Mexican states are moving to ban the sale of junk food to children • Hacker News Board

Re: Mexican states are moving to ban the sale of junk food to children

#71

Post by smt88 » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 5:23 PM UTC

spacephysics wrote: post #29

kaiju0 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree, I've never seen rage like taking someones preferred foods away.

As much as I am a libertarian on allowing people to choose what to eat, the outrage reminds me of an addict being told they need to cut down/remove their addictive substance.

Taking away someone's preferred food can mean taking away part of their culture, a connection to memories of their childhood, the only part of their day they look forward to, etc.

People can love and care about unhealthy things without being addicted to them. Most white people would hate to give up cancer-causing time out in the sun, but that doesn't mean it's an addiction.

Re: Mexican states are moving to ban the sale of junk food to children

#72

Post by seiferteric » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 5:24 PM UTC

pengaru wrote: post #53

Dumb, just tax fructose in proportion to how much is added. Ths US should do the same thing.

If we just didn't subsidize its production, that would be a start.

Re: Mexican states are moving to ban the sale of junk food to children

#73

Post by jeffreyrogers » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 5:25 PM UTC

Press2forEN wrote: post #48

blackguardx wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are tacos unhealthy? It is mainly just meat in a corn tortilla.

Meat has been a global climate catastrophe wrapped in a corn tortilla. The production of meat is literally killing us, and I'm sorry but its worth taking away traditional cuisines so that humanity doesn't go extinct.

This is absurd. Humanity isn't going to go extinct from climate change, and the causes of climate change are fossil fuels and how they allow us to support a large population. If everyone stopped eating meat you'd still have tons of unhealthy people and you'd still have climate change.

Re: Mexican states are moving to ban the sale of junk food to children

#74

Post by FreeFull » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #60

Press2forEN wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meat has been a global climate catastrophe wrapped in a corn tortilla. The production of meat is literally killing us, and I'm sorry but its worth taking away traditional cuisines so that humanity doesn't go extinct.

No, sorry. Cows and other ruminants have been part of the ecosystem for tens of millions of years. They're extremely good for the soil and for the environment and it turns out humans are highly evolved to eat meat. We invented fire and hunting tools for it hundreds of thousands of years ago. It's one of the most nutrient dense and healthy foods you can consume as long as you don't add a bunch of crap to it. Humanity…

The difference is, now, thanks to humans, there are 1.4 billion cows. And a lot of the cows are fed things like corn, which makes them produce a lot more methane than a more natural diet would. A million years ago, you wouldn't have anywhere near this many ruminants.

Re: Mexican states are moving to ban the sale of junk food to children

#75

Post by lhorie » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

meddlepal wrote: post #41

lhorie wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some quick googling says 35k murders in 2019 for a population of about 9M. So, in mexico city, over 99.5% of the population follows the law that says you can't murder people. Not sure what your point is.

35k murders is a lot of fucking murders.

Yes, but to put it in context, heart disease and diabetes cause a lot more deaths [1] and obesity has been shown to increase the risk of those conditions.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/960030/mexico-causes-dea....

Re: Mexican states are moving to ban the sale of junk food to children

#76

Post by jeffreyrogers » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 5:27 PM UTC

birdyrooster wrote: post #19

maximente wrote: post #9

more info on Chile, mentioned in article: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/health/chile-soda-warning... it's probably safe to say that this is a global public health imperative, given the suffering/costs/economic loss around the world that these beverages and food-like products cause. would also like to see some money from things like corn driven to healthy food subsidies e.g. spinach (or pick your favorite) to off…

Diet Coke is like liquid Gold. I’m all in.

Corporate America seems to run on Diet Coke.

Re: Mexican states are moving to ban the sale of junk food to children

#77

Post by liability » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

thewickedaxe wrote: post #10

This law is way way way overdue. American Corporations are killing Mexico's youth with junk food. I know kids who exclusively drink soda. Healthy, beautiful kids who deserve to go out and play and live their best lives.

I know it's in vogue to blame everything on America, but Mexico has a thriving domestic junk food industry too. And frankly, many of their snacks are much better than anything America makes (Takis in particular, I think I'm addicted to them...)

Anyway I support this law. Banning junk food/drinks for kids is long overdue. It's little different from banning the sale of cigarettes to kids.

Re: Mexican states are moving to ban the sale of junk food to children

#78

Post by km3r » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #60

Press2forEN wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meat has been a global climate catastrophe wrapped in a corn tortilla. The production of meat is literally killing us, and I'm sorry but its worth taking away traditional cuisines so that humanity doesn't go extinct.

No, sorry. Cows and other ruminants have been part of the ecosystem for tens of millions of years. They're extremely good for the soil and for the environment and it turns out humans are highly evolved to eat meat. We invented fire and hunting tools for it hundreds of thousands of years ago. It's one of the most nutrient dense and healthy foods you can consume as long as you don't add a bunch of crap to it. Humanity…

I think the solution is somewhere in between. There is a lot more cows today than there was 200 years ago. The negatives get compounded with CO2 and methane being released, plus the water and energy used to make beef over other meats or sources of protein is much higher. Though yes we did evolve to eat some meat. But the average American eats a lot of red meat and the average American has a less than healthy cholesterol level. So let's just eat less red meat. If we all cut down our red meat consumption by 50%, the environment would be much better off, we would be healthier, and we would still be able to get the nutrients we need from meat.

Re: Mexican states are moving to ban the sale of junk food to children

#79

Post by lhorie » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 5:30 PM UTC

inasio wrote: post #44

lhorie wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some quick googling says 35k murders in 2019 for a population of about 9M. So, in mexico city, over 99.5% of the population follows the law that says you can't murder people. Not sure what your point is.

That's for the whole of Mexico, so more than an order of magnitude off (120 million). Still an insane number of murders, what a tragedy.

Ah good catch. Thanks. So we're looking at >99.9% of the population not committing murders.

Re: Mexican states are moving to ban the sale of junk food to children

#80

Post by mschuster91 » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

Dirlewanger wrote: post #36

thisisnico wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We tax alcohol and cigarettes because they are bad for you, but are totally fine with binge eating as much junk food as you like. Obesity is a massive epidemic. Heart attack and stroke are the number one killers, with obesity the highest cause. I'm all for putting warning labels on food showing the potential problems of overconsumption.

Warning labels aren't going to do anything aside from trigger busybody soccer moms when they go to buy their kid's cereal because they won't stop screaming for it. Taxing it is better, but still ultimately is not going to solve the root problem, which I think is the government's over-subsidization of corn and the overabundance of HFCS. Ban HFCS/similar garbage sweeteners in all food products, and incentivize farmers…

> And then from there, I think we can start to address other ailments like school lunches and the like.

No need to wait for anyone for fixing school lunches as this is squarely a financial issue, the key thing there is that cities need some form of politically untouchable budget for education - because as soon as it gets politically touchable, it's the first thing to be axed when a budget crisis looms.