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Comment by midtake | Hacker News Reader

What a load of crock! People have agency. Free will. So what if McDonalds puts out a cool new toy in their adult happy meal or some special sauce loaded with glutamates. Fuck em! Say that to them right now, in your head or out loud: fuck em!

You can stop this addiction right now by merely doing nothing and not eating "UPFs". You have the power. When you get stressed and want to burn time and energy eating because it's at least eating, how about doing a different thing? Each one of us is powered by a soul that can defy these behavior loops with some self-reflection.

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Great analysis, let's also solve smoking and alcohol over-consumption by some self-reflection. No need for any regulations, people are always perfectly rational and have perfect information about any health implications of what they consume. Addicted to gambling? Just stop it.

(For the record my only vice is coffee.)

Exactly. I have stopped eating out almost completely because it is addictive.

Forget McDonalds, almost any Italian or Thai restaurant to me is like a drug dealer.

There is no amount of chicken alfredo that is satisfying to me. It doesn't matter how it is made, the poison is in the dosage and I am going to eat way too much.

Awesome! Let me introduce you to our latest menu item! Heroin chips with meth dipping sauce. One bite and your agency will have you coming back for seconds, then minutes, then a lifetime (however short).

I hope you enjoy spending all of your mental energy self-reflecting to kick the addiction.

A lot of these UPFs are targeted at young people who don't have the same ability to think of long term consequences. If you start young, it's a much harder habit to break later in life.

And in many places UPFs are cheaper and more widely available than unprocessed food. If you're worried about paying rent, you're not questioning cheap calories for your family.

Even if we can agree that people should exercise more willpower, isn't there something wrong with companies weaponizing science to make food as addictive as possible?

There's also no proven causal link between UPFs and ill health.

By country the largest consumers of UPFs are also on average the longest lived. They are a by-product of wealth, as is obesity, what people are trying to pin on UPFs is much more likely to be a symptom of excess.

If you trace all countries by causes and incidences of death or morbidity there is nothing unusual or unexpected in the countries that consume the most UPFs, in some cases they even have lower figures.

Unprocessed food is usually a sign of quality, that is all.

Eat less. Lift more. Run more.

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