Western fast food companies are aggressively expanding in Brazil | Hacker News Reader

Western fast food companies are aggressively expanding in Brazil

nytimes.com

100 pointsacalmon85 comments

> At one meeting, a representative from the food industry accused Anvisa of trying to subvert parental authority, saying mothers had the right to decide what to feed their children, recalled Vanessa Schottz, a nutrition advocate.

The same argument is used in the US to thwart limitations on sugary beverage purchases and other junk food with SNAP -- these compose 10-20% of purchases, 50% of which goes to Wal-Mart, alongside 2-5x greater premature mortality from cardiac arrest and diabetic related complications.

http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2016.3...

Incentivizing the poor to hock Nestle timed according to Brazilian food assistance checks is clever. Reminds me of Herbalife, and Betting on Zero -- Hispanic populations, eager to succeed in entrepreneurship, here too are victims of pyramid schemes preying on ill health.

>>The same argument is used in the US to thwart limitations on sugary beverage purchases and other junk food with SNAP

Those living under the poverty line don't like being hit with condescending statements coming from those who are supposedly trying to help them, either. Conservatives/Republicans at least call the poor lazy. Liberals/Democrats who want to restrict sugar/luxury items from EBT/SNAP often make ridiculous statements about "knowing better for them," which you can imagine plays real well in their population.

I've collected EBT with a family and been under the poverty line. I know very well how people think and feel about those above them. Sometimes the single father or mother of two kids who struggles with daycare and a tough job 10 hours a day with 2 hours of commute time would like to buy their kids some ice cream and "bad" food to escape from the terrible life they have, rather than eat some broccoli or toasted kale. Let's have some sympathy.

Yep. There's a deeply embedded mentality even amongst most social liberals in the US that poverty and moral/personal failure must go together, and thus we need to tell poor people how they're allowed to spend what little we're willing to give them. See also "but what if I give them some money and they use it to buy booze?" Heck, if I was homeless I know I'd want a drink.

But then on the flip side, we'll also spin the blame around on whoever else is available too. So maybe it's just that it's easier to blame than to fix. "Big business" got Brazil hooked on junk food -- not like good ol' America, where we got hooked on junk food back when it was still small business!

Paternalist liberal arguments versus beverage lobbies and PR firms will indeed ring hollow and have failed. Rather than merely advocate for curbs, and lose, I would like to see the Nestle type companies prosecuted for responsibility for the negative health outcomes, and then we adjudicate the relative responsibility of 'free' consumers purchasing products known to be toxic (as will likely be surfaced during discovery of internal lab tests alongside public health studies) compared to the selling corporations. As is, the Nestles, and their ownership entities, corner both cheap unhealthy and more costly healthier foods -- effectively playing the spread of the income and wit of their customers.

Few Republicans have the candor to accuse the poor of sloth outright, instead indirectly consigning them to the oblivion of work requirements and the cheap food products low wages can buy.

I do sympathize with the mothers I see on the L fobbing off screaming children with high fructose corn syrup -- and I seek a betterment of their condition, and my own, not by leaving them solely to their own devices, but by assigning responsibility to the more powerful actors here and seeking state restraint as the remedy with sufficient scale and force to succeed.

Advertising can conceal the entire toolbox of dissimulation, hence the coordinated efforts to undermine regulation limiting the hocking of known toxicities. The market drive to eat will find and create food within the bounds of law, as it does, to such horrifying effect in Brazil as the United States.

> Conservatives/Republicans at least call the poor lazy

Not the ones I read. Could you cite some mainstream examples?

Here's [1] a study from the Pew Research Center stating that 51% of Republicans believe the poor are poor due to "Lack of effort on his or her part" rather than "Circumstances beyond his or her control" (32%).

And here's some prominent Republicans saying similar things over the last couple years.

http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/article/2014/mar/14/cont...

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/jason-chaffetz-new-gop...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/03/31/th...

Typically, the point is framed as a "lack of work and effort" or a "problem with culture" rather than explicitly saying laziness is the cause of poverty. I would say the unifying thread here is that Republicans believe the poor are poor of their own volition and choices, whether that's laziness, poor decisions, or a "poor culture" (what does that even mean?).

So yes. I would say that in general, many Republicans have called the poor lazy, and while it isn't the specific verbiage they like to use in public, it is the opinion of their constituents.

[1] http://www.people-press.org/files/legacy-pdf/1-23-14%20Pover...

Duly upvoted. Thank you.

Isn't SNAP is already restricted from tons of other things?

It is, but..."Soft drinks, candy, cookies, snack crackers, and ice cream are food items and are therefore eligible items"

Most of what's not allowed is non-food items (soap, beer, tobacco) or already prepared/hot items .

https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/eligible-food-items

There is another program that provides food for pregnant women and new mothers called WIC. That program is more restrictive...it has a short list of what you can get versus a longer list of what you can't. https://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/wic-food-packages-regulatory-re...

> Those living under the poverty line don't like being hit with condescending statements coming from those who are supposedly trying to help them, either.

So what? leave corporations feed them with junk food and ruin their health?

When I was a kid, we drank Coke at every meal and I'm literally paying for it as an adult - and it certainly didn't make me an happier kid. I wish our government had done something to avoid the damage (whether through taxation or information).

> Sometimes the single father or mother of two kids who struggles with daycare and a tough job 10 hours a day with 2 hours of commute time would like to buy their kids some ice cream and "bad" food to escape from the terrible life they have, rather than eat some broccoli or toasted kale.

There is a middle ground between ice cream and broccoli. And believe it or not, eating healthy food would make their life much better, regardless their commute time.

> So what? leave corporations feed them with junk food and ruin their health?

One possible option is to offer people information and resources to guide them towards what we might prefer. A lot of farmer's markets and groceries in my area offer a 50% discount on produce for customers paying via EBT or SNAP, for example.

As an American who lived in Brazil for 8 years, honestly I'm not sure this is any worse than traditional food.

A typical Brazilian lunch is a piece of meat with beans, sides of rice, french fries, and fried flour (farofa) -- that's right, 3 carbs of empty calories (2 fried) and no real vegetables -- all washed down with mostly-added-sugar "fruit juice concentrate" (cashew apple is really common). Bar snacks are 100% deep-fried, or "pizza" with copious amounts of sugary ketchup (don't ask). Desserts are the sweetest things your tongue has ever touched -- brigadeiros, pudim, essentially all just super-sweet condensed milk.

It's not like the traditional Brazilian diet is full of fresh veggies or nutritional variety at all. I mean, I thought us Americans loved our french fries... but the Brazilians have got us beat!

You might even get mashed sweet potatoes when you want mashed potatoes, as I learned the hard way.

don't forget the caipirinha, usually a double or triple shot of sugarcane rum mixed with sugar syrup and fruit juice (more sugar)... sometimes served with granulated cane sugar on the rim of the glass. needless to say, it gets you hammered in a hurry. or the local beer...

honestly i think the healthiest restaurant food i saw in brazil was the appetizer salad bar at the churrascaria, which is of course the kind of place where you eat until you literally can eat no more.

and, i'm fairly certain brazil was an extreme early adopter of pay-by-the-kilo buffets, if not the birthplace.

the traditional non-european food (apart from churr.) is basically modernized slave food - huge amounts of carb-based calories and deep fried food, for cheap, usually in the form of dense stews with starchy sides. southern/cajun food is very similar.

luckily, brazilians are an incredibly active people whose entertainment culture is centered around outdoor activities, and most of them do not indulge in meals out very often, but as with all other societies that become more affluent over time, the modern less-active lifestyle mixed with the traditional diet is not good.

Oh man... so much (wrong) bias about Brazil :/

What's the point of a statement like that if you don't elaborate?

it's tough seeing your country analyzed by an outsider. here, i'll do the same thing with my home country, america.

americans primarily eat cheap feedlot-produced beef and chicken, often in the form of fast food such as mcdonalds. the majority of beverages consumed are alcoholic or laden with sugar.

in the south, most of the cuisine is largely modernized slave food and plantation food. cigarettes and rum are, or were until recently, consumed in large quantities, made from sugar and tobacco which was the backbone of the slave economy in the gulf/caribbean region.

there is also an emphasis on quantity, with people oftentimes eating or serving more to a person than they can actually eat in a single meal. people frequently take the remainder to go, although many force themselves to finish.

unfortunately, americans' entertainment culture revolves around watching tv so the effects of overeating are compounded and result in epidemic levels of obesity and diabetes and other metabolic diseases.

is this true? is this biased? does this apply to berkeley, ca as well as it does to dallas, texas?

this doesn't describe me as an american, yet it's undoubtedly true, uncomfortable, and critical as it may be.

the truth hurts.

well i would have mentioned all the german cuisine in the south but we wouldn't want to remind everyone of that pesky nazi situation, would we?

As a Brazilian-American who spent many years in both countries from the 1980s until today, you're misrepresenting things a bit.

First of all, the juice concentrates are a newish thing, 20 years ago it was still common to make fruit juice from scratch at home every day. Also, farofa is fried (more like sauteed, it doesn't need that much oil) yucca flour, which is a world away from refined white flour. Growing up, lunch was a large salad along with rice, beans, a cooked vegetable and some kind of meat or fish.

I fully admit that Brazil really took to fast food and it's just as terrible as it is anywhere, but your analysis of "traditional" Brazilian food is quite myopic and probably influenced by your own white-collar professional tendencies towards convenience foods.

What is in a typical Brazilian breakfast in you opinion?

Very light in my experience, usually just coffee and some bread and butter, maybe ham and cheese, and some fruit.

Exactly this. Brazilians do not care about breakfast. Only when in Hotels or something like that.

That is what I have here in the US. And most people I know do the same or some variation.

BTW, the main Brazilian meal is usually lunch.

Which is actually healthier than the American perspective of having dinner be the main/largest meal.

Fruit juice is pretty bad on the calories regardless of added sugar or not. I mean, the sugar doesn't help, and has other bad effects (teeth, most notably).

But the issue with fruit juice is just how much fruit you need to make it. One glass of apple juice is 3-4 apples. An apple is 60-80 calories. That makes that glass about 300 calories, which is ridiculous.

It's a bit less bad with orange juice, although like lemon juice it has other problems (they're very acidic, at least as bad as coke).

So one glass of juice should be somewhere between 20-25% of your total meal calorie intake. As in, if you drink (one glass) of juice, 2 loaves of bread is now your limit. With water, you can do 3.

But the sugar. Well, the sugar takes the 250-300 calorie glass to 300-350. Not good, but ... not going to make the difference. That's like taking a bit more jam on the sandwich.

Having a 300 calorie drink is of no issue if you have a long walk to school where you are physically active, to your manual job or your day spent looking after your family and manually cleaning and managing your home. 2000 calories is the recommended level for sedentary westerners.

Well, my issue with fruit juice is that one or even two aren't enough to not feel thirsty anymore. And any walk that takes 600-900 calories to get to my job is not one I'll actually take on a regular basis.

A good estimate is 30-50 calories per kilometer, so a single glass of juice requires, let's say, a 5 kilometer walk to compensate.

I'm a mostly sedentary westerner, but I don't think I've eaten 2000 calories in a single day for a year at least.

I've never heard of anyone drinking 900 calories of fruit juice! Is this an American thing?

Just so we're clear: that's 3 glasses, right. Have you really never drunk 3 glasses of fruit juice ?

According to Wikipedia [1], it's more like 8 glasses (2,5 dl/ 1 cup per glass) of orange juice. That's 2 liters. The apple/grape juice carton I have handy gives a very similiar number. What kind of juice (or portion size) are you thinking of?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_juice

3 massive glasses - no, I've never drank anything like 2 litres of fruit juice in one day, let along one sitting.

Where have you seen a glass of apple juice with 300 kcal? In my (European) experience it's barely a hundred or so. Is this some American version that consists of vaguely apple-flavored sugar or something? I'm actually slightly envious because I'm a tad underweight (and with a very low body fat percentage) and find gaining weight difficult.

Fresh squeezed orange juice is 110 calories per 8 oz serving. But most people in America would drink a glass more like twice that size.

I guess it's mostly just a difference in volume then. Google tells me 8 oz translates to about 230 ml, that's pretty much the average glass of juice around here.

People would complain if a resteraunt give them such a small glass. 12 oz / 350 ml is much more common drinking glass size here.

People going to McDonalds for soda get 32 ounce / 950 ml

Some crazy sizes here...

I thought beans is good nutrition wise?

They are, but the way their are (over)cooked may lead to loss of great chunk of nutrients.

They may be loaded with lard or bacon fat. Not sure if that's the case in Brazil.

> " 'pizza' with copious amounts of sugary ketchup (don't ask)."

Only in Rio.

You are spot on. There's even a local fast food chain "Giraffa's" that serves that - slow cooked food, then microwaved/heated in shop premises and sold as fastfood.

The typical average Brazilian lunch is loaded with overcooked dishes - read: wasted nutrients, dripping with vegetable oil and sugar (fructose and others), occasionally covered with a couple of lettuce leaves and freshly sliced tomatoes.

Japan seems to have fought this off. Japan has explicitly rejected "fat acceptance" as public policy. Under the 2008 "Metabo Law", everyone between 40 and 75 is weighed and measured annually and sent to counseling if overweight. Employers are involved and apply pressure to employees.

> Employers are involved and apply pressure to employees.

That sounds like hell.

Japanese corporate culture is already like this, so it's likely just another pressure like going out nights for team drinks, etc.

Eh, it wasn't too bad tbh, and my employer was one of the most traditionally run in the country.

Mostly the company handing out free step counters to those who wanted it. There might have been some very modest financial incentives given out as well.

It is hell, for someone not used to it or someone over the fat line. Google "Japan fat shaming" for some idea of how abusive they are toward fat people culturally. They're not the only ones though, South Korea and China also have weaker variations of aggressive cultural fat shaming.

It always seemed that South Korea's attitude was harsher thanks to the manhwa (especially Lookism). But now that I think about it, Japanese manga do not even feature fat characters unless they are completely irredeemable social outcasts.

I'm curious: How is "fat shaming" applied to sumo wrestlers? They are probably big (no pun intended) stars in Japan.

As you would imagine with most nations and cultural extremes that benefit entertainment or celebrity, it's an exception. Being obese for the purpose of Sumo, is regarded as entirely different versus being obese because of poor discipline / lifestyle reasons.

If Japan does this, it is in reaction to what the influence of Western fast food did in the previous decades, to make this necessary.

I saw McDonalds being built in dirt-street towns in Guatemala, I saw lines three blocks long at KFC in South America, and I've seen many Porsches and Ferrarris in the parking lots of American fast food joints in third world countries.

I am utterly shocked they have not moved into Africa yet.

I've just driven tens of thousands of miles through 17 countries without a single Mcdonalds. Between Morocco and South Africa, there were none [1]. I am shocked they are not in at least Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Ghana, etc.

I wonder if that's the longest distance in the world that can be driven without one. Or at least the most consecutive countries.

(checkout the map) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_McDonal...

Someone did this research for the US: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6380...

> I am utterly shocked they have not moved into Africa yet.

Africa's (generalizing) median income has just begun to climb high enough in the last 10-15 years, to be financially interesting to the US fast-food companies.

Nigeria's GDP in 1999 was... $35 billion, for a population of 119 million people, or roughly $300 per capita. That leaves very little money in the bottom 2/3 for buying fast-food. Today Nigeria's GDP is closer to ~$400 billion for 186 million people (call it $2,000 per capita), a tremendous leap in economic capability.

Many other nations in Africa have seen similar results.

Consider that Kenya's GDP at a low point in 1993, was just $5 or $6 billion.... It's $70 billion today.

Or Ethiopia, from $7.x billion in 2002, to $72 billion today and still climbing rapidly.

Most likely these nations become appealing business opportunities for all sorts of foreign companies (whether US or European or Chinese etc), with the rapidly rising disposable incomes.

There was a KFC in Accra back in 2011 or so when I was there, so they are definitely in Ghana, at least.

KFC seems to be the easiest American fast-food to take global, given the lack of cultural or religious prohibitions against consuming chicken. I've seen it all over Asia at least.

FWIW, there KFC is quite a bit busier than the rest in Africa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_KFC_fra...

Am a ghanaian. Junk food is quickly becoming a common place in this country. Surprisingly it's the "rich" that take them here as it's seen as some sort of status symbol. McDonald's isn't here yet.

Recently I was in Johannesburg and I can confess that KFC, McDonald's was almost in every corner I passed.

I think it's also important to point out that it's not just "western fast food" conglomerates doing all the damage. Frito Lay (Pepsi Co.) had its job cut out for them by local junk food producers so they simply bought them out and stuck their logo on the bag. Bimbo which is a Mexican giant in the processed food industry has been doing exactly the same all across the Andean region.

Another very important thing to keep in mind which this article fails to mention is the influence of all the free trade agreements which were signed by countries like Colombia and Perú in recent years. Now it's become more affordable than ever to export "goods" from the U.S into these emerging markets without paying any import duties. That is why you now find supermarkets in emerging nations that bare a strikingly resemblance to their american counterparts. A quick glance through the frozen food section will reveal items that weren't even part of the local diet just a few years ago such as pot pies and tater tots.

I find the title of this link quite funny: Brazil is a western country, even more "west" than Switzerland, where Nestle is from, and with very similar culture to that of Western Europe and the US.

Not only that, but Nestle has been in Brazil for almost a century now.

Not to mention we brazilians have been bombarded with fast-food joints in the past few years. My little hometown with no more than 90k habitants got its first Subway. And last year the first Taco Bell in the country came to São Paulo. This is the only one I would miss actually, as I've had enough from the traditional fast-food places.

they claim that a universal income (bolsa familia) is responsible for poor people buying tons of sugary foods. in reality that universal income allows poor people to not starve. why do they buy crap food? because that's what middle class is also eating. why? because of recently unregulated and rampant advertising.

How do you hook people on better tasting food? You let them try it.

Indeed, just like drug pushers.

This makes me sad for Brazil.

I have heard, though cannot confirm myself, that Japan had one of the healthiest societies in the world until fast food expanded there a couple decades ago, causing many problems common in the States, like obesity and diabetes and blood pressure issues, to significantly increase in frequency there.

It's worth noting that Latin America has plenty of nations that have struggled with obesity due to poor local diets even longer than the US has, including Mexico, Chile, Belize, Brazil and El Salvador. The US obesity problem began in the late 1980s.

title is completely off. its not fast food (Mcdonalds, wendy, etc) but junk food (nestle, kellogs, kraft, etc)

The article focuses on junk food, but it's both.

Until recently in medium-sized Brazilian cities, the only fast food chains an American would recognize are McDonald's and Subway. This changed since the last two years. In a short span of time I saw new franchises of KFC, Pizza Hut, Domino's and Burger King.

those companies are there for at least 10 years! at least! pizza hut over 15. kfc over 10. bk over 7.

...but well, those companies increasing presence explain why the corrupt coup government rushing to sell the country just passed laws removing low-wage workers protection.

So, Brazil is not a Western country? I guess the entire Europe is The East now. Also, why wouldn't they? It's a big market. Everyone loves fast food even though you'll never see anyone admit it.

I'm sure you know this, but "Western country" doesn't strictly refer to a geographical location. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world

In Israel fast food costs more than normal food. Vegetables are relatively cheep to the US ($3 for avocado??) And in general "fast" food is not a value people appreciate over "healthy". One of the ways to fight obesity is by taxation and lowering the costs of healthy food. When salad will cost less than a burger (and there's no economic reason it shouldn't) people will choose it.

Don't make it sound like taxation and some legislation is making salad cheaper, it's just that everything is so expensive here you think a 15$ salad is normal.

Not sure where you're seeing the $3 avocados. Even in SV, it's like $1 per unless things have changed in the last several weeks.

NYC, and untill recently every whole foods store

https://www.hassavocadoboard.com/retail/volume-and-price-dat...

This aligns with my recent shopping experience.

I think you're missing the point of vegetables being expensive in the US. If you think these prices are normal than allow me to disagree.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/28/business/amazon-whole-foo...

https://imgur.com/a/6yozr

Avacados happen to be one of the more expensive vegetables.. and the price is highly seasonal. You should see them for $0.8 to $1.2 "in season" and $1.5 to $2.5 "out of season". Perhaps an additional tax if you live in a big city.

if you want to talk about vegetable affordability, lets start with lettuce, carrots, and broccoli.

Most stores I've seen in Manhattan have them between $2.50 - $3.00 lately. However the fruit vendors on the street have them at $1.50. Usually 2 for $3.00.

But you probably want to use them that day which I see as a feature.

We actually do the opposite in the US. Over 25 billion/year in farm subsidies (by contrast the ISS cost avg. ~9 billion/year b/w '98-'15), almost all of which goes to corporate farmers, especially corn.

This is why our markets are saturated with processed corn and corn syrup.

In other words the US gov spends ~3x the ISS cost to subsidize obesity so already-rich farmers can get richer (still not as egregious as banking is here, though).

The US has among the lowest food costs of any developed nation. Compared to our disposable income (which is far higher than most other developed nations), it's even more so.

For the majority of Americans, the last thing they have to worry about is the cost of vegetables.

Change the title to reflect the focus on fast food (use The NY Times headline).

I don't doubt that this is all true, but he diet pre-Nestle was hardly superb, Brigadeiro, flan, lots of meat, croquettes, tons of bread... you could do plenty of harm with those traditional foods. What the were not however, was heavily and aggressively marketed, ultra-cheap, and essentially never spoil.

The traditional meal of beans, rice, meat and veggies, is much better than a lot of countries.

Even the "junk" foods you mention are still considerably better than empty corporate garbage like cheetos and soda pop.

Especially considering pre-processed foods.

Even though there use pie charts (no pun intended), I liked this visualization.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/what-the-world-eats/

https://fstoppers.com/food/what-week-groceries-looks-around-...

I think you'd be surprised on the snack front, but soda is addictive poison, that's true enough. The issue with the traditional diet is that it only worked when food was somewhat scarce. Even without the influx of 1st World crap accelerating the obesity/diabetes issue, those problems would remain.

I'm not denying the role of Coke, Nestle, McDonalds, etc in amplifying an existing problem into a full blown catastrophe however.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com