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Comment by cisstrd | Hacker News Reader

Nestle is a very big company making all kinds of products, and since ever more people are following the health and fitness craze, there are so many people obsessed with health, they want to profit from it. They want to adjust their company in order to guarantee future profits, that's actually (a) the most normal thing in the world and (b) a form of following consumer's choice and wishes.

I don't see how selling sugary products for those who buy them and selling health products for those who prefer them is any kind of evil moral conflict. No matter if "health product" means low-fat low-sugar foods or pharmaceutical products.

Scepticism is good, control and regulation is good, blind condemnation is not, not sure what the article is representing. For me it actually is healthy scepticism, some of the comments here are more condemnation I presume.

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First of all, diabetes pills are not really 'health products.' They are more like 'you fucked up your health, now try not to die' products. Even Nestle's low-fat and low-sugar "foods" are a far cry from "health products." You are being disingenuous by conflating the two, or even for suggesting that Nestle is in the business of selling "health products."

Beyond that, however, I see a pretty big flaw in your reasoning here. Given your argument, can you not then extend your theory on guaranteeing future profits to also include the strategy of selling both the problem and the solution? This, too, is a very 'normal' thing for large, multi-national manufacturers of consumer goods to be engaged in.

Nestle, along with Coca Cola and Kroger, is a well-known corporate supporter of programs such as SNAP in the US, and is also one of the largest benefactors from said programs. I am a full-on capitalist, but that does not mean that we ought to give a pass to the morally-flawed existences of companies like Nestle, which leverage its influence in the State to reap greater profits.

How much of the cause of the diabetes endemic is Nestle though? Isn't lack of nutritional education more to blame?

It's easy to come down hard on the smoking industry due to the chemically addictive nature and serious health hazards of the product, but there are many consumers who moderate their fat and sugar intake. And then there are diabetics who don't consume any Nestle products - so why can't they be given treatment manufactured from a conglomerate?

Agreed.

As someone with Type 1 diabetes (look up the difference if you don't know), I'm always interested in this distinction. Sugary foods neither "give people" nor cause Type 2 diabetes. A person consistently consuming too many sugary foods over a long period of time causes themselves to be at higher risk for Type 2 diabetes.

Cigarettes are a different beast, due to the chemically-addictive nature of them (although in this day and age, one could make the argument that people of all ages should know better than to start smoking, and should thus bear responsibility for the outcome - but that's another discussion for another time).

Cigarettes != sugar. End of story.

It is possible one day cigarettes will be considered a minor evil in comparison with sugar. Just you wait.

Only if second-hand sugaring becomes a trend and manages to beat out second-hand smoke in the evil dept.

It's interesting how hyper-aware western and particularly U.S. cultures are of sugar and fat. From the 1990's there's still the stigma that eating any sugar and fat will make you fat.

How are the dopamine hits from a nicotine-delivery product different from the dopamine hits from a glucose-delivery product?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3188825/

"Sugary foods neither 'give people' nor cause Type 2 diabetes"

High Sugar Consumption Linked To Type 2 Diabetes http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/257108.php

"For a while the association between sugar consumption and type 2 diabetes was thought to solely relate to weight gain, but new research conducted at UC San Francisco indicates that sugar intake may also be directly linked to diabetes.

...

"This suggests for the first time that not all calories contribute to diabetes risk in the same way.

...

"Diabetes rates increased the longer a population was exposed to excess sugar and it decreased when sugar availability went down.

...

"Mation Nestle, PhD, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, said:

'As far as I know, this is the first paper that has had data on the relationship of sugar consumption to diabetes. This has been a source of controversy forever. It's been very, very difficult to separate sugar from the calories it provides. This work is carefully done, it's interesting and it deserves attention.'

...

"A previous study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences identified a similar association, revealing that added sugar and high fructose corn syrup may contribute to the development of obesity and diabetes."

The very next sentence they wrote (after what you quoted out of context) is in alignment with the studies you linked.

Their point was that consumption behavior causes Type 2 diabetes, not the substance alone.

I'm not sure this can be much clearer:

"As far as I know, this is the first paper that has had data on the relationship of sugar consumption to diabetes. This has been a source of controversy forever. It's been very, very difficult to separate sugar from the calories it provides. This work is carefully done, it's interesting and it deserves attention."

Here's more on the study:

Quantity of sugar in food supply linked to diabetes rates, researcher says https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2013/02/quantity-of-s...

"Does eating too much sugar cause diabetes? For years, scientists have said 'not exactly.' Eating too much of any food, including sugar, can cause you to gain weight; it’s the resulting obesity that predisposes people to diabetes, according to the prevailing theory.

"But now the results of a large epidemiological study suggest sugar may also have a direct, independent link to diabetes. Researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine, the University of California-Berkeley and the University of California-San Francisco examined data on sugar availability and diabetes rates from 175 countries over the past decade. After accounting for obesity and a large array of other factors, the researchers found that increased sugar in a population’s food supply was linked to higher diabetes rates, independent of obesity rates. Their study was published Feb. 27 in PLOS ONE."

All that says is that obesity isn't the only precursor of diabetes. Mass consumption of simple sugars is shown to be a cause of diabetes and a cause obesity. Mass consumption of sugar is not moderation.

I'm also T1 and I think that sugar definitely plays a role in both T1 and T2. Sugar directly interacts with pancreas, consumption of sugar has skyrocketed, diabetes rates have skyrocketed. The official word on T1D is that we don't know what exactly causes it, it's not "sugar definitely doesn't cause it."

> Isn't lack of nutritional education more to blame?

This is so easy to blame though, it is a cop out. Yes, lets spend more on education, but lets not raise taxes.

There's no conflict in being a capitalist and thinking that Nestle shouldn't get a pass. They are recipients of government welfare in the form of those SNAP subsidies, since the crap they sell is the only thing people on SNAP can afford to buy in bulk. That's not capitalism, it's just theft.

What is a "health" product or not is of no value to the discussion here I think, we can debate all day long about what way of eating is correct or not, then let me put it in broader terms: Targeting different groups with different products that actually might have nothing in common or even be antagonists in a way, is nothing immoral or unusual. I used the term "health product" as an antagonist to their sugary products.

I did not in any way say Nestle is not selling the cause and the solution, I was trying to make that point that this in itself is meaningless and in no sense immoral.

As kazinator brilliantly put it:

"Yamaha wants to sell you noise-canceling headphones, and a motorcycle."[1]

We can talk about a tax on sugars, we can talk about a different regulatory framework, but I see nothing wrong with what Nestle is doing here given the current legal and regulatory situation.

And people make their choices, if Nestle wouldn't sell product x, someone else would in some form, they are trying that you choose their product, that's all, that's called competition.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11659815

Out of interest - if a cigarette company started selling lung cancer treatment, would you still hold this stance?

I would hazard to say that the analogy I've chosen aligns more closely with the stance of the article and the posters taking a condemnatory tone than your Yamaha analogy does.

Don't really understand the downvotes here can people explain why they are downvoting?

The parent opinion is that Nestle is a large corporation and they are diversifying their revenue streams as every profit-seeking company is entitled to.

The other opinion elsewhere on this thread is that sugar is the enemy and therefore Nestle should be held accountable for first causing a problem then charging people for offering the solution.

It's probably going to be hard to reconcile either opinion given the subject of sugar in diets is already quite divisive, but is an attempt to illustrate the anti-sugar camp's perspective through an extreme but easily understood example not constructive?

as every profit-seeking company is entitled to.

To be sure, this isn't a natural right. The entitlement is entirely a creation of policy and legislation, both of which can be modified or rescinded.

True, completely agree, but we currently live in a world where the majority of corporations will make profit up until the boundaries of legality.

We are not talking about what is health or not, the sugar they sell is bad, that's it, there's no questioning, there are doctors that agree on that, non biased studies, half the USA is ill with diabetes, etc.

Every company has to have a social responsability, I don't see it here. They are causing harm with their products and they also sell the 'cure'. (actually the best is not to eat any of their products, then you don't need anything they sell, just eat 'real', non processed, food).

About Yamaha, motorcycles shouldn't make that many noise, that is the main problem, not the headphones.

> "the sugar they sell is bad, that's it, there's no questioning"

I question it.

There appears to be little-to-no scientific evidence that there are "bad" sugars and "good" sugars. From what I understand (I'm no doctor, just a person who reads a lot) the main problem is the volume of consumption, not "good" vs "bad" sugars. There's nothing wrong with a normal, healthy person having sugar in any of the forms Nestle sells, only with having too much of it.

Now, you could argue that they sell it in quantities that make it easy to have too much, but that's different from saying the sugar itself is bad.

It's not only the dosage that does you in, but also the processing... which i think is what others are alluding to.

Meaning a can of soda has a whacky amount of sugar to begin with, but also, if compared to say an orange, has no fiber/roughage (which helps the insulin spike supposedly, plus orange will have good micro-nutrients and antioxidants).

I think people should be much more mindful of these manufactured processed foods and drinks, and why sticking to whole foods just makes sense.

> "It's not only the dosage that does you in, but also the processing"

but not the sugar itself -- it's the same chemical. (There are those who believe certain types of sugar are processed differently in your body, which is actually not true, at least based on the large body of scientific evidence available thus far.)

I don't believe different sugars are processed differently. I do thing that release mechanisms are different in, for example, corn vs corn syrup. The "extra stuff" you get with corn mediates how fast a body can absorb the sugar, the container needs to be broken down. So, in some sense, yes, all sugars are the same. The delivery system can change the rate of absorption though. *

* I have no proof of this. I'm making an uneducated guess that the insulin spikes aren't as steep or high with sweet fruits and vegetables compared with a spoon full of sugar.

Sugar they sell you is bad, period. Every gram of their nutritionally empty sugar takes away from the caloric input that you could have got from real food with many other nutrients than pure energy. This in the long run makes a difference. And all this beside other bad effects of processed sugar like insulin spikes, etc.

> Sugar they sell you is bad, period. Every gram of their nutritionally empty sugar takes away from the caloric input that you could have got from real food with many other nutrients than pure energy.

Again, is Nestle's sugar somehow chemically different than ordinary sugar?

You're absolutely right! I'm going to tell my 4 year old she's done having chocolate. Period. No sense in taking way from the caloric input she could have gotten from real food. Ice cream, jellybeans, and cake is out too. She'll get a tofu slab for her birthdays and a cold, crisp glass of water for her desserts.

Actually, just switching to non-sweetened water can mean no obesity. There are also studies that show heavily mechanically processed food is more caloric than expected - because it is ground so fine that there is real difference in energy required to break it down.

> the sugar they sell is bad, that's it, there's no questioning

I dunno, I think sugar is pretty delicious. Not everything has to be about maximizing your lifespan, you know. A balanced life can include tasty stuff.

I don't use any sugar in any of my recipes (a part from pastry) and they are tasty. More than all this processed food. Just using whole foods. Maybe it's the mediterranean diet, we eat too good here in Spain ;P

At the end it is all about balance as you say, but I really prefer to be balancing between meals that are too caloric than processed foods which we don't even know which ingredients contain.

But they don't sell "problems" they make and sell food, some of which is good for you and some not so much.

The reason why they exist at the level they do is because of the economies of scale you gain from being able to order millions of tons of grain, sugar, milk, etc., then processing them in huge factories, then distributing them to other huge companies that own grocery stores and vending machines, etc. It doesn't strike me as morally questionable to include other products, including medicine (OTC or not) in that process. In fact, if it makes the medicines more affordable it can be more beneficial for the people who need it than not.

The reason why activists keep going after them and other large corporations is because getting them to change their behavior, when they're one of the largest purchasers or creators of something, can make more difference than lobbying the government to make every corporation follow suit. Which is why we should try to encourage them to do better about issues that matter, including changing packaging and contents of "junk" food.

> First of all, diabetes pills are not really 'health products.' They are more like 'you fucked up your health, now try not to die' products

You can make the same argument about low cost sugary foods that originated from the same conglomerates - trade lower prices & time to avoid starving... if you can't afford to eat healthy you eat what's fast, affordable and tastes good.

You can have your cake and eat it too, you just won't live very long...

I agree there isn't a 'sickle' marketing department where in the company creates the problem and caters at every stopping point until your ultimate demise - unless of course Nestle owns a collection of funeral homes...

Hanlons razor: never assume bad intentions when assuming stupidity is enough

In Spain we say "Pan para hoy, hambre para mañana". Which literally translated would mean "Bread for today, hunger tomorrow". Eat cheap and in the future your health will be paying for that, and it will be more expensive than eating healthy during your life.

This is the kind of advice the rich can follow. For the poor, it's not a choice between cheap/bad and expensive/good, it's the choice between cheap/bad and death from starvation right now.

Death from starvation isn't exactly a widespread problem in the developed world. Homelessness is the more realistic outcome.

You're right. It doesn't change the calculation much though - especially when we're thinking about poor families; feeding yourself or your children badly is suboptimal, but it beats the hell out of raising them on the street or giving up to the foster care.

One argument I read is that when you take profits from the food industry and subtract health care costs due to industrial diets we're (just the US) 1.4 trillion a year in the red.

I think you sort of have to look at how SNAP evolved. It was the result of what was deemed to be an iterative series of improvements. Way too low-res, the sequence was "commodities" to food stamps to SNAP, with generics and store brands also evolving out of the same ferment.

SFAIK, the principal ... principle driving this was administrative cost reduction on the government side - reuse existing buildings and people.

And then it ties into the crop subsidy system, which is generally awesome in that it prices risk from shortage almost to zero at a cost in mild to "OMG!" overproduction.

My local drugstore sells both kinds of products too. If it's evil for Nestle, it's arguably even more evil for Walgreens, since that's where the consumer is making their purchasing decision.

You could draw a parallel between this and the tabacco free pharmacy push:

http://cvshealth.com/thought-leadership/cvs-health-perspecti...

You know, people say the same kinds of things about Sony, but it's obvious to everybody that Sony Pictures has screwed up Sony Electronics, and badly.

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