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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

#81

Post by jxdjsks »

jensen123 wrote: post #72

The other day I went to buy some canned refried beans. When I read the label, I noticed that it contained refined sugar. WTF?!? There should be no need for sugar in refried beans! After recovering from the shock, I went to another grocery store, where I found refried beans without sugar. Why does this happen? Obviously, sugar tastes good. That has to be why companies add it to all sorts of things. However, if most pe…

But a corporation can be smarter than any individual can possibly be.

They have far more information and far more time than any individual to put into manipulating the transaction.

Of course consumers are going to be stupid, it's not their fault they don't have a team of people running around with them performing in depth analysis of every purchase decision they make.

This isn't about evil corporations (although I suspect the world is actually evil (circumcision)), this is about an imbalance of power.

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

#82

Post by rhinoceraptor »

mhurron wrote: post #10

Diabetes is not always a byproduct of over consuming sugar and a company producing sugary snacks and diabetes pills does not force or even encourage over consumption of sugar. I don't see what the actual problem is.

The foods that Nestle sells are unprecedented in history, they are engineered to be much more palatable than normal whole foods. It's not surprising that people have a hard time eating them moderately.

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

#83

Post by maus42 »

jzwinck wrote: post #53
jld89 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"does not force or even encourage over consumption of sugar." Actually they do encourage you to eat a lot of sugar. Specially children. Their marketing campaigns are specially tailored to that objective. Just look at the cereal advertisements, most of their cereal brands have a lot of sugar in them. If that is not encouraging over consumption of sugar I don't know what is...

Their marketing is designed to sell cereal. People unfortunately are happiest (short term) to consume sugary cereal. They really are. I met a breakfast food operative in the supermarket once. I told him I thought his company should offer a low sugar version. He said everyone tells them to do so, but once it's on the shelves it does not sell. People want less sugar in the abstract. But they love sugar in their shoppin…

...extra tax for high-sugar products?

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

#84

Post by branchless »

adrianN wrote: post #79
aedron wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marketing potentially harmful products to children should simply not be allowed. It is well-accepted that children lack the experience and power of judgement to properly evaluate marketing claims. A product sold as breakfast, that consists of 25% sugar, absolutely qualifies as harmful.

I dislike the idea of solving this via more regulation. Children don't decide what they eat, their parents do. So either the parents don't care about the health of their children (hard to believe), or they're not properly educated about healthy nutrition.

Or they are exhausted from working all hours because the banks create credit from thin air to maximize rent extraction and lack the willpower to argue with their children every shopping trip.

I have kids, it's a constant battle even though we have no TV and I'm fortunate enough to have enough time to educate them. I'm constantly fighting with a whole room of people who are disgusting scumbags with access to millions of advertising spend.

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

#85

Post by nkrisc »

adrianN wrote: post #79
aedron wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marketing potentially harmful products to children should simply not be allowed. It is well-accepted that children lack the experience and power of judgement to properly evaluate marketing claims. A product sold as breakfast, that consists of 25% sugar, absolutely qualifies as harmful.

I dislike the idea of solving this via more regulation. Children don't decide what they eat, their parents do. So either the parents don't care about the health of their children (hard to believe), or they're not properly educated about healthy nutrition.

Most likely the latter, as well as advertising to children to use them as emotional leverage against the parents.

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

#86

Post by nommm-nommm »

adrianN wrote: post #33
hammock wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Air pollution (outdoor as well as indoor - the offgassing from the myriad synthetic materials found in construction and furnishings these days) is only one trigger of asthma and not the only one exacerbated by modern society. Many experts have theorized changes in our microbiota are partly responsible for the general rise in asthma over the past decades. That would include things like over-sanitation, increased C sec…

Asthma used to be a lot worse until we figured out how to avoid open fire in living spaces. So arguably, air pollution is currently much less of a problem compared to almost any time since we learned to make fire.

The incidence of asthma has increased dramatically in the last several decades, especially in cities.

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

#87

Post by emodendroket »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #58
jld89 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"does not force or even encourage over consumption of sugar." Actually they do encourage you to eat a lot of sugar. Specially children. Their marketing campaigns are specially tailored to that objective. Just look at the cereal advertisements, most of their cereal brands have a lot of sugar in them. If that is not encouraging over consumption of sugar I don't know what is...

"Look, we're not encouraging over-consumption of sugar. It's just that we know that people will over-consume sugar, and we make food packed with sugar, and we market it to those people."

I'm sure they'd say something like that, but it is false. People were not eating gobs of sugar for breakfast until someone came up with sweetened breakfast cereal and marketed it.

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

#88

Post by chillingeffect »

gruez wrote: post #62
dasboth wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: do you see nothing wrong with someone monetising other people's lack of self control?

Devil's advocate: why shoud they not do it? Unless every other food producer does the same, sugary foods will still be available but Nestle would lose out on the profits.

If every food producer were to follow that dictum, no one would have to take responsibility. So everyone would be incentivized to break the rules.

And if anyone wanted to begin new a behavior harmful to others, they would only have to ensure others also do it.

Decisions have to made on values, not whether someone else is already doing it. If someone's getting away with a crime, it doesn't mean you get to do it, too. It still means neither of you should be doing it.

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

#89

Post by jensen123 »

Nagyman wrote: post #78
jensen123 wrote: post #72

The other day I went to buy some canned refried beans. When I read the label, I noticed that it contained refined sugar. WTF?!? There should be no need for sugar in refried beans! After recovering from the shock, I went to another grocery store, where I found refried beans without sugar. Why does this happen? Obviously, sugar tastes good. That has to be why companies add it to all sorts of things. However, if most pe…

A bit harsh to make a blanket statement about intelligence; people just need information which isn't being readily provided or is being drowned out with too much information. The collective actions seem counterintuitive to people paying attention, but paying attention requires time - which doesn't come easily if a swath of the population is busy with two part-time jobs and recovering with reality TV in the meantime.

If you read a few books on nutrition, you will learn that refined sugar is unhealthy. This is not hard for anybody with half a brain to figure out.

As for working two part-time jobs etc., many of the people doing this buy status symbols like SUVs, iPhones, big houses etc. If they didn't buy so much unnecessary stuff, they wouldn't need to work so much.

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

#90

Post by nommm-nommm »

sxg wrote: post #34
blowski wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? If I value eating whatever I like above having a small waist, why would it be bad for me to be a blob of fat? The only reason I should lose weight is for health reasons, but if there's a magic pill that would remove that reason, then why should I care? I kind of agree with you, but I don't think it's immediately obvious.

There is no "magic pill" for some of the issues associated with massive obesity. One issue you can get is obstructive sleep apnea where you're so fat your tongue blocks your throat at night, and you can't breathe. This eventually leads to pulmonary hypertension and heart failure. You can "fix" this with a CPAP machine, but it's not pleasant. Another issue is that you can be so fat that your chest muscles aren't stron…

Joint pain and reduced mobility are also issues with obesity.
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