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Comment by yetihehe | Hacker News Reader

> Half a century of food trends has created an environment where more than half the food consumed by American adults is ultra-processed, often optimized to hit the body’s fat and sugar sensors to release dopamine.

On first sight, this looks like optimization problem. Food is optimized as to be more pleasant than other food on shelves, so that particular food is selected more. The problem started when we had food that was so optimized to be tasty that it became irresistible for many people (like me). Cynical solution - make laws to make food more bland. Good solution - not found yet and this article also doesn't provide any solution, only states the problem.

[edit] - A little edit to add clarity that I'm not another "just do X" commenter.

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> Cynical solution - make laws to make food more bland.

This isn't cynical and it isn't that correct. The issue isn't taste as much as it's a desire to have ultra shelf stable foods. Fresh foods taste delicious on their own, the problem with American foods is all the preservatives and the never-ending escalation to add more sugar, salt and fat to everything that is consumed.

Preventing this devolution via regulation is the rational and reasonable solution that's been taken pretty much everywhere outside of the US - only when viewed through a hyper-libretarian lens does it make sense to allow food quality to drop to such extremes so that processed food companies could make marginally more money.

Maybe some related reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugary_drink_tax

According to a 2019 review of research on sugar drink taxes, the taxes successfully reduced consumption of sugar drinks and reduced adverse health consequences.

Seems wrong to go after the consumers when we can question why we let companies line their own pockets by selling vices so successful that they are destroying everyone's health, yet so normalized that we don't think to question why we let megacorps do it.

I also think it's a scale thing. Selling grandma's cookies at the grocer? Fine. Megacorp optimized junk (and nothing else) sold at every 7/11 on the continent? Perhaps not so excusable.

> Megacorp optimized junk (and nothing else) sold at every 7/11 on the continent? Perhaps not so excusable.

It's excusable because it's just tasty food, which theoretically we are supposed not to eat too much. The problem is that this food became more tasty, convenient and sometimes cheaper (at least in time-value) than normally cooked food and we as a society don't even have enough time and knowledge to cook proper healthy food.

> (and nothing else)

Because it's cheap. There are many places where you can buy healthy food but it's more expensive.

It's also double-dipping; excessive subsidies via taxes, then add ANOTHER tax to offset the cheap prices caused by subsidies? Just have less insane subsidies!

(Yes, subsidies are necessary, national food security etc.; but a LOT is just from lobbying and corruption. Never gonna reduce them because of that, but we can dream.)

It's important to note that often, these taxes aren't imposed on consumers directly, but on distributors. Distributors and retailers just choose to price gouge rather than make a fraction of a cent less per ounce sold.

Even with that in mind, it's easy to say "why do we let megacorps do it"? Well, we don't, not necessarily. They just have the financial and legal resources to impose their will. A pigouvian tax is probably the easiest tool most levels of the US government has to restrict successful vices. Look at that link again. See how much money Coke, Pepsi, etc. were spending in Philadelphia and San Francisco to fight taxes that have solid legal standing. Localities taking action need to make sure they're bulletproof legally, or else the action will be reversed.

What other way do you regulate this without impacting consumer choice?

> Cynical solution - make laws to make food more bland

Ultra processed food is not really tasty but a combination of sugar and fats make it easy to overeat without enjoying it. French, Mediterranean and Japanese cuisines on other hand have a lot of delicious dishes but in these regions obesity is much less of a problem in the US.

Generally I don't like a nanny state but IMHO sugar tax is something to be considered.

Sugar tax doesn't work, just like cigarettes and alcohol tax, which in my country is 105% already, yet people still smoke, we also have sugar tax for sweet drinks and it changed nothing. When something is addictive (meaning it becomes a necessity), people will just pay more or search for "illegal" alternatives.

This feels hard to justify. Does it eliminate usage? Of course not, bans are the closest you can get to that. Seems somewhat safe to say it does reduce it, though.

https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/article/explainer/... and most of the other links I'm seeing all point roughly to decent results. No panacea, but that is rather unfair for any policy.

This is not the case in Australia who has some of the highest costs ciggies [1]. FMC = factory made ciggies. RYO = Roll your own.

> The 25% tax increases was associated with immediate (−0·745 percentage points; 95% CI −1·378 to −0·112) and sustained reductions in prevalence (monthly trend −0·023 percentage points; −0·044 to −0·003), which were driven by reductions in the prevalence of smoking of FMC. The prevalence of smoking of RYO increased between May, 2010, and November, 2013, after the 25% tax increase. At the start of the pre-announced annual 12·5% increases, we observed an immediate reduction in smoking (−0·997 percentage points; −1·632 to −0·362), followed by decreasing overall prevalence (monthly trend −0·044 percentage points; −0·063 to −0·026) due to ongoing decreases in the prevalence of FMC smoking and a cessation of increases in the prevalence of smoking of RYO.

I’m not sure what the price is now, something like $40 a box of 20? These days you hardly see anyone smoke normal cigarettes.

[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2...

The smoking and sugar consumption rate have both been declining in your country (Poland).[1][2]

So your statement that the tax is ineffective seems at best unfounded, and at worst, entirely false. It’s possible that there are other causes for the decrease, but you simply can’t say nothing has changed.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1038507/poland-share-of-... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1197501/poland-monthly-c...

This was tried with prohibition. made things worse

Have you heard of the continent called europe?

iirc, the rate of alcoholism during prohibition drops considerably.

What was made worse?

Death from unsafe alcohol, crime. Those that did drink tended to consume more. Cost of futile enforcement (also see: the war on drugs).

Tangential: It enabled gangsters and made them rich and powerful.

Tax it instead. Enough tax to reduce consumption and make healthier food more competitive. But not so much that a large black market takes off.

It doesn't work for addictive substancies (like sugar), people will just pay more. We have sugar tax in Poland already and it didn't change anything. We also have 105% tax on cigarettes, yet still a lot of people smoke.

Again: the smoking and sugar consumption rate have both been declining in your country.[1][2]

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1038507/poland-share-of-... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1197501/poland-monthly-c...

Asking for laws instead of people to build self control is not the answer.

As the saying goes, 'the human mind is a stationary target'. At some point the idea, that average people can build enough self-control to resist all those temptations that are constantly being optimized into being the most tempting they can be, just doesn't work anymore. Nobody would argue for giving kids free access to heroin and let them 'train their self control'.

> Nobody would argue for giving kids free access to heroin and let them 'train their self control'.

When most people argue against prohibition, they're not saying that making the bad thing available is great. They're saying that we can't effectively reduce the availability of things that people want, so when we attempt to do so, we end up with all of the negative externalities associated with prohibition without any of the actual prohibiting

At the same time: "Residents of states where cannabis has been legalized use marijuana 24% more frequently than those living in states where it remains illegal" -- Colorado University

This may be fine enough for weed, but what if harder drugs start being used 24% more? Even if they're in more pure form than from illegal sources, that doesn't sound like a net positive.

Oxycontin is perfectly legal and regulated such that only qualified professionals were able to prescribe and dispense it. And look how that turned out.

There's a whole lot of evidence that prohibition vs legalization each have negative effects and it is up to society to decide which is more appropriate in certain situations.

I doubt that food regulations are going to result in black market Doritos barons waging deadly turf wars in the streets. But I suspect it will result in food manufactures building a much worse product in response.

Do you have a link to the study? When I did a quick search I saw a pretty wide variety of numbers, not sure which one you are referring to.

Another way of writing that headline is potentially "cannabis users 24% more likely to admit to using cannabis when in a state where it's legal", or even "marijuana legalization brings cannabis users from out of state".

Even if the study you're referring to does effectively control for those two factors- I would hesitate to apply those results to a harder drug like heroine. Marijuana education and legalization are happening at the same time. The information on Marijuana is pretty promising and education may incentivize it's use for some purposes. I do not believe the same about heroine- education would probably disincentivize it's use.

If you need the government to tell you what to eat, I think were at a point where we let evolution fix this one for us... as for that is signs of a failed society.

without "the government" we wouldn't know what is actually in the food and couldn't make an informed decision

Do: Have the government require transparency and safety of producers of goods (especially food).

Do not: Dictate or attempt to control what food consumers choose.

Exceptions: Tobacco, carcinogens, hallucinogens, narcotic substances, poisons... See "safety"

Why is sugar not on your list of exceptions when excessive quantities of it are much more impactful on your health than everything on that list outside of out-right-poisons?

Obesity is killing a lot of folks before they grow old enough to develop Cancers.

I could classify food as narcotic substance. It's addictive for me, I've felt withdrawal symptoms very clearly and I really felt like a junkie on hunger when I dropped too much weight too fast. There is BIG a difference between "stomach empty" hunger and "PANIC_MODE: your cells require energy NOW" hunger.

Someone has already pointed out sugar and how it's not on your exceptions list.

Let's do this another way though.

What are the criteria for being added to your exceptions?

Please explain the food pyramid?

How about we let the government decide what is legal to advertise for? That worked okay for tobacco.

Also worked for the food pyramid...

You're saying something I don't think you intend - on a societal level America is being burdened with healthcare costs that are spiraling out of control... the failed society is the one that has failed to reasonably regulate food and is now burdened with extreme obesity epidemics and nutritional deficiencies.

It's easy to say "Just eat better" when you're wealthy but the working poor in America don't have any great options outside of switching to base staple foods like rice and beans... and that's difficult to do when good seeming fast foods are offered in abundance.

On a societal level "evolution" seems to be pretty clearly indicating that America was wrong on this one.

Evolution only works this way if the person dies before having children

Individual self control vs corporate chemical addiction machines...

Regulation is a good thing - it helps citizens save their energy for their own lives, instead of having to reserve it for navigating an increasingly complex and profit-optimized society.

This is a form of the argument "we must protect people from themselves".

Look, there are a lot of religions out there that push feelings, take advantage of people and encourage false beliefs. We should help citizens save their energy for their own lives and regulate Buddhism as the required state religion. That way citizens don't have to navigate all these religions.

Usually education is the selected weapon against the latter, which means I could probably bastardize education into saying "we must protect people from themselves"

If you genuinely don't think the massive power imbalance between for-profit food providers and individual citizens should be regulated to prevent the use of addictive chemistry, do you also spend your time regularly arguing for all drugs to be legalized?

If healthcare costs were completely private - then sure, do whatever you want.

When a large portion of healthcare costs are public - then you might want to ban things with huge negative externalities in the form of future healthcare costs...

It's a little unfair to eat your cake and have the public pay for it later...

If you want to incentivize the lowest-cost option, you should be pushing for hydrogenated saturated fats and high-sugar diets and for people to take up smoking. Morbidly obese people tend to die quickly from cardiovascular failure in their 60s and end up costing substantially less than the ordinary population in health care costs over the course of their lives since they don't live to be octogenarians. Especially healthy, smart-eating, athletic people are actually the group that costs the most in total healthcare.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18254654/ "Because of differences in life expectancy, however, lifetime health expenditure was highest among healthy-living people and lowest for smokers. Obese individuals held an intermediate position."

"Although effective obesity prevention leads to a decrease in costs of obesity-related diseases, this decrease is offset by cost increases due to diseases unrelated to obesity in life-years gained. Obesity prevention may be an important and cost-effective way of improving public health, but it is not a cure for increasing health expenditures. "

The linked article was published in PLoS Medicine, a high impact-factor journal.

Except it's not that simple.

0) Dying fast is clearly not an objective - if it was... Why ask people to eat unhealthy things instead of just killing them directly?

1) If you die at 17 - you never pay taxes. Dying fast != cost effective.

2) Unhealthy people that die at 17 can still have more healthcare costs than healthy people that live to 109. Age of death has little to do with healthcare costs.

Thats cold.

I don't actually think self-control is the answer because I think we should consider the effects on brains in sugar/fat to be like effects of other drugs on the brain, especially because we know shit like childhood trauma and poverty predisposes people to obesity.

Passing regulation assumes we actually know what’s best for everyone.

I lost 80 pounds eating Johnsonville Beddar Cheddar Sausages and sauerkraut every day for six months, definitely something that’s “too fatty”.

Losing weight is not the only metric for optimal health.

It's probably the biggest one.

I was CTO for a healthcare network.

Weight loss was the primary focus for population health - because the data massively supports this.

SDOH [1], falls prevention and other stuff, while important, take a far backseat as far as overall health impact.

[1] https://health.gov/healthypeople/priority-areas/social-deter...

CVD is a leading cause of death and remains a risk even without excess weight; one needn't discount everything other than weight as "falls prevention and other stuff".

> one needn't discount everything other than weight as "falls prevention and other stuff".

I didn't.

And yes, CVD is a huge issue. Obesity directly contributes to it, independent of other factors [1].

Which is why most population health stuff is targeted at weight loss.

From a population health standpoint, it has the biggest impact with well understood interventions.

FWIW, I helped deliver CMS certified DPP programs that were funded by private payers. Their data was clear on all this.

[1] https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000973

I’m shocked by some of the replies to this comment. Are people seriously advocating for regulations against… stuff that tastes good?

No, thank you. Please don’t tell me what tasty things I’m allowed to create or consume.

Regulation of this type is just group punishment, but advocates believe it to be some kind of altruism.

“People are getting fat!” Okay, but I’m not, and honestly I eat tons of junk. Why punish everyone who likes tasty food? If you hate obesity so much, then outlaw obesity. That’s a stupid idea too, but at least it more closely aligns the regulation with the result you want.

Would you apply the same logic to drugs like cocaine, MDMA or similar?

They, too, can be taken and handled with care and moderation, yet are outlawed (even if sometimes only at the "distribution/dealing" level)

I don't know if we should or shouldn't but it deserves more thought than you're giving it.

For one thing, I seriously doubt prohibition could ever be politically viable, but increased prices or reduced visibility and availability of processed high-calorie ready-to-eat foods might be in some situations. We've already seen some of this, like New York's soda tax or banning vending machines from public schools.

Public health regulations are not completely effective for everyone, but they can still be more effective than null on average. Raising prices, reducing availability or visibility, and other measures do usually work.

Prohibition is often cited as a failure, but in terms of public health, it absolutely was not. On the whole, people did drink less and there were public health and social benefits. The organized crime was a separate issue, and so was self-control, as the will of the people to drink played a part in its downfall as well.

Our steps toward cigarette prohibition, on the other hand, seem unlikely to be walked back. There will still be illegal cigarettes and people who smoke them, but there will be less smoking, and that's a public health win.

The entire food industry is aligned against individual self control. It's incredibly unlikely we can all be lone heroes standing against all that industrialized science.

So how can we control the food industry?

If self-control worked food companies wouldn't go to all this effort and expense.

Since they are rational market participants, we can infer that self-control doesn't work at scale.

So we should get rid of all laws related to drugs, speed limits, drinking while driving, etc?

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