Mexican states are moving to ban the sale of junk food to children | Hacker News Reader

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

washingtonpost.com

318 pointshvo282 comments

This is a good idea, and the people in the comments are rightly pointing out sugar's problems. But just as problematic as sugar are vegetable oils which are in almost every packaged product you can buy at the grocery store. They cause all sorts of health problems because the vegetable oils are extremely reactive (due to being unsaturated fats and so having double bonds that can react with other molecules inside your body). These are not called out as a health risk because the American agriculture industry makes an enormous amount of money exporting them and selling them to companies that make packaged/processed foods.

Edit: just to clarify it is the poly-unsaturated fatty acids that are the problem, not fats in general. Fats like butter (saturated) or olive oil (mono-unsaturated) do not have these problems, while canola oil, soybean oil, etc. are poly-unsaturated and highly-reactive.

Edit 2: research for these claims:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/223779598_Lipid_oxi...

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12013175_Peroxidati...

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5931176_The_Importa...

These are from a lipid scientist rather than from nutrition scientists, so they are focusing on internal biological processes rather than health outcomes. I have not seen good nutrition studies on poly-unsaturated fats. However, studies of fat consumption that break out fats into saturated, mono-unsaturated, and poly-unsaturated fat categories generally show worse health outcomes for people consuming high intakes of poly-unsaturated fats. I will try to find a good study.

These ingredients are not well studied, which is surprising when you consider how rapidly they've been added to the food supply (basically not at all present 100 years ago, to in every processed food today).

That goes against everything I've been told about the types of fats. How much evidence is there for this?

Take it for what it is: http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/unsaturated-oils.shtml

> When unsaturated oils are exposed to free radicals they can create chain reactions of free radicals

This seems like the most important claim and also has no citations.

I mean from an organic chemistry perspective it's obviously true. If you throw an electron at a C=C double bond, you get a ·C-C¯: which will then go ahead and bond with an H⁺ that's floating around, leaving you with a radical still bound to your initial molecule, so the theory is

    CH₃-CH=CH-CH₃ + · + ROH ⇒ CH₃-ĊH-CH₂-CH₃ + :O¯R
    CH₃-ĊH-CH₂-CH₃ + HOR' ⇒ CH₃-CH₂-CH₂-CH₃ + ·OR'

and then the · on your ·OR' restarts the cycle, and the cycle doesn't stop until you get

    RO· + ·OR' ⇒ ROOR'

which is gonna be some random peroxide that wouldn't normally form, or

   CH₃-ĊH-CH₂-CH₃ + CH₃-ĊH-CH₂-CH₃ ⇒  CH₃-CH-CH₂-CH₃
                                          |
                                      CH₃-CH-CH₂-CH₃

which is gonna be some really random molecule with who knows what effects.

Now how important this is in a biological context I have no idea. There is a plausible mechanism for it to affect cellular chemistry, but the problem is that "a plausible mechanism" and "an actual effect" are very far from the same thing, and biochemistry is complicated.

The citation I'd want to see is that the chain reactions of free radicals do something biologically interesting, or, even better, that diets high and low in polyunsaturated fats lead to significant health differences in animal models.

This reads like some nutrition grifter satire.

If you don't mind, I'm going to use "nutrition grifter" moving forward.

OP here is correct. PUFAs are the baddies. This is way too large a subject for me to even try backing up atm but I do recommend you do research into it.

Or even at least a source would be nice.

> (due to being unsaturated fats and so having single hydrogen bonds that can react with other molecules inside your body).

What do you mean by "single hydrogen bonds"? C-H bonds are always single bonds, and I am unfamiliar with any kind of "double" hydrogen (intermolecular) bonding. Unsaturated fats, by definition, have at least one double bond, between carbon atoms.

Sorry, you are correct. I fixed my comment. What I meant was the carbon-carbon double bonds replace a hydrogen atom that would otherwise be there, so the bond can be easily broken when interacting with other molecules (because the carbon-carbon bond is electron rich).

Source on harmful effects of polyunsaturated fatty acids? Had trouble finding it through Google (maybe was searching for the wrong thing)

> studies of fat consumption that break out fats into saturated, mono-unsaturated, and poly-unsaturated fat categories generally show worse health outcomes for people consuming high intakes of poly-unsaturated fats. I will try to find a good study.

This is counter to any study that I am familiar with and flies in the face of all nutritional recommendations. Studies that support MUFAs and PUFAs over saturated fats can be found in the references section of https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/2016/12/19/satu....

I believe this study does not control for whether the fat is hydrogenated or not. So they are really measuring the effects of trans-fats, which are already known to be bad.

That is my general concern with almost all of the nutrition research on fats. They are not grouping the fats appropriately. If you group butter and hyrogenated vegetable oils together because they are both "saturated" fats and then do your analysis lumping them together then you can't distinguish whether the problems caused by saturated fats are due to the hydrogenization or due to the butter being saturated or both.

Saturated fat consumption is decreasing, while unsaturated fat consumption is increasing, but people continue getting less healthy. So it seems the premise that saturated fats are that bad needs to be questioned. Or at least we need to ask if it's really saturated fats like coconut oil and butter that are bad or something that happens to the fats like canola oil when it is hydrogenated.

Edit: also as anecdotal evidence, what is the one common feature of almost all food generally considered harmful? Lots of processed vegetable oils in it, often in conjunction with sugar. I have not seen a reasonable explanation of how this can be the case if poly-unsaturated fats are as healthy as they are claimed to be.

> Saturated fat consumption is decreasing, while unsaturated fat consumption is increasing

Do you have any source for this? The best I could find suggests that this is probably untrue: "An increase in saturated fat in 2008-12 is notable in several product categories, especially breakfast cereals and yogurt (approximately 15 percent) and frozen/refrigerated meals (6 percent)." [0]

I'd welcome any kind of nutritional study you can reference that shows the problems you're raising with PUFAs. Even if the above studies mentioned didn't control for hydrogenation, if PUFAs were bad for you, we would expect to see poor outcomes from those consuming them. It's weird that people in that category actually did best in the study.

> what is the one common feature of almost all food generally considered harmful?

It's far simpler than looking at added sugar content or amount/type of fat -- the commonality is simply, how processed is this. Any whole food you can consider healthy, but most harmful food is processed (and most processed food is harmful!)

[0] https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/85761/eib-183....

But Canola oil is higher in monounsaturated fats like Olive Oil: https://medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000785.htm

Why is Canola oil bad if it has the same quantity of monounsaturated fats as Olive Oil?

Because it has substantially more poly-unsaturated fats. See this graphic for info: https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/4DmwKT6rrQf2BMJQwvX2cX-650...

It's not really that saturated or mono-unsaturated fats are good for you, but that poly-unsaturated fats are bad for you. I realize this is contrary to what much of modern nutrition says, but the lipid science says the poly-unsaturated fats are worse because they react more with other molecules in your body.

Also, saturated fat consumption has been declining and unsaturated fat consumption increasing over the past decades while health keeps getting worse. To me, this suggests that something is wrong with our current nutritional understanding, and I believe the lipid science shows that the problem is the poly-unsaturated fats (as one part of it at least, it's obviously not monocausal).

*refined sugar, not all sugar.

sugar in a whole fruit aren't bad, the fibers in the fruit help your body break down and absorb the sugar over a longer period of time.

just don't eat refined food.

Sugar is sugar. If you are subject to metabolic syndrome it's really bad for you, even from fruit, if eaten in large amounts.

Any kind of concentrated sugar product is going to be unhealthy regardless of the process that got it there. Fresh squeezed orange juice and honey aren't refined, but they're still much too sweet to be consuming large quantities of.

If your concern is obesity and diabetes I encourage you to look up fruititarians. They consume 3000+ calories a day of fruit and loose dangerous amounts of weight. It's not healthy to consume such low fat and protein but it goes to show you can't gain weight on fruit juice.

Conjecture: it's sugar and polyunsaturated fats at the same time that cause issues.

The real concern is systemic inflamation caused by sugar (both high average levels and large spikes are bad)

You mean high blood sugar as in hyperglycaemia?

squeezing juice out of an orange is a level of refinement. You are reducing a whole food to separate components, much like pulling iron out of ore. It's weird to think of it as a refined food but it is to a degree.

I wouldn't classify it as a processed food, but maybe that's where people conflate the terms.

I've read that Safflower oil or Avocado oil are one of the healthiest oils to cook. Safflower oil is supposedly even good for you. As with everything, moderation is a key factor.

"Everything in moderation" isn't actually great diet advice. There's a paper floating around somewhere showing that people with a limited diet of healthy things fare better than people with a very wide diet that included unhealthy things.

My take is that "everything in moderation" is a mental crutch that people adopt when there's some part of their diet that they know isn't _good_ but that they don't want to give up completely. It is true that we can sneak in unhealthy food here and there without hugely detrimental effects, but that doesn't mean it's a good baseline practice.

The one scenario where it might be useful advice is with somebody whose diet is terrible, and you want to ease them towards a somewhat nutritionally positive diet; even in this circumstance, a more direct approach of "eat less crap and more good stuff" would be more accurate.

Most people aren't going to stick to healthy foods only though, thus moderation is "good enough", It's better to be at 75-80% and not feel guilty rather than 10% good food and 90% junk food because you just couldn't do the 100% good all the time diet

Think that comes down to the different smoke points of various oils. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Smoke_point_of_cookin...

You generally want to avoid smoke, so safflower oil and avocado oil are the best choices choices. But probably even better to not cook in oil at all, and just add olive oil (or your favorite source of fat) at the end

You are wrong, there's nothing indicating that PUFAs are as problematic as sugar or even problematic at all, on the contrary the evidence we have show they are beneficial.

It concerns me that your comment is the top voted, as it can lead to dangerous dietary extremism, say avoiding all PUFAs which are among other things implicated in helping the immune system "Paracrine interactions between adipose and lymphoid tissues are enhanced by diets rich in n-6 fatty acids and attentuated by fish oils. The latter improve immune function and body conformation in animals and people. The partitioning of adipose tissue in many depots, some specialised for local, paracrine interactions with other tissues, is a fundamental feature of mammals."https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15946832/

1. You shouldn't just throw in links to "support" your claims - to me this shows you don't understand what you're talking about, you should cite the relevant text otherwise it's just hand waiving.

The studies you cite are about radicals generated from PUFAs that are naturally a part of cell membranes, not from diet, and even goes against your claim by saying that PUFAs from diet help generate antioxidants that eliminate such radicals.

"Any change in the cell membrane structure activates lipoxygenases (LOX). LOX transform polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) to lipidhydroperoxide molecules (LOOHs)." i.e. cell membranes naturally have PUFAs."..."In order to remove LOO* radicals, plants and algae transform PUFAs to furan fatty acids, which are incorporated after consumption of vegetables into mammalian tissues where they act as excellent scavengers of LOO* and LO* radicals." - hey eating PUFAs help cells make radical scavengers. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17914157/

2. Omega-3 is a polyunsaturated fats - yes they are less stable than SFAs, but that probably does not matter at all unless you're eating rancid oils. Polyunsaturated fats are not "extremely" reactive either whatever you mean by that.

Then we know that diets rich in PUFAs and MUFAs have positive effect on cholesterol ratios "We conclude that a mixed diet rich in monounsaturated fat was as effective as a diet rich in (n-6)polyunsaturated fat in lowering LDL cholesterol. " https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2761578/

Is it the vegetable oil or the fact that processed foods come with vegetable oil? Sauteed vegetables with a drizzle of olive oil is a bit different than a TV dinner.

It's a great idea in in theory, in practice I'm highly skeptical it will do anything but give police a new way to extract fines (bribes) from shopkeepers.

Why anything containing psychoactive drug is actually legal to sell to kids? There's a lot of reports how bad is caffeine to underdeveloped brain. And look at any developing nation: everyone is hooked to Coca-Cola.

> There's a lot of reports how bad is caffeine to underdeveloped brain.

Not going to do well on this site if you make baseless nonsensical claims like that.

Paper[1] from 2009 stating that: 1. We actually use caffeine as a first-line treatment in premature infants for treating apnea and 2. Nobody has done the research on adolescents to assess any negative impact on brain development.

[1] https://sci-hub.tw/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2009.01.001

> And look at any developing nation: everyone is hooked to Coca-Cola.

Everyone (more or less) is outside a few liberal, urban, health-focused pockets of the US, too. Or to sweet tea, or some other sugary caffeine drink. Unless you intended "developing nation" to cover those parts of the US, as well :-)

[EDIT] Not sure what rubbed people the wrong way about this, but if it's the qualifiers then it's my understanding that both "liberal" and "urban" are, independently or together, correlated with smaller waistlines and healthier lifestyles, in the US. Almost certainly including consumption of sugary drinks (indeed, this seems to peak in the "deep red" South, in the US, from what I can find). If that's wrong I'd be interested to know about it.

I don't know what the reports are about, but I don't think there is evidence that caffeine has negative impact on adolescent brains, most of the issues seem to be caffeine pills or caffeine drinks mixed with alcohol.

the problem is the lack of understanding of CICO in the CULTUREof the country.

Any other explanation is hiding the truth for some half-reasoning which mich the real point

Maybe so, although CICO (calories in, calories out) is a little oversimplified. In reality not all calories are equally satiating, nor are all calories equally digestible.

Additionally, measuring calories in food is done in a purely chemical fashion - the food is burned and the amount of heat energy released is measured. This of course does not actually measure how much energy your body is actually able to absorb (for example, dietary fiber burns just as well as refined sugar, but isnt absorbed the same in the body).

If you want a upper limit it's around 20000 calories. That's what eat people who go to the artic / antartic.

Honestly i think its WAY LESS oversimplified that people say it is. True you never know what you really ate, but if you note your average calories for a month, and then do +20% or -20% calories with the same type of food and same lifestyle you will get the exact weight loss / gain predicted from regressing on the first month.

After 40 everything once was good/tasty needs to be reduced a lot and or cut out of our diets. Our U.S. arteries are clogged no matter if your obese or not.

The title is a little misleading, this is happening in the state of Oaxaca only. I guess that if it works the government is going to try and implement it across the whole country.

OK, we've replaced the title with the more narrowly scoped language from the first paragraph.

Another issue here is the phrase "moving to". That's not the same thing as actually doing it, and frequently the processes that articles like this are describing end up outputting to /dev/null.

Oaxaca and now Tabasco too. Oaxaca was first a couple of weeks ago and Tabasco just voted this in recently [1].

[1] https://www.milenio.com/estados/comida-chatarra-tabasco-proh...

Lots of US federal law started as California state law first. According to labeling, there are a few things in life that are known to cause cancer only in California.

Improving diet would be one of the simplest ways of improving population health. Unfortunately any real changes will cause large, politically powerful corporations (Cargill, ADM, Coca-Cola, etc.) to lose a large amount of money[1], so I'm bearish on the ability to actually create meaningful changes. But just looking at photos on people on beaches from 2019 vs 1970 makes it clear how unhealthy the population is.

[1]: In the US many of these companies are large exporters too, so it is very hard to do anything that hurts them since our exports are generally not very competitive.

My concern is that if we can't trust the government to create a healthy recommended diet, how can we trust them to ban the correct foods? Their incentives seem to be more in line with propping up producers of large scale cheap pseudo foods with big lobbies than finding an actual healthy diet.

I get your point, but it's not hard to tax the correct foods. Just start with the worst, such as sugary drinks.

It doesn't even need to be tax, even mandating that packaged foods' ingredients labeled in easily human-relatable units (table spoons, etc. instead of grams and joules) may help people make better decisions.

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 offset any increase in costs from taxation

also: bearish for coca-cola long term?

Coca Cola is very aware of the health issues and has been diversifying for a long time.

Around 2015 IIRC they got into the diary game with Fairlife milk, they own core power. They do lots of business in tea (gold peak and others) as well as coffee.

You can recognize the bottles for a lot of the products because they use the same one with a different wrapper - core power, illy, fairlife and others share. (Note: illy is a partnership)

I’ll also point out their zero sugar line, out since 2017, is fantastic - much better than the older diet technology in terms of taste.

https://www.coca-colacompany.com/brands

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

I have some severe concerns about the artificial sweeteners in Diet Coke - I kicked the soda habit a while back but I always stayed well away from diet sodas.

Corporate America seems to run on Diet Coke.

Covid shows that governments who fail to encourage nutritious diets will end up with higher healthcare costs.

So it's not controversial to suggest a poor diet leads to things like type 2 diabetes and heart disease, nor is it controversial to suggest that the novel coronavirus is much more deadly for people with preexisting conditions like type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

For some reason though, if I put those two things together and suggest people eat healthier during this pandemic, it's this incredibly controversial thing to say, at least where I live in the US.

People just hate being told what to eat - it's as simple as that. I've given up trying to explain that dietary preferences are surprisingly elastic, and highly dependant on what you've recently eaten. It's something that's obvious to anyone who's dabbled with any sort of dietary modification (e.g. cutting down on carbs, or trying out vegetarianism for a bit, or just cutting out soda). Your tastes change surprisingly fast. Something that you previously loved, like a burger, or a big hunk of steak, can transform from a regular craving to something that sounds kind of gross in a matter of a couple months.

But just trying to explain this phenomenon to people is often met with extreme defensiveness. You'll hear: I could NEVER give up pasta/meat/whatever. But they absolutely could, and it wouldn't be nearly as hard as they're imagining.

I'll always encourage anyone curious about tweaking their diet to just go for it, but I've given up entirely on trying to nudge people toward a healthier lifestyle if it's not something they're already working toward.

> People just hate being told what to eat - it's as simple as that.

In Netherlands in loads of restaurant the vegetarian option will taste terrible. In recent years that's slowly changing. I often wondered why someone chose the vegetarian option, it looked and tasted terrible. It wasn't just the initial impression, everything vegetarian was bad to terrible. Plus stupidity on my part, instead of buying something nice that's vegetarian I'd try terrible meat-replacements.

To me someone eating vegetarian was someone giving up enjoying food.

IMO it's nicer to focus on the positives rather than on what someone cannot or should not do. E.g. various colleagues are now vegan. Some just because the vegan diet is better for them (more energy, sleeping, etc). That's stuff they experienced, I'm not vegan/vegetarian.

Another thing I realized is that sometimes the meat part in a dish is actually terrible. A lot of the chicken in Netherlands is sold with a huge amount of added water. It actually does not taste any good, sometimes it is not even noticeable that it is in a dish. A vegan friend was visiting, I already was doubting why I was adding chicken to a dish. Replacing the chicken resulted in a nicer dish (cauliflower with mango chutney plus loads of other spices). Since that experience that dish will at least be vegetarian.

Further, why not let people experience it? Instead of saying that they'll change, maybe say it might happen. IMO it's not that important someone completely changes their diet or never eats something. If they go from regularly eating meat to sometimes eating meat that's already a huge change.

Just chiming in to echo this sentiment. My own experiences from losing a bunch of weight and becoming a vegetarian agree.

Spend a few weeks not eating anything with refined sugar and suddenly things you used to like are cloyingly sweet. Eat a diet free from all fried foods and you'll find french fries are now too greasy. Etc.

the line between trying to encourage someone to be healthier via weight loss, diet, exercise, etc. and making someone feel bad about their appearance isn't always clear, especially from two different people. being healthy isn't as simple for someone as it is on paper, just saying "calories in < calories out" ignores all the other factors that promote health that people who are already healthy already have. take having built habits already, learning what exactly to do, finding time in a busy schedule, etc. the bottom line is being healthy is hard, especially when you don't have a background in it

stemming from this, I think the most important thing is that people "get fit" for the right reasons. that they want to have better health, be able to do more activites, etc. vs some of the more usually toxic reasons like trying to meet conventional beauty standards, hating their own appearance. far too often I have seen people who "rush" trying to get fit, or do it for the wrong reasons, and just set themselves up for failure in the long run - or potentially much worse, like depression and the like.

so I think things like having a good measure of "self love" and self worth no matter what you look like, patience, consistency, etc. are all keys to succeeding over just "eating less" or whatever

I think in the US people see it as an assault on freedom. Concern that what starts as a suggestion will turn into a tax, and then the tax into a ban. Some value freedom over health.

That may seem illogical since you can't have freedom if you're dead, but we ask people to make a similar trade-off (risk life/health for freedom) when joining the military, and many do.

i mean it does sound kind of jerk-ish because it's not like telling someone who is obese right now to eat better is going to drastically reduce his pandemic risks in a week.

I'm generally sceptical of tying this kind of advice to crises anyway. It's a social and long-term issue. We ought to eat better not just so that we are better prepared for a pandemic but because it's the right thing to do in general.

It’s not just encourage. What we’re finding is that the government has to be authoritarian. China welded people into their homes to keep them from spreading COVID. They literally caged them like animals and threw them into trucks. Now Mexico is denying children potato chips.

Think about universal healthcare and alcohol. How much money is spent on alcohol related issues? The best answer is to ban its sale. Same for tobacco. Enough people have shown then are unable or unwilling to do the right thing. As a result junk food, booze and smokes need to go the way of freedom of speech. We need to ban them.

That doesn't really go any way towards explaining why Canada, Europe or the Oceania[1] democracies have done so well in the crisis - nor does it explain how Brazil has done so poorly.

I think there is more counter evidence then supporting evidence for authoritarian governments being necessary for dealing with pandemics.

1. Please note - comparatively well, Canada, Europe & Oceania aren't doing perfect they're just doing significantly better than the states.

> Europe [has] done so well in the crisis

UK, Sweden, Italy, Spain, and Belgium all have had more COVID-19 deaths per capita than the US. And France has a rate nearly equal to the US.

UK, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Belgium, France, and Netherlands all have worse case fatality rates than the US. And so does Canada. (But, this may be because the US has done more testing.)

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/08/05/8993658...

Why on earth would 'per capita' be a relevant metric? Is a death less impactful or important when it's in a more populated country?

Also keep in mind Europe was struck before the US - the worst of the first wave is behind them while the US is still riding it down

Also, authoritarian governments often lie to protect their "authority". Their "authority" is based upon this illusion of infallibility, which goes against democratic principles like openness.

The United States has done poorly because we are a country whose population hates each other. It’s a country comprised entirely of people whose ancestors said, “You know what? I hate you so much that I’d rather cross an ocean, face bears, wolves, and the elements than to spend another day with you.” That’s why we won’t wear masks.

I mean - Canada is in the same boat right? Canada might even be worse off since the country was originally french and then that entire population (along with first nations & Metis which are a more significant portion of the population up here) was second-classed when the English won a war that one time. Quebec secessionist is far more serious than any state in the US[1] and western Canada tends to begrudge the arbitrary french bilingualism while wondering why Mandarin or Punjabi isn't the other official language.

All that said - Canada is still a country that identifies as a country. If anything is causing a real divide in America it's the entirely manufactured hatred of modern divisive politics. As someone who grew up in Boston I went to school with a wide array of skin tones and original nationalities - there weren't Irish and Italian gangs beating up the black kids - there were suburban entitled white-kid gangs beating up the black kids... Any sort of origin based racism left in America is from more recent immigrants - it's totally bullshit and needs to stop - but I've never met anyone in America that said "Hey - you look Prussian - I don't like Prussians since they moved in on my Pomeranian ancestors. I don't take kindly to you folk."

I am uncertain where you've observed it, but I certainly never saw it in either New England nor the south west.

1. That isn't to say they're leaving tomorrow, there is just actually a serious portion of the population unlike all of the US states.

I have occasionally observed anti-Polish racism in the US. Perpetrated by generically “white” Americans against anyone with a Polish last name or Polish accent.

There's a difference between allowing adults and children to consume things. Children have limited agency and we consider it a social duty to protect them from some of life's extremes until they're better capable of understanding the consequences of their actions.

You don't have to ban things not be authoritarian. Smart governments just price in externalities, which is why you slap tobacco and alcohol with extra taxes to offset the increased costs of health care and reduced adult lifetimes.

Or... how about we provide treatment for people who are abusing alcohol, drugs, etc? There are billions of people who can responsibly use alcohol. Banning it doesn't make any sense for those who aren't addicts.

Doesn’t matter. Look at those who try to ban guns and free speech. Millions use both responsibility every day. Besides science has shown little benefit to alcohol and tobacco and no benefit to junk food.

What we need is to ban cooking at home. Government soup kitchens. All consumption needs to be documented and controlled.

> What we need is to ban cooking at home.

This needs citation, seriously. Cooking at home, even cooking "insanely unhealthy" butter injected baked chicken at home, still seems to be a lot healthier for you than a hungry man dinner, so I think that the real issue is related to the preservatives and the salt & sugar required to mask those preservatives - that are used to unnaturally extend the self-life of pre-made and frozen food.

All of which would be banned by the government kitchens. I’ve found that people don’t really need or want choices. They want the government to take care of them from cradle to grave. No matter how crappy government, people want to give it more power. At this point we should.

What?

You are being downvoted (nice username btw haha) but you are onto something. My belief is that for certain things, the government MUST be authoritarian: Public Health, education and safety (police, firefighters, etc). That's why I think a more centralized government like the one in Mexico might find it easier to implement sensible policies and apply them "in an authoritative way" to the whole country without state resistance.

Now, if only the government was not as corrupt as it is in Mexico...

There are plenty of countries that were not China cruel and successfully contained COVID in their country.

How long until it's you the one that needs to be banned?

I sincerely hope there is someone there to stand for you.

It's interesting how quick people are to blame US corporations when it's the US government that subsidizes cheap carbs through the farm subsidy program (and on the flip-size in the US, subsidize the purchase of junk food via food stamps).

Also, banning sales to children doesn't solve the real culprit - parents buying the junk food for their own children. At least in America, watch any parent fill up their carts and pay attention to what they buy.

How much of that government policy was created in reaction to lobbying by corporations though?

Is it too much to ask for politicians to do the right thing regardless of lobbying?

> Also, banning sales to children doesn't solve the real culprit - parents buying the junk food for their own children. At least in America, watch any parent fill up their carts and pay attention to what they buy.

I grew up in Mexico. There's definitely a culture of drinking soda with meals for example. Parent's are definitely responsible for that.

There's also definitely a lot of children buying junk food with their allowances. The individual bag of chips is very popular, and it's sold in every "corner store" on every neighborhood (I've seen less of these in the USA, but they're everywhere in Mexico).

Why not just cut to the quick and ban children without a license /s

Initiatives like this has always appeared to me as a cheap way for societies to improve the health of their population.

Perhaps better done in the form of a tax - in the sense that junk food causes an externality in the form of health problems, that does seem warranted. The underlying problem is that the incentives are not aligned.

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.

I bet if you ask any random person in the US if McDonald's is bad for you, they will say yes.

I don't think the obesity epidemic is from lack of information.

I remember some statistics that showed smokers thought cigarettes were more carcinogenic than non-smokers, and actually more than they actually are.

So yeah, information is certainly necessary but not enough.

Information does nothing to counter addiction. Sugar is just as addictive as nicotine, but doesn't have the negativity associated with it.

I think McDonald's is probably ok for you in small portion sizes, no soda, and with reasonable exercise throughout the day.

I think the trouble is that people get big portions, a big soda, and they live their entire lives in a car or seated.

We had McDonald's in the 80s and if you look at random footage of any 1980s street scene you will see fewer obese people than the same places today.

Relatedly, I have a suspicion our basic food ingredients since that time have higher sugar now.

There's a huge variation in how bad McDonald's food is wrt obesity, if you look at calories versus satiety. Probably the worst are sugary soft drinks and milkshakes. Potato fries are quite bad. Hamburgers are okayish. Salads are okay.

I bet if you ask any random heroine addict if heroine is bad for them they will say yes - they'll just have more compelling reasons to keep using.

Addiction is a disease and junk food is super addicting.

You're moving goalposts.

I disagree - I was trying to provide a counter example to your statement on the lack of a contribution of ignorance to addiction. I think most addicts are well aware of the negative effects of their addiction at a conscious level and at the very least, if asked if their addiction was harmful, would reply "Well yea a bit" or "Well yea it could be" - people with drinking problems don't live in a happy go lucky land where they think everything is a-okay, they are coping and trying to survive. Most are quite aware that their habit is destructive but either don't see another way to move forward or endow a lack of personal strength with all the guilt of their habit - "If I could stop I would, but I'm too weak."

So I think mentioning that people are generally aware of the bad side effects of junk food isn't helpful - some people indulge due to perceived financial pressures (especially time pressures) others because of the short term pleasure- "Everything is going to hell - at least I can enjoy this milkshake and forget about things for a while." Additionally you have just plain old cravings and other factors.

I agree that the obesity epidemic isn't caused by a lack of information - so I think your point is important, but I think it's also important to realize that addictive substances almost never have that lack of information. Booze and cigarettes both tend to come with really heavy warnings about side effects but those warnings don't really have a noticeable effect.

Forcing manufacturers to put those warnings on products is essentially a big cop out by the government to avoid taking any real action.

This is incorrect.

Honestly - I can't blame anybody who could be found lurking, let alone posting on hackers news to think there's no way that this isn't common sense. However, it's not. It's really, unfortunately, very far from it in the U.S.

I now cannot easily find it (at least in a brief search on Google) because of recent bullshit regarding the keywords, but a few years back, there was a medical case that briefly made news. Woman in her thirties, not mentally deficient (by any diagnosis anyways), job holding, etc - was hospitalized at near death from a variety of issues that had gradually become quite severe.

Cause of the issues? She'd, by her, family, and friends accounts, not drank plain water in years, pushing near a decade. The majority of her fluid intake, that entire time, had been Coors Light (sparingly sodas, other sugary/alcoholic drinks that weren't plain water). Her justification as to why she had no idea this could cause any bodily harm is because it was "light"

It's bad. Truthfully, I'm happy for you that you get to live a life where you don't know/haven't been exposed to how bad. But, it's bad and I don't see it getting better any time soon.

I don't appreciate the condescending tone.

"2013 nationally representative phone survey of about 2000 subjects showed that one-fifth of Americans thought FF was good for health, whereas two-thirds considered FF not good. Even over two-thirds of weekly FF consumers (47% of the total population) thought FF not good."

Note: FF = fast food

https://academic.oup.com/advances/article/9/5/590/5062131

There's also this scene from Fat Head: https://youtu.be/evcNPfZlrZs?t=1258

> one-fifth of Americans thought FF was good for health

I wonder what portion of Americans have a troll mentality and will say stupid shit to pollers just for fun. Probably not far off one in five...

A variety of issues? So not something simple like alcohol killing her liver? Then I'm skeptical. There's nothing special about plain water.

Huh?

I think you've missed the point.

There's a person out there who thinks it's a perfectly healthy way of life to consume beer as their only fluid intake. Every day. For years. I guess you really need the context of the article - the main concern of it was really highlighting the fact that they weren't aware only drinking beer could been even remotely harmful to somebody, specifically because it had "light" in the name. Like, even if it had nothing to do with her being hospitalized. Not an argument as to whether or not doing so/having the choice to is wrong - simply that the fact a beverage, alcoholic nonetheless, could not be even slightly bad for the human body, because it had "light" in the name...

I know that may seem like satire to us - but this person was completely serious. Or is there something about your comment that I'm missing?

I'm suggesting that the story is missing very important pieces or possibly not true at all.

(And if it didn't actually harm her, was she even wrong to think a light beer was safe to drink? And by that I mean safe in the amount she drank, not some strawman about it being impossible to harm a human ever in any quantity. Note that not even water passes that strawman test.)

Any amount of cigarettes or alcohol [0] will harm you.

"Junk food" is a pseudo-scientific designation selectively targeting certain kinds of calorie dense foods. These foods may epidemiologically contribute to obesity, but on an individual level they're far from universally bad.

I think warning about food over-consumption would be great. But selectively targeting some foods only misinforms the public.

[0] And alcohol is still getting far less attention than cigarettes. Most places still don't have warning labels about the risk of cancer or even broad public awareness, despite 3.5% of cancer deaths being alcohol attributable.

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 to grow something other than corn. Give them grants to build all-year-round hydroponic farms to grow vegetables or something. And then from there, I think we can start to address other ailments like school lunches and the like.

> 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.

Subsidies are the reason HFCS is used in everything in the US, but sucrose is also cheap and isn't healthier than HFCS. I'm not convinced that the price difference between the two would significantly affect manufacturers' decisions of whether or not to include a sweetener.

Yeah, I think we'll eventually get to the point where junk food prices in the externalities and it'll go back to being a relatively rare treat (i.e. sustainable). Currently sugar is artificially cheap. The cost is just being kicked down the road, coming back in the form of health problems and hospital bills.

That sugary drinks are similarly priced or even cheaper than a bottle of water is completely backwards. Soda, juice, etc should be the expensive option (which they are in the long-term!) and water the default, smart choice both in terms of health and immediate cost at the counter.

Seems like a good idea on paper but somehow the poorest of the poor smoke.

In Mexico we have a tax on sugary drinks.

I feel like we were always taught that taxes were significantly better at curbing usage compared to bans or limits - the classic example being the cigarette tax

Cigarette tax is a scam to raise money from selling drugs. Cigs have inelastic demand. In Germany they hit a point where a price rise (in the name of health) resulted in reduced smoking and less tax collected and they immediately wanted to reduce tax. That caused a scandal so they changed tack to homogonize tax across the eu which, incidentally of course, would reduce tax in Germany.

Tax is charged on cigs because it works and no other reason, its regressive tax too.

I prefer that to a ban, but let's not pretend selling cigs at high prices is in the interest of cig smokers. The only place it works is where there are nicotine alternatives.

> I prefer that to a ban, but let's not pretend selling cigs at high prices is in the interest of cig smokers.

I'd prefer if the fight against smoking was not dealt with in a classist way (the ones suffering the most from this tax are poor people, who don't have either the money or the mental energy to fight off an addiction)!

The best way to fight smoking is to get rid of advertising... where Germany (and Bulgaria) are the only EU countries left where it is still legal to advertise for tobacco products on billboards.

* Cigs have inelastic demand.

* In Germany they hit a point where a price rise (in the name of health) resulted in reduced smoking and less tax collected and they immediately wanted to reduce tax.

Can't both be true...

To be fair, cigarettes have additional restrictions like where and to whom it can be sold, and also advertisement. Or even being explicitly called out on media ratings: PG-13, contains smoking!

I don't know if anyone has quantified the effects on sales of each measure, but they certainly add up with the additional taxes.

The difference here is that the ban is applicable to minors. We already ban minors from a slew of products, this is only extending that list.

I think if the goal is that you want kids to eat less of this stuff, then just don't let kids buy it.

If the goal is to raise money, then maybe some sort of tax is the better bet, but you have to keep in mind who benefits from the raised money vs how much of their money you're taking. This would be a regressive tax & poorer people tend to eat more junk food and have more health problems, too. I mean, don't discount the externality that such a tax would disproportionately punish poor people for buying certain snacks.

In addition to that, the federal government set new labeling rules for food. Processes food has to display a big-ugly sign as part of their label if the product contains more calories, sugar, salt or fat than the recommended dose:

(pictures)

https://www.milenio.com/ciencia-y-salud/nuevo-etiquetado-est...

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.

Yes, Bimbo is a fully Mexican company and makes products like gansitos, negritos (now just "nitos"), barritas, Duvalin etc. that Mexicans love. That's not even getting into other sweets that Mexicans love like pan dulce, paletas, bolis and so on.

Frankly to blame America is to take agency away from Mexican people and reeks of paternalism and ethnocentricity.

I don't think most people blame USA, it's just "progress". Yesterday at the supermarket I noticed the disproportionate ratio between healthy food (and I count there red meat) and junk food (snacks, sweets,...)

Low- or zero-prep junk food is also incredibly cheap. When I see comparisons done it's usually ingredient costs of healthy food to full-price junk food costs, but that's not how poor people shop for junk food. They go to Taco Bell when the tacos are like 60¢ each or less, through promotions or coupons. They buy Totino's frozen pizzas eight at a time, on sale at half-off. They buy giant bags of store brand sugary cereal and pairs of 3L bottles of store-brand soda, again, on sale. Costco pizzas (they are so cheap on a calories-per-dollar basis, for zero-prep hot food) and bakery items for the enterprising slightly-less-poor who can scrape together the annual fee. Whichever chips or snack crackers are on sale. Off-brand pop tarts—holy crap those are calorie bombs and very cheap and you wouldn't believe how many kids have a couple of those for breakfast most every day. And so on.

Even relatively-healthy-but-not-really-healthy frozen meals can't compete with the outright crap. It's so very cheap.

I think it's pretty easy to tie that "progress" back to American interference in local economies - I can't really speak to how much that is attributed, but blaming America certainly isn't a stretch.

Fuego con limon , spicy chips with a hint of lemon are by far my favorite chip I discovered in Mexico. It took me a few months to find them when I came back state side. I wasn't able to find the standard chip, only oven baked when I got back to the USA. Although I'm sure the oven baked are healthier, it definitely came at the expense of flavor and enjoyment

You can't blame this on Americans. Walk into any tiendita in rural Mexico and you will find isles of candy and sugary beverages, much of which Americans wouldn't recognize. Mexico loves sweets.

I'm glad they're recognizing that dietary health is a serious issue and trying to make changes. But I wonder what effect this will have on paleterias? They're one of the many things I miss from Mexico.

We certainly can. There's a huge amount of influence america has on global eating habits. Coca-Cola, Frito-Lay, and McDonald's are some of the major corporate villains, in case you forgot, and they deserve their reputations.

Mexico has Jarritos, Sabritos, Barcel, and lots of other local brands that are much more prevalent than their American counterparts. If Coca-Cola, Frito-Lay, and McDonalds all vanished suddenly, it would not significantly change the diet of most Mexicanos. You might be able to formulate a coherent hippie rant about "corporate food" but it isn't a specifically American phenomenon.

It's unclear whether all of those soft-drinks would be as successful as they are if Coca-Cola didn't open up that market though.

"Open up the market"?? Maybe you're thinking of Cortez?

You obviously aren't that familiar with the subject since Jarritos is the only soft drink in that list (the others are snack brands). I feel there's an undercurrent of paternalistic racism in this thread - "those noble naive Mexicans would be so healthy if they only hadn't been enslaved to imperialist American fast food corporations!"

Mexico is a whole country full of educated, modern, free-thinking individuals with their own strong, vibrant culture. They're incredibly proud of it. They have their own tastes and their own products serving those tastes and yes, they struggle with dietary health just like everyone else in the world. Walk up to a native Mexican sometime and tell them that they only like pan dulce because Americans have brainwashed them, see how well that goes over.

I'm not totally sure - if you go out to rural, poorer Mexico, away from the corporate chains and packaged snackfoods, the traditional Mexican diet isn't especially healthy. Lots of lard, simple carbs, etc.

Since when? And what happened?

Then stop eating it. Whatever happened to personal responsibility? If I can say no to sweets anyone can.

> I know kids who exclusively drink soda.

Their parents probably do too.

Also worth noting, there are places in Mexico where it's easier and cheaper to get a bottle of Coca-Cola than one of potable water. [1]

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/14/world/americas/mexico-coc...

Not just a Mexico problem. There are many towns in California where I wouldn't even consider asking for a cup of water at a restaurant.

Its not just American Corporations. The US, Canada and EU and Switzerland were all opposed to this law because it impacted they big food industry.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-health/mexicos-new...

Most kinds of soda are available in sugar-free form, so drinking soda shouldn't be the problem.

Aspartame is pretty terrible for you, so sugar-free alternatives that use artificial sweeteners (instead of just naturally savory flavorful options) aren't great either.

That's a highly controversial statement.

Where are the parents?

Caving to marketing designed to make children nag their parents.

When I was a kid my parents only let me watch PBS. No saturday morning cartoons -> no sugary cereal commercials -> no desire/nagging for sugary cereal.

Install adblockers on any computer your kids use. Cancel your cable television subscription. Deny these corporations the opportunity to pump their propaganda into your kids.

Saying 'no' and limiting your child's access to TV, etc., that's parenting, indeed.

But again it's easier to give up and let them watch TV than having to actually deal them.

I still remember the hate I felt when I watched my sister turn from a really calm child to a screaming brat because of Hannah Montana. I don't watch the TV, now around 12 years.

It's a parenting issue then, because saying 'no' to a nagging child is basic parenting, always has been.

Parenting issue or not we protect children with laws all the time. Think no further than alcohol and tobacco products whose sale to minors is banned. Sure we could say "where are the parents" but that's not how reality works and good solutions are the one that work in reality not on paper.

Without legal push to make everyone work in unison there will always be an entity (a corporation) willing to invest enough to push the right buttons and coax people into the most unhealthy habits. After all the profits will belong to that company while the expense is paid by society. The overwhelming majority of individuals are completely unqualified to see through the onslaught of marketing (especially the covert kind), the social pressure, or even to understand the risks they're taking.

You're ignoring the point. The issue is one of culture (and parenting when it comes to children), in Mexico and in all other countries.

Corporations are an easy scapegoat that also fits a political ideology on the left.

It's also a complete fallacy to claim that people cannot see through things. People are not stupid they know that it is their diet that makes them fat. People deserve at least this credit and respect.

Alcohol and cigarettes sales to children are obviously completely different and a very poor analogy.

So... Following the logic, either we accept that people are free to make their own decisions, that parents are responsible for their children, or we take children away from parents because the state knows best.

Personally I think we should do the maximum we can to teach good diets at schools, and perhaps provide classes for adults, and to label products then people can do whatever they want but live with the consequences.

But I think the likely outcome (as we start to see in some countries), which must be politically acceptable and cheap, will be similar to the path taken for cigarettes: PR campaigns and tax. This is a way to let people do what they want while nudging them, and to let them pay for the consequences (healthcare where it is financed through tax).

When it comes to children parents won't be blamed (although they should be) because this is not good to win votes. It will be easier to continue blaming ads and corporations, and to ban things.

> Corporations are an easy scapegoat that also fits a political ideology on the left.

Calling things 'left', 'ideology', 'fallacy' and randomly saying things are 'completely different' aren't great arguments if you keep it at statements instead of an argument.

Marketing is _very_ effective. Further, people are paid for to ensure it is effective. Having rules to restrict that behaviour does go against some peoples idea of what a government should do. IMO that's exactly what the government should do, protect the people (among other things!).

> When it comes to children parents won't be blamed (although they should be) because this is not good to win votes.

You're making this a parent thing, and an either/or thing. It's much easier to do multiple things at the same time. Ensure parents are educated, ensure children cannot be marketed.

Well, I'm happy to hear your arguments, then...

It seems obvious to me that alcohol and cigarettes are not the same thing as telling people what to eat or feed their children. I'm happy to hear your take on this.

It also seems obvious to me that people in fine choose what to eat and drink. No-one ever put a gun to my head, for example. I absolutely agree that marketing influences choices, but only up to a point. Certainly the quantity is a personal choice. Giving Coke to your children for breakfast (I have seen it here in England) is a personal choice. A crap diet is a personal choice.

I also think that parents are responsible for their children. Marketing targeted at children is beside the point. Of course it will work, but again only up to a point: in fine it is the parents' decision to let anything go or to impose limits. I am a parent, I know but I'm also happy to hear your views on this.

And finally, it is also clear to me that blaming corporations (and behind them capitalism) for people's bad diets is a political stance because it fits the view that people are oppressed and victims of the system. But it's also the politically easy and low-risk thing to do because you don't scold people you want to convince to vote for you.

I agree that parents and children should be educated, that's even what I wrote in my previous comment. But let's also acknowledge people's responsibility in their life choices.

My take on the situation (at least here in England) is not that people don't know or that they are victims, it's simply that they couldn't care less.

> Corporations are an easy scapegoat

When they lobby (pay) to get more influence than you have as a voter then I'd say they they are nnot just "scapegoats" but actually guilty together with the politicians they bri... I mean lobbied with. And corporations get to profit from this while the society as a whole pays the price for the fallout.

> political ideology on the left

Why do some people always need to turn everything into a political ideology thing? Contrary to your belief it adds nothing to your argument, if anything it subtracts most of the little weight it had to begin with. Off the bat after a single line your comment holds about as much weight as a wet paper bag.

> are obviously completely different and a very poor analogy.

Is it? It's the state banning something considered unhealthy in one way or another. Why is drinking 100% sugary drinks totally acceptable but a glass of wine or beer, or a piece of pornographic material are illegal?

> So... Following the logic

Then by all means, follow the logic don't just replace it with your skewed one and pretend that it was somehow a natural progression of what I said.

> then people can do whatever they want but live with the consequences.

So... Following your logic governments shouldn't be allowed to ban anything. But people can still do anything they want. They will just have to live with the consequences exactly as you said. In this case the consequence is that if you sell this stuff to kids you get a fine.

Ban them, tax them, disincentivize people to buy them, claw back from the corporations the costs of having a society hooked on, disabled, or slowly killed by those very products. It just has to be a clear sign that the state and the society at large shouldn't bear the costs of supporting a person who has severely undermined their health from the age their brain and body are still developing. And it's also society protecting itself by protecting kids from parents' mistakes.

17 years ago there was a candy or confection sold in Mexico containing lead. I know this because I briefly contracted to a California state agency charged with reducing lead poisoning among children. Apparently lead, like many metals, imparts a kind of sweet taste, which is why there was, and probably still is, a problem with children eating old flaking paint containing lead.

I have not followed this situation since. Does anyone know if this confection is still legal and available in Mexico? This was a lot more dangerous than any junk food.

The ancient Romans used lead acetate as an artificial sweetener. It's shocking to consider this practice in the modern era though.

That's interesting. Of all the years of making fun of the apartment lease addendum pages about lead paint, I had always just written it off to "dumb things people do". I had no idea there was any kind of rewarding behavior at all.

You might be referring to tamarind based candy, particularly tamarind sold in clay containers. You can search for it as "tamarindo ollita". This is mostly still available as far as I know.

Sugar is an addictive poison. These products should be outright banned. Folks can make wonderful pastries at home.

https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2009/06/8187/obesity-and-metabolic...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

>These products should be outright banned. Folks can make wonderful pastries at home.

Sugar is sugar. What's the difference between a homemade pastry and store bought pastry?

A homemade pastry has fewer preservatives and additives, you have greater control over the contents, requires a time and effort investment, and is not heavily marketed with prominent placement in grocery stores and appealing, colorful packaging. There are both nutritional and psychological differences between the two that make the homemade version effectively much less unhealthy for you.

>A homemade pastry has fewer preservatives and additives

Sugar is sugar.

Not really. There's a difference between cane sugar, and high fructose corn syrup.

Not that too much can sugar is good for you either, but it's more expensive, so before the advent of corn syrup, less was used.

False and irrelevant. False, because there's way more than one kind of sugar - glucose, fructose, sucrose, lactose, and more, not to mention cane sugar vs. HFCS. Irrelevant, because there are other non-sugar things in commercial food products that cause you to want to consume the products more, which causes you to consume more sugar. Finally, who says that I put more sugar in my pastries than Hostess does?

Those things aren't sugar though.

I'm not sure if you're missing the point intentionally or unintentionally but while those chemicals sometimes can cause health problems later in life but the sugar is what's causing the calories that are causing the obesity that is causing the health problems we want to mitigate.

The sugar is the problem and both the pastries have the same sugar. The homemade one may be marginally better but it's a distinction without a meaningful difference. The problems caused by oddball chemicals used in industrial food manufacturing are less than a rounding error compared to the problems caused by obesity.

No, it is actually both things. The sugar causes people to eat the stuff and does contribute to obesity, but sugar is only a contributer. The additives and ingredients like vegetable oils (which cause health problems of their own due to their chemical structure) also contain a lot of calories (fat contains more calories per gram than sugar).

In Australia obesity increased while sugar consumption decreased. The additives really matter and have a huge impact on human health--they are not a rounding error, but it was a great marketing tactic on behalf of various food industry groups to vilify sugar while deflecting from the other ingredients that are similarly problematic.

>ingredients like vegetable oils (which cause health problems of their own due to their chemical structure) also contain a lot of calories (fat contains more calories per gram than sugar).

Which are present in home cooked baked goods too.

I know it's not as simple as just "sugar=fat" but the difference between home cooked junk food and industrially cooked junk food is vanishingly small.

> but the difference between home cooked junk food and industrially cooked junk food is vanishingly small.

In terms of chemistry/nutrition I agree. However there is a huge difference in convienence. Pastries are a huge pain in the ass to make, and consequently I only make two or three pies a year. Store bought pastries are trivial to acquire and gorge on seven days a week.

> What's the difference between a homemade pastry and store bought pastry?

People consume less when consumption is less convenient. A billion people aren't going to start baking cupcakes every day.

I make sugar-free pastries at home. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythritol

What kind of flour do you use? Usually it contains sugar too.

What kind of flour has sugar in it? Most flours are a mixture of starches and protein from grinding up a grain. Starches take more work to digest than sugars, so they don't spike blood sugar levels as quickly.

Flours do contain some naturally occurring sugar, usually less than 1%.

Where do you find flour that contains sugar? I've never seen that in NL and a few countries around it.

Maybe they consider all carbs sugar? ~shrug~

You can choose to put less sugar in your homemade pastries. I sometimes bake cookies at home and I use less than half the "recommended" sugar amount, and they still taste sweet. I've never really liked commercial sweet baked food because the high amount of sugar causes a "burning" sensation when I eat them.

You can also buy sugar free pastries. You can also add extra sugar when you bake your pastries.

I don't understand how this invalidates my point that sugar is sugar. That there is no difference between sugar in commercial goods, and sugar you add when you bake at home.

Sure, I think the parallel you're trying to draw is that you can also buy diet coke instead of regular coke, but many will vehemently argue that it's not the same thing.

I'm sure given enough effort, I _could_ find cookies made with half the sugar and dark chocolate, but if you asked me right now, I honestly couldn't tell you where to find such a thing, let alone at a price comparable to run-off-the-mill chips ahoy (never mind the cost of baking them from scratch).

We can certainly be pedantic and say one molecule of glucose is identical to another, but the logistics of buying cookies on impulse at the supermarket vs taking out a mixer to make them on a saturday morning will realistically not likely yield identical amounts of sugar intake. There's also something to be said about the shock of learning how much butter goes into these things!

> What's the difference between a homemade pastry and store bought pastry?

I can't effortlessly and cheaply acquire a honey bun when I've had a bad day if I have to make them at home.

> Sugar is sugar. What's the difference between a homemade pastry and store bought pastry?

You can control the amount of sugar within something you bake yourself for starter.

The amount of sugar in them, very often.

You can certainly buy low-sugar/no-sugar commercial goods. You can also bake pastries with extra sugar. Quantity of sugar does matter but sugar is sugar.

This kind of comment asking for it to be banned is always from an extremely uninformed person. Addictive poison, really? Wait til they see what's in fruit. Or just talk to a sports scientist about why it's in sports drinks. Of course in excess it's bad, but normal sugar consumption is not an issue.

A 20oz bottle of Coke, which is a very common consumption choice given it's prevalence, has 65g of sugar. That is not normal sugar consumption. Fruit sugars are offset by the fiber content. Sugary beverages have no redeeming nutritional qualities.

WHO recommends no more than 50g per day for adults, and preferably less than 25g. https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2015/sugar-gui...

Just avoid eating sugar when sedentary, the specific amount isn't so important. When you eat, and what other activities you're doing also matter. Chugging Gatorade and playing basketball is no big deal. Sipping Gatorade while surfing the internet is not so great.

> This kind of comment asking for it to be banned is always from an extremely uninformed person.

Shifting the responsibility for solving a problem from the government towards individual consumers so that corporations can keep making money is a tried, extremely dirty and old PR strategy, originating at least with BP: https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sh...

The PR strategy works because people believe in personal agency.

There is a book called Sweetness and Power by the anthropologist and historian Sidney Mintz with a thesis that the way we consume sugar is not actually so arbitrary.

According to Mintz, the production of sugar was at the heart of the transition from pre-modernity to industrial modernity. Pre-modern human diets all over the world varied widely but consisted of very little or no sugar. The production process required a ton of technological sophistication and intensive labor. Colonial era economic slavery regimes developed mostly in service of the production of sugar.

Sugar is now a huge part of diets in just about every modern culture. It really is addictive in a sense, both for individuals and in a collective economic sense (like oil, sugar consumption and production processes are dialetically self-reproducing, the argument goes).

Myself, I don't really know if we should try to constrain sugar consumption via law for moral reasons. Those efforts sometimes reek of a moralizing paternalism that I don't much care for. But the way we consume sugar, like everything else, has a history. We didn't always do it this way. We need not do it this way forever. And there's more to it than just disparate isolated individual consumption choices.

EDIT - To summarize, the way we consume sugar today is not arbitrary or "natural," but an outcome of the particular way that industrial modernity has developed.

> Addictive poison, really? Wait til they see what's in fruit.

Is that supposed to be a contradiction? It is in fruit and therefore it can't be bad? The poisonous fruit of Atropa belladonna comes to mind.

> Of course in excess it's bad, but normal sugar consumption is not an issue.

The thing is, though, that normal sugar consumption is borderline impossible in a modern diet. You have to go out of your way to avoid sugar, it requires informed decision-making and -- all too often -- purchasing relatively expensive products. Consequently, people who lack education and/or have a low-income are particularly vulnerable.

I agree with the original comment, these products should be outright banned.

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.

I don't think that rage has anything to do with addiction. If someone took away the healthy foods I like to eat I would be enraged too. People just don't like outsiders micromanaging their daily lives.

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.

> These products should be outright banned.

This attitude is more dangerous than sugar.

Maybe, but there doesn't seem to be much danger in them being enacted on a global scale. Even the OP article is treating added-sugar products like age-restricted alcohol, not an outright prohibition. We've seen what happens to laws that try to prohibit consumption in adults (soda ban).

What is dangerous about banning products with added sugar?

I mean, I'm against it. A lot of traditional foods, like fruit preserves, have added sugar.

But what is danger, exactly? People would just not have food that tastes as good...

The danger is not in banning products with added sugar, but in the government having the power to regulate what one may do with one's body. If I wish to drink beer, smoke cigarettes and drink/do coke, that is my decision.

The primary argument against that is that it puts strain on society to provide for people when they experience health issues from that. I have paid my entire life for social health programs and health insurance though, why? So I will be nannied until the age of 90, eating only approved healthy food and doing no activity that may be in some way risky?

If we are going to ban dangerous things which people do for no reason other than they enjoy it, should we go after scuba diving and mountain climbing too after we ban Snickers?

The government does have the power to regulate what you do with your body when your body interacts with the public. Cigarettes are rightly banned in enclosed spaces and shared public spaces. Alcohol is rightly banned if you combine it with operating heavy machinery. I agree that drug use should be decriminalized (complex topic), and that the outright banning of sugary products is a dumb idea.

> The government does have the power to regulate what you do with your body when your body interacts with the public.

I agree, and think this is probably for the best. My opinion is that these laws are rightful when the interaction is direct and obvious. If I smoke in enclosed spaces, I am directly increasing other peoples' chance of cancer, giving them no choice over their bodies. This is analogous to how one's freedom to move their body doesn't extend to hitting other people in the face.

I do not agree with the government imposing restriction based on indirect, ambigous harm, like the "harm to society" that drinking sugary drinks which might lead to obesity causes. Harm to society has been used to justify a myriad of harmful policies. Unless there is a very clear, direct link between an action and harm to a person, the government has no business stepping in.

(Of course, this is all just my opinion, I'm presenting this as a justification for my viewpoint.)

> The danger is not in banning products with added sugar, but in the government having the power to regulate what one may do with one's body.

But... that's not what Mexico's proposal is. It's also not the goal of any of these public health bans.

The goal of the bans is to prevent people from selling and profiting from unhealthy products. It doesn't stop individuals from producing and consuming whatever they want.

How are you going to produce a KitKat?

I think the person you are responding to is calling prohibitionism dangerous, not this consequences of this particular proposal.

It's a deeply unpopular opinion.

Healthy and unhealthy people alike like sweets. Just because some abuse it doesn't mean an outright ban is in order. And why stop at sugar?

"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." - Blaise Pascal

It would be a lot easier for statists if humans were merely cogs to plug into machines to advance the state, and spent all their free time at home doing nothing.

Very nice, works bit less well with internet, but still...

http://archive.is/iJVHc

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.

Sure, but if the alternative is banning which is never a good approach, taxing it makes a lot more sense IMHO.

I'm no agriculture nerd but isn't much of the US particularly well suited to growing corn, regardless of subsidies?

It's a tough situation. Much of the idea behind agriculture subsides is to protect against black-swan events.

We could direct the subsidies more toward ethanol or whatever other corn product, and still be able to get to the raw corn in an emergency.

Doesn't crop insurance exist? Why the need to constantly subsidize?

You can't eat insurance money.

We are lucky to live in a age of a dramatic global decline in famine, but a large scale war or natural disaster could potentially unravel this progress in a devastating way.

Subsidies can do preventative tasks that insurance cannot -- like securing additional capacity of food stores and farm land that farmers wouldn't normally do unless they were being paid to do so.

True, but the US gov't stockpiles grain, oil and other things for those kind of events. I don't see how subsidies help in those scenarios either.

Yes, but much like the PPE stockpile, those are only a stopgap measure and aren't really enough to be a comprehensive solution on their own.

I'm not sure we're solving for much when a bottle of Coke has 100g of cane sugar instead of 100g of high fructose corn syrup.

Is it better? Maybe. Is it still too much sugar? Yes.

Fructose is far from the only unhealthy ingredient in junk food.

Fructose is arguably a poison indistinguishable from ethanol in some very consequential ways.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-alcoholic_fatty_liver_dise...

No Coca Cola? No Jarritos? No Chaparritas? No Joya (De Naranja, Pi~a, Durazno, Uva, Mandarina, Fresa, Toronja, Ponche, Raiz, Manzana o Limon)? I drank all that crap In the 80s and I am not fat. I do have root canals and implants galore.

Same. Yeah I think people love to blame this on entirely on junk food, but seems it is largely an increase in sedentary lifestyle.

Work a MCO and I scream this during medical rounds and the importance of a the endocrine System and I get ghost looks

https://archive.is/iJVHc

Can we ban sugary breakfasts too? Captain Crunch, Froot Loops & their ilk should be illegal.

I think another good move here is to ban the use of cartoon characters to promote unhealthy food. It's outright targeting of the population group most vulnerable to this marketing.

In Chile they implemented regulations on the packaging of junk food and they yielded great results. They apparently saw a 25% reduction in sugary drink consumption in the first 18 months [1].

[1]: https://www.eleconomista.com.mx/internacionales/Consumo-de-b...

Not if you are in the USA, maybe if you are in Mexico, although in Mexico the typical breakfast for kids is more like coffee with milk and chilaquiles (tortilla with tomato sauce) which might not be that healthy.

Are they really that bad? I mean Froot Loops are weird but you don't really eat them often?

I had cereal (usually sugary) for breakfast basically every day for about the first 20 years of my life. I don't think this is terribly uncommon. If it weren't for my mild lactose-intolerance I might never have switched to greek yogurt.

Coming soon... "Real Juice!"

Adults will just buy them for the kids. I bet tons of stores will just ignore the law too.

Isn't this what already happens?

Yes, to some degree, but it's also not uncommon for kids to use their allowances to buy junk food at the store.

I remember growing up (I'm from Mexico) chips often had promos where you could find collectibles with cartoon characters in the bags [1]. The cool kids had huge stacks of these, so I begged my mom to get me chips mostly for the toy. I didn't have an allowance and my mom knew better so I never got any though.

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

I think this will happen too.

Junk food prohibition. Soon, secret clubs selling candy requiring passwords to get in. I predict state-run candy stings in the future.

so under the law, anyone selling a candy to a child could be prosecuted as a criminal activity, with Mexico broken law system this seems to be a really bad idea

The drinking and smoking age is 18. You can definitely get cigs and booze before your 18th birthday if you're crafty, but I've never seen a shop outwardly sell these and bribe cops, nor are cigs and booze trafficked by cartels— this just sounds ridiculous.

Source: I grew up in Mexico. It's definitely more lax than the USA, but it's not the Wild West.

Sounds like a great way for cops to extract bribes from small shop owners.

Would this make the cartels even stronger?

always

Are they going to ban tacos too?

I spent quite a bit of time in Nogales, Mexico and ate as many tacos as I could get my hands on. Across the board they were far healthier than anything I can get from a fast food restaurant in the states. The tacos in (Sonora) Mexico generally consist of: Corn tortilla, meat, cabbage, onions, cilantro. Optional hot salsa.

Hot salsa is not optional.

I'm confident you can construct an unhealthy taco, but is there anything inherently wrong with tacos? Fundamentally it's just a bit of meat, veggies and cheese. The tortilla is grain and thus arguably not great, but tortillas are pretty small compared to the average sandwich bread.

Sandwich bread is mostly air, tortillas are smaller, but they seem to contain a lot more substance.

Tortillas are made from nixtamal, which has some nutritional improvements over raw/heat-only corn.

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

tacos are not traditionally served in Oaxaca and are probably not a major contributor to obesity there. why say something so low-brow?

No.

you mean like taco's and enchiladas? as well as the myriad extremely tasty but insanely unhealthy Mexican foods?

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

Possibly the way it's prepared in some areas, e.g. fried

There's typically relatively little meat and they are mostly carbs.

Have you been to Mexico? Or even SoCal?

I don't think I recall having eaten any of near thousand tacos, even those for $0.50, that had "relatively little meat" and "are mostly carbs" and most often heard the sentiment of not understanding how you were getting such a great deal from non-natives, and natives typically informing inquirers that that's just... how things are and have been.

Maybe deeper in South America? I don't know, haven't been and haven't done much research. But North America? I very much disagree with you and believe that most others would too.

Mexico is known for disregarding laws on alcohol sales to minors..what exactly do they expect the outcome of this to be?

Just another way for the police to steal money from the poor. Great job.

> Mexico is known for disregarding laws on alcohol sales to minors..what exactly do they expect the outcome of this to be?

I grew up in Mexico. You can definitely get booze before you're 18 if you're crafty and find the right store, but I don't see any general "outright disregard" of laws on alcohol sales to minors. I went to college in the USA— it's essentially the same.

I guess I'm thinking more about restaurants, I never purchased alcohol from a store while underage.

"People disgard laws. Whats the point of laws? Laws are for police making money."

The problem is the law enforcement, not the laws.

Agreed, but laws cannot be created in a vacuum. You must take the real world into account, and take a practical approach.

As someone who knows a little bit about Mexico, this seems like a law that completely ignores reality.

Would you agree that government should avoid creating laws that in practice do more harm than good, even if the idea behind the law is good and just?

Nutrition writers struggle to name the industry without using the word food. "Junk food," "fast food," "ultra-processed food," "frankenfood," and so on all help the industry obfuscate that they've refined out and sell the addictive parts, which resemble their sources as much as heroin resembles poppy or cocaine coca leaves.

We don't call heroin "fast poppy" or cocaine "junk coca." Doing so with the addictive refinements from other plants only confuses people that temporarily filling their bellies resembles nourishing themselves. Heroin would make us feel less hungry temporarily too, but we recognize it harms.

Michael Pollan's "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants" implies non-food isn't food, but he doesn't come up with the needed name for what's not food that he recommends avoiding eating.

The word "doof" -- food backward -- is catching on among some nutritionists and food writers. The change in your world view that comes from differentiating food from doof is tremendous. You see 90% of the supermarket as a wasteland of addiction, plastic, and pollution. When people say poor people choose fast food over vegetables because they can buy more with their limited funds, you hear that they're buying doof instead of food. Companies selling doof displace farmers markets and people selling food.

Doof is generally packaged, engineered to promote a short-term rush and long-term craving, and its pleasure comes from salt, sugar, fat, and convenience.

I propose using the term doof for doof and avoiding referring to doof with any phrase including the word food.

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