealthy things abound (when overused): chips, candy, pizza, fast food, cookies, ice cream, video games, television, etc. Maybe some of the same marketing tactics used to sell the unhealthy things can also be used to counter them with heal…

That's a pleasant thought, but it seems unlikely. Food advertising gets circa 1000x as much money as healthy eating [1].

I think the simple step here would just be to ban advertising of unhealthy food the same way we've banned advertising of tobacco products. Citizens would still be free to produce and consume junk food, but corporations would no longer be allowed to indulge in industrial-scale manipulation of consumers' habits.

That won't happen either, of course, because there's an enormous amount of lobbying money from those industries (and from the advertising/PR/marketing industries). But I can dream.

[1] http://consumersunion.org/news/food-industry-advertising-ove...

Re: The Decline of ‘Big Soda’

#78

Post by keithpeter » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 7:05 PM UTC

tdkl wrote: post #71

tim333 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or if they just stopped advertising it. In the UK the government tried to ban food advertising to children but there was massive lobbying from Kellogg's and they dropped it.

Regarding Kellogg's , they also started the whole "Breakfast is healthy and most important meal in the morning" BS. Since I've started intermittent fasting 16/8 (from 20.00 to 12.00) I've been loosing fat easily.

I'm interested in the 20h to 12noon fast. Is that literally nill by mouth for that period or do you have a drink of water or unsweetened tea when getting up?

I'd go for porridge at lunch on a regime like that. A younger colleague at work referred to porridge as 'warm icecream' the other day so there is hope I think.

Re: The Decline of ‘Big Soda’

#79

Post by mjrpes » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 7:05 PM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #4

I would like to see a decline of "Big water". It astonishes me that bottled water is consistently sold for more than sugar water and not one bottler breaks from the pack and sells it for less. That can only happen with industry wide collusion to fix prices and yet no one in the government does anything about it.

The article states that the industry is fearful of water as as substitute because brand preference is not as strong and there are plenty of cheap competitors.

Re: The Decline of ‘Big Soda’

#80

Post by wpietri » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 7:06 PM UTC

PKop wrote: post #18

littletimmy wrote: post #10

What we really need is a limit on advertising. Corporations manufacturing packaged sugar like coke, cereal etc. should not be able to manipulate young children to get them addicted to their crap. Sell this stuff in plain white boxes, ban advertising to young children, and in general, limit the free speech of soulless legal fictions when they target children.

Young children don't do the grocery shopping. Parents need to take responsibility and not buy unhealthy food for their kids. I'd say children up to a certain age are drinking this stuff simply because their parents bought it for them (How else?). Plus, "when they target children" would simply become harder to define as companies would modify their ads, but the problem would remain if parents aren't taking an active r…

This isn't a binary choice. Parents and advertisers can both take responsibility for what they are doing. Power and responsibility go together. And there's no denying food advertising is powerful; if it weren't, we wouldn't be enduring many billions of dollars worth every year.