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Comment by OfSanguineFire | Hacker News Reader

Mexico’s big black hexagons warning across excess fat/sugar/calories are kind of ridiculous. I don’t think they are serving to dissuade consumers, and even foreigners stop noticing the labels after just a couple of weeks in the country. The problem seems to be a wider one: Mexico is importing the convenience-store junk-food culture of its northern neighbor. People are often eating crap because there isn’t much else available from an Oxxo.

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The same policy was applied in Chile and it had an impact on the consumption of sugary drinks and most importantly sugary breakfast cereals which all ran on a "we are so healthy and the best way to start the day" platform; while actually being full of sugar and fats.

So I would say if what you want is for people to eat less of a certain food, it works. It's not ridiculous.

Second hand anecdata, but one of my camp counselor friend went to Chile (in remote villages on the 'bad' sides of the Andes to bring them books and teach I guess) and told me that a part of the curriculum for children is nutrition and how to use the labels: basically, moderation (I don't have the details). What's funny is that it seems the children guide the parents in the supermarkets.

It's very easy to judge, at first, from these labels. In Chile they are "high in saturated fats", "high in sugar", "high in sodium" and "high in calories". So even a child can see "okay 3 seals... probably not very healthy".

Only problem with these sort of policies is a phenomenon called "complexification" [1] where in order to get rid of the seals you introduce complexity into the product itself to escape it (for example by replacing certain chemicals with derivatives that are not quite but very similar).

It's difficult to escape the race, but for a while, these policies do work.

[1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/c...

> Mexico’s big black hexagons warning across excess fat/sugar/calories are kind of ridiculous. I don’t think they are serving to dissuade consumers

If they didn't at all, the food companies probably wouldn't be fighting so hard against them.

Going even further from that, to many mexicans having those labels is now considered similarly to a badge of honors. The more labels you have, the more the average mexican expect the product to taste well.

This song from Fito Olivares is quite old and is still a hit in most parties. You'll also encounter it in many tiktoks and instagram reels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-RV8ZbMcdQ

Mexican people also jokingly say stupid shit like you have to act gay 5 mins to avoid it the gayness to accumulate. I put the joke about black labels being a taste rank on the same “stupid things people say” bucket.

> Mexico’s big black hexagons warning across excess fat/sugar/calories are kind of ridiculous. I don’t think they are serving to dissuade consumers, and even foreigners stop noticing the labels after just a couple of weeks in the country.

How ridiculous is it if big corporations take them seriously? In fact, if we look at how tobacco laws worked, this kind of messaging works extremely well in shifting perception of people about it in the long run. Sure, people may still drink it, but maybe they won't give some to their kids, or introduce them to it later, or they won't make jokes about people not joining them in that habit at social gatherings, etc.

I believe the much more contentious problem is the prohibition of using mascots on packaging when these warnings are applied. That is bound to hurt sales much more, especially for the lucrative childhood obesity market.

> the lucrative childhood obesity market.

Great definition. Added to my quotes list.

If they didn’t work they wouldn’t be fighting them this hard.

> Mexico is importing the convenience-store junk-food culture of its northern neighbor.

True. How many people think drinking a coke is great for hydrating yourself or think pre-packaged/fast-food-chain products are "good food"

This is the main issue

How many daily calories are from snacks and other 'needless crap'?

Oh, it's that stupid demonizing thing with the black octagones? We have it for a year or two in Argentina, they don't make sense at all. Why would you ever normalize against calories? You would never get all your calories from only one food, so you wouldn't get the "excess" in fats, carbs or whatever. I believe that european nutriscore does better by normalizing against serving.

Here's a twitter thread explaining it better (in spanish): https://nitter.net/22xTJuan/status/1635239549902389248#m

If someone eats froot loops and can't see by themselves that they are too sugary do they even have the intelligence to make decisions based on those black hexagons?

The point of food labels is help consumers make more informed decisions on what food they consume, especially when the food industry works to make food as addictive as possible. Lets not forget that the messaging behind many (most?) products, especially the unhealthy ones, is one of health and nutrition. When the only message about a food is it's health benefits it's not too farfetched that people may consider Froot Loops part of a healthy breakfast. Froot Loops is an extreme example, in most cases it's more subtle, like granola.

It's easier for kids. 'No mama, we already have one sugar point today, a second is too much', 'beurk, sugar, fat and salt!'.

I'm joking (sightly), but it's easy accounting. Give yourself X sugar point, Y fat points, and Z salt point, per day/per week, and you can still eat unhealthy food while making some effort. Small steps etc.

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