Yes, theoretically, the government could end the sugar subsidy making it cheaper for snack makers to use it rather than high fructose corn syrup. If real sugar were used, caloric intake would likely drop because fructose perpetuates sugar cravings while glucose shuts it off. That would be a start.
I did not refute or even address that concept. I said there was no relationship between the two, one can have a very unsound mind and very sound body and the inverse of that as well, and that doesn’t represent outliers, it is the nornal state to have such a disparity, as there is often disparity within each of those categories, where anyone with the most sound of minds or bodies still maintains weaknesses in each. Epitomes of soundness in either mind or body or both are the outliers.
I translate this as basically saying that food producers are producing what the customers wish to buy. Nobody in the country is being forced to buy certain foods at gunpoint.
In any grocery store there are thousands of products with low or no sugar, low or no salt, or low or not fat. Anyone who chooses to not eat those things can easily do so. As for myself, I go mainly for fresh fruits and vegetables and other healthy fare, with only a little bit of junk food. Anyone who chooses to eat like me, or even to eat better than I do, can easily do so.
As for the claim that food producers are “manipulating our biology”, it could just as easily be applied to anything, if one philosophically believes that all urges are biological. Are TV and computer games manipulating our biological desire for pretty pictures? Does jewelry manipulate our biological urge for shiny objects? Does real estate manipulate our biological urge for a place to live? Does furniture manipulate our biological urge for comfort?
The USA was founded on the belief that ordinary people are good enough to make decisions for themselves. While we certainly have urges based in biology, we make the choice of how to respond to them. If we accept the notion that the government must save us from our own decisions, we throw out the entire philosophical basis for individual freedom.
True, and most North Korean citizens would shoot you on sight as the invading imperalist warmonger they know you to be. Purely their free choice.
It’s a nice argument. Too bad it has nothing to do with the reality created by three or four generations of intense marketing brainwashing. (A huge amount of which plays on 'Murrican self-reliance and independence and free will, in case you hadn’t noticed.)
If marketing and advertising didn’t work, they wouldn’t exist.
And if marketing and advertising worked merely at the conscious level, in the domain of rational thinking and reason, they wouldn’t be nearly as effective as they are.
Are people being forced to buy unhealthy foods at gunpoint? No. But this is a silly distortion of the argument being made. If it was as obvious as a “gunpoint”, then it wouldn’t be a problem at all, because you can see someone with a gun and run away from them. It’s kind of hard (though not impossible) to run away from mass media.
Until recently, school cafeterias were junk food factories. You could send little Jimmy to school with his own homemade lunch and instructions not to eat anything else, but isn’t that kind of, well, crazy? Why shouldn’t we be able to trust the school cafeteria to serve healthy food? It’s supposed to do everything “right” all in other respects, so why shouldn’t it model good nutrition? Yet people still think jiggering with school lunches for the sake of students’ health is government overreach. Interestingly, it’s always government overreach they complain about, but never corporate overreach. I’m willing to bet you’ll find more obese kids in schools where Domino’s and other namebrands are on the menu versus schools that stick with the basics.
That wasn’t what I was saying. And there is a very strong correlation between emotional and mental health and the ability to thrive. Even crusty old body-oriented institutions such as Mayo Clinic have initiated wellness programs to address the whole person.
But it’s off topic for what is being discussed here which is how the mind and emotions are being conditioned by business and what can be done about it, if anything. Unless you disagree that commercial pressure to overbuy and overeat have an influence.
In that sense it does fit in with what I said. Change the way a person thinks and you are going to change his behaviors. There’s one connection.
I’d be willing to discuss this in another thread. But I think you understand the concept.
(Personally I think you were looking for a chance to poke at a vegetarian!) 
It would be an interesting thread. I don’t poke at vegetarians much at all, mostly at veganism, and only at a level of jest, I don’t find anything wrong with being a vegetarian at all, and I have mentioned in threads that every one I’ve ever known is physically very healthy.
Are you saying that without marketing, all those products would’ve failed because they didn’t exist before, and therefore we don’t need them? Or that without marketing, people would’ve realized how silly and/or harmful they are, and would never have bought them to begin with?
(I know you’re saying that without marketing departments, those products wouldn’t have existed to begin with, but I also didn’t know that it was marketing departments that invented new products. Further, you seem to be saying that if they succeeded, it was only because of marketing, so I think the above still has relevance.)
That is a Michael Pollan and rule, from “Food Rules.”
Speaking of vegetarians…
A public school serves only meat-free meals
Read the article and then scroll through the comments (if you dare). Count how many times someone insinuates that Bloomberg or the left is indoctrinating children. Or that these kids are surely going to be eating less healthy foods than the high-fat, high-sodium foods they were eating before. Or that there is something “elitist” about not eating meat (I don’t know about you, but I’d be mighty concerned about the quality of ground beef that I could get for the same cost per pound as black beans). Mind you, this is just a single school, for a single meal of the day. Tons of studies have documented the health benefits of a low-meat diet. Kids will still have the choice to bring their boloney and cheese. Yet, to some people this signals the end of the world.
Where were these people when schools were serving pizza and tator tots, washed down with chocolate milk? That’s what the folks in my generation got served as children. Now look at us. You’d think anything would be an improvement over that delicious garbage. But I guess lots of people don’t think there’s anything wrong such a diet. And why would they? If they served it at school it must have been good!
I will use this experience to address in vain the many people who have offered me nutrition advice in the grocery store, I HATE YOU, I REALLY REALLY HATE YOU.
This is not directed at you Amateur Barbarian, but at people who comment on food choices in a grocery store in a royal you way.
But in person I usually just nod ok and smile in a creepy way until they leave. I know soda isn’t good for you, I know mayo is horrible, etc.
I won’t disagree; my attitude is KEEP YER FRIGGIN’ NOSE OUT OF MY GROCERY CART, YOU FOOD NAZI… but in this case the interaction was very relaxed and non-intrusive. The woman had already caught my eye and said something innocuous, so I just asked… and then asked if she’d read the nutri panel… and if she had and said “Yeah?” I would have nodded, smiled and moved on.
You’ve already answered your own question, I think. A product invented or created by someone who is talented at innovation and that has roots in practicality or purpose is one thing; many new products appear each year from such sources.
However, most consumer products begin in some form of a marketing think-tank with the express focus of “How can we get people to pay us lots and lots of money?” Everything proceeds from there - the market within the company’s reach is analyzed for gaps, and then products are created to fill, or expand, or even create that gap, and then shaped to represent maximum short- and long-term revenue. Things like practicality, usefulness, value, etc. are all minor considerations. What the product is is trivial. Whether it’s something one in a million would think was a good idea, cold, is irrelevant. Can it be made (1) legally (2) cheaply (3) and hammered into consumer buying preferences (4) preferably with a completely lock on the product type through patents, trademark, proprietary technology, whatever? That’s what drives things like Swiffers and plug-in air fresheners and such crap that we never knew our lives were poorer without. Not innovation. Not making a better product or world. Just “how can we twist more dollars out of this passing flock of sheep?” They’re different from carnie barkers only because carnies rarely wear suits.
The other considerations become irrelevant - it is marketing that created the product, so what they tell people about it and what people come to believe about it is secondary to the fact that they’ve been talked into buying it.
That’s because there isn’t anything wrong with it. There’s this myth that the type of calories matter. They don’t*. The pizza, tater tots, and chocolate milk were all calculated to meet certain nutrition parameters. I know because our cooks had the requirements hanging on the wall in the kitchen. Now maybe these parameters need adjustment, but that’s completely different than freaking out over the foods themselves.
And I don’t know anyone who thought school lunches were “delicious.” I know some people who thought it wasn’t bad, and more who thought it wasn’t as bad as people say (I was in the latter group), but no one who thought it was delicious.
This type of stuff is why I am so against any attempts at controlling what people eat. Even people who think they are helping are ill informed. This entire thread is full of people decrying “processed food” rather than calorie dense food, and they aren’t the same thing. As someone else pointed out, all food other than some raw ingredients are processed (unless you buy from some little old lady across the street or something). Processing food is a good thing–it makes food cheaper.
And that’s not even taking into account the legitimate concerns you dismissed as being from cranks, like the idea that food has to be attractive to get kids to eat it. I knew a lot of kids who would go hungry rather than eat what the schools already provided. To think it won’t be an even bigger issue when the schools are being forced to try to make their cheap meals “healthy”, which translates to “things kids don’t normally eat”?
Heck, that’s the reason they serve chocolate milk, as, otherwise, many children would not consume enough calcium. That was the reason it was introduced in the first place. There were studies even showing that kids were healthier since the introduction of said chocolate. Something that would be completely foreign to your worldview.
Or the concern that these kids were being forced to be vegetarian. It’s not like they chose a vegetarian diet. And, yes, it is elitism to enforce your food choices on others. Especially for the myth that vegetarianism is healthier–it’s just that vegetarians are more likely to be concerned with their nutritional health. People put on a vegetarian diet and consume the same calories are not any healthier. They’re actually less healthy unless they carefully plan their meals and/or take supplements, as there are a lot of nutrient that are easier to get from meat.
But, of course, rather than even consider these ideas, you just dismiss these people as cranks who have been duped. The idea that they may have legitimate concerns doesn’t even occur to you. And as long as this is how the proponents of these types of things think, I don’t want them setting policy, even for my kids’ lunches.
And what sucks is that this isn’t even that relevant to the OP. I actually agree there is a problem with food manufacturers promoting excess food consumption. But it’s not about unhealthy food but rather selling more and more of it, combined with the reluctance of any market to change given new information. It’s just that the food manufacturers don’t want to put in the short term outlay to fix these problems as long as they can make a profit the old way.
*Yes, there are certain extreme types of diets that tell you to minimize certain food categories (like carbohydrates, for example), these diets are not based on any idea that the type of calorie matters. They are based on the idea that their diets supposedly make you naturally consume fewer calories.
I understand that you’re using Nutella as an illustrative case, but I have to say that while I can see how a first-time buyer might conceivably think it is a healthier alternative, upon first taste the truth is readily apparent. It’s obviously chocolate candy spread, and anyone with even a tenuous grasp on reality can tell that. I challenge you to find anyone who has tasted Nutella and thinks it’s a “healthy” food.
I’m calling bullshit on that last sentence. You really think the public at large has to be “bitch-slapped” and “bamboozled” into liking Nutella? Have you ever had Nutella? It’s like saying people have to be tricked into buying the most yummy, delicious thing ever. It’s like saying no one would enjoy sex if they weren’t conditioned to.
Again, I know you’re just using Nutella as an example, and that you could use any number of other products to prove your point (Swiffers are a particularly good example: they somehow convinced people that sweeping isn’t good enough, they need to dust their floors). But I side with the people who see these types of arguments and say “Yup, food companies try to make food that tastes really, really good.” I just don’t see the evil in it that some people do.
I don’t need to grow those things- they are readily available at the grocery store. And there is nothing wrong with q slice of bread or two along with your meal of real food.
Meat is not processed unless you buy it that eay. I buy chicken at the meat counter not breaded and seasoned in the frozen food section. If I need to freeze chiicken I buy it and put in the freezer.
As for restaraunts… Anyone who can afird to eat out can aford to be cognizant of what he eats. I go to restaurants that serve healthy, reL food.
It takes very little thought to distinguish between real food and junk. If it matters to you,
It’s all about proportion. Do I eat some processed food? Yes. But it’s a small proportion of my total intake because I choose it to be thus.
“Real sugar” is not pure glucose, it’s comprised of fructose and glucose. Likewise, high fructose corn syrup is not pure fructose, it’s also comprised of fructose and glucose. The difference between the fructose/glucose ratio of “real sugar” (sucrose) and HFCS is negligible - they’re essentially the same thing.
The thing about HFCS is that, since it’s made from corn, it can be made very cheaply and added to otherwise unpalatable foods for taste and some quick, empty, easy calories. Making “real sugar” cheaper is a terrible – if not the worst possible – “solution” to the problem.
If you wanted to attack that particular issue from a subsidy/economic angle, you’d probably be much better off getting rid of the artificially low price of corn, not the high price of sugar.
Does it? Really? And here I thought it was subsidies and tax breaks that made food cheaper. Silly me.
Eating too much fat, sugar etc is bad. Indeed we can simplify: too much of anything is too much.
But the blanket “processed foods are evil” meme is misguided. You have to look at these things case by case and not subscribe to the naturalistic fallacy.
A myth is something that has been disproven by an overwhelming body of evidence. The science is too mixed to say anything is a myth, but most studies support the idea that calorie types do matter.
No one is freaking out over pizza, tater tots, or even chocolate milk in isolation. But if you think a meal comprised of all three of them isn’t overloaded with carbohydrates (at the very least), and you’re citing a greasy poster on a wall in your school’s cafeteria as evidence that it’s healthy, then the good folks in a corporate boardroom somewhere have earned their bonuses.
It doesn’t matter if people think they are delicious, good, okay, meh, or horrible. As long as kids buy this stuff, that’s all that matters. Since when are kids the arbitars of good taste anyway? Personally, I loved my school’s pizza, even though it was orange and octagonal. Because pizza = good in my child brain. Even bad pizza = good when the alternative is absolutely nothing.
It makes it cheap.
It makes it convenient.
It makes it yummy.
It makes it addictive.
All of these things equal profit. Not nutritional value. Not societal benefit. But more money for someone’s pocket. Hell yes, it’s scary. When maximal profit is the endpoint, then it doesn’t matter if what’s being served is literally hot garbage on a platter. Get sued by angry victims? You can easily afford to settle out of court.
And those kids who would literally starve themselves rather than eat a black bean burger and a fruit salad? They are sad creatures with pitiful parents. Fortunately (or unfortunately), these parents can send their kids off to school with their own lunches. A school that has a healthier menu is not robbing anyone of choices.
If you leave it to schools to parent kids, then you make it especially incumbent on them to model proper nutrition.
I’d like to see that study. I’m having a hard time believing that chocolate milk alone is responsible for improved health.
But even if what you say is true, it doesn’t mean that we can’t go to an healthier alternative. And given how crappy chocolate milk is nutritionally (I double dare you to find a cite showing that chocolate milk is a healthy food rather than a “better than nothing” food), that wouldn’t be so hard. Like, how do black beans stack up against chocolate milk? Does chocolate milk provide folate, iron, potassium, thiamine, fiber in addition to calcium? If you can get a kid to get hooked on a black bean burger, wouldn’t that be better than getting them hooked on chocolate milk?
I don’t eat meat for breakfast and lunch usually. But I eat it for dinner. Am I a vegetarian?
Was it elitism when pizza and tater tots were being plunked down on my tray? I didn’t choose those foods. Someone made those choices for me, using standards they thought were “best”. How is this any different?
Cite?
If school lunches were known for their lean cuts of meat and grilled poultry and fish, you might have a point about that the traditional school lunch being just fine. But no. They are known for the absolute opposite. Greasy lumps of mystery meats, fried fish portions, and the ever present chicken nuggets. Perhaps if meat selections were healthier, a meat-free alternative wouldn’t seem so attractive. But it sounds like you wouldn’t even be in favor of healthier meat options. Grilled fish? The kids won’t like that! No chicken nuggets? What about the poor picky eaters that don’t eat anything BUT chicken nuggets? It doesn’t matter to you that kids can still eat these things for lunch if they bring them from home. All that matters is that the school is no longer promoting them. Why is that such a bad thing? Why should a chicken nugget be elevated over a black bean burger? Because McDonald’s has made them sacred objects?
I dismiss them as uneducated, ill-informed brainwashed victims who are likely obese and suffering from a variety of health issues.