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Comment by xctr94 | Hacker News Reader

It could be good food. You can make a profit whilst serving the public good, that’s something corporations just can’t get into their heads.

Nestlé in Europe has made a few versions with more whole grains and less sugar, with no detectable change in taste. For a while, I was eating rice-based low-sugar breakfast cereal with added vitamins, simply because the alternative was a pastry and coffee (very busy work weeks). I despise Nestlé, but, hey, at least here’s a healthier version of our product — not healthy, healthier.

The race to the bottom in terms of sugar and additives might also be a factor as to why breakfast cereal is in decline. Make better products and we’ll buy them.

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There's a certain irony in citing Nestle in an appeal to social good.

Corporations often do serve the public good. They just don't become very successful doing that. The most successful corporations are always the ones that cater to public desire, which is only sometimes aligned with public good.

> You can make a profit whilst serving the public good, that’s something corporations just can’t get into their heads.

A much simpler explanation that also makes a lot more sense in my opinion, since I do believe corporations are rational (if somewhat sociopathic) actors, is that products that cater to “the public good” often simply aren’t very popular.

It’s also incredibly reductive to use a term like “the public good” with no elaboration whatsoever, as if this was some kind of axiom that we can all agree upon.

Is the public good to maximize duration of life, quality of life, multitude of choice or something else entirely? And who gets to decide?

Cereals have a high glycaemic index even without any additives, so they’re objectively not good food.

Saying that food with a high glycemic index is simply “not good food” shows a lack of understanding regarding what the glycemic index indicates and what constitutes “good food”.

There’s food with a high glycemic index that is most certainly not “bad food” (like fruit), and there’s food with a low glycemic index that definitely could be by what I assume is your criteria (like butter).

Also the statement “cereals have a high glycemic index” isn’t even true, since some of them do (like corn flakes), while some of them don’t (oatmeal, which is close to oranges).

Fruit that I would consider as good food have a lower GI than your favorite cereal, so your argument that there exists high GI food that works well as good food, doesn’t stand. Bad example. There’s definitely fruit out there that I would only rarely touch.

That would vary depending on the cereal though. They're not all high.

https://www.dietandfitnesstoday.com/glycemicIndexDetails.php...

That is an interesting chart. Apparently the breakpoint between medium and high is 70, and some just barely squeaked in under that in the upper 60s. That doesn’t inspire a lot is confidence.

It depends on the person, I suppose. For me, GI=55+ is quite high. Soda and cola is 60, and those are go-to for raising blood glucose in people with type 1 diabetes. Something that has emergency use properties for raising blood glucose fast and by a lot doesn't feel like it is very healthy to consume all the time.

And besides, I think we all decided that sugary soda is unhealthy. But we still consider cereal healthy. They both seem to trigger a similar metabolic response, and have a similar satiety profile.

Everyone chooses for themselves, in their own circumstances, though. Even straight up eating glucose with caffeine makes for a great pre-workout mix in a pinch.

Sure, 55 may be considered high for someone with a medical condition, but saying “it depends on the person” is a strange way to phrase that. For most people it’s not high.

> For most people it’s not high.

In other words, it depends on the person. :)

Some people are not fans of eating things approaching soda GI, as they have a feeling of a sugar rush, followed by a crash and hunger. No need for a medical condition - it can simply be a dietary preference.

It depends on the person and circumstance whether GI above 55 is high. Everyone needs to figure out for themselves, but it helps to be aware of GI in food and see how different GIs make you feel and function. And it helps to be aware that soda-type GI isn't considered very healthy by some, with ongoing debate.

Also, possibly 55+, 65+, or whatever arbitrary threshold is not too high for most people. There's some debate around that now. So I still think it doesn't hurt to be aware. But possibly.

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