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PepsiCo Wants to Sell Healthy Food, Consumers Want Chips
- nibs 10y agoIt would be easier to make people give up most of their rights and freedoms than it would be to make them stop eating bad food that will make them an expensive burden to the healthcare system. The only solution is to regulate and tax the way cigarettes are. All that Pepsi goes to fund all that diabetes and heart disease. Everyone, including the highly competent managers and researchers at Pepsi, knows it is bad for you. That does not mean no one should work for Philip Morris - it just means there are probably more virtuous ways to spend your time. Ultimately, society will give the people what they want, so we should tax the bad wants.
- Tempest1981 10y ago> there are probably more virtuous ways to spend your time You reminded me of this phrase: "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life? Or do you want to come with me and change the world?" (Steve Jobs' pitch to Pepsi exec John Sculley)
- Spooky23 10y agoI never understood why it's ok to tax alcohol, and keep the price of sucrose high for Cuban-American farmers, but anti-freedom to tax it's cousin fructose.
- TillE 10y agoThe left criticism of sugar taxes is simply that it's a regressive tax, which disproportionately harms poor people. Forcing only certain people to reduce their sugar consumption like this is a bit repulsive. A lot of policies would make more sense if we had radically different systems in place to mitigate their side effects, but we simply don't. Until then, things like the trans fat ban are solid, fair policies.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Analemma_ 10y agoIt's a little dishonest of this article not to point out that junk food is engineered- I mean literally engineered, by teams of scientists running controlled experiments- to be as addictive as possible. This isn't a question of those wacky consumers and their revealed preference not matching their stated intentions; human willpower should barely enter the conversation when this topic comes up. If PepsiCo is genuinely serious about encouraging healthy foods, the only way that's ever going to work is if the Lay's and Doritos are re-designed to be less appealing. Putting them in a fight head-to-head with the healthy foods in their current state is a fight the healthy foods are always going to lose, even if Pepsi's intentions were pure as the driven snow. But they can't (again, irrespective of whether they're good or evil) because that would kill the brands and competitors would simply swoop in and take the market share; so once again we have a coordination problem where regulation is realistically the only solution.
- foota 10y agoIs it possible to engineer healthy and addictive food?
- chrisfosterelli 10y agoI like to think diet pop can fit into this category... but then there's the backlash of "unnatural chemicals" which sceptics believe must obviously be bad for you.
- nommm-nommm 10y agoDiet soda is not healthy. At the very best it's ideally neutral, neither unhealthy or healthy. However, some research has been coming out lately that suggests diet soda (more specifically artificial sweeteners) may have various negative effects on health. Nothing conclusive but enough to make me avoid artificial sweeteners entirely.
- zeroer 10y agoThe carbonation in soda is bad for your teeth and bone health, regardless of the sugar vs. non-calorie sweetener debate.
- zeroer 10y agoThe WSJ and Pepsi mention " Quaker oatmeal, Naked juice and Sabra hummus" as "good for you" foods. I've never tried Sabra hummus, but the others are super sugary. A couple years ago I made a conscious attempt to eat less salt and sugar, and once you do so it's amazing how much sugar you notice added to virtually every processed food you'll find at a grocery store. Cooking food from scratch is basically the only way to have control over your diet.
- KKKKkkkk1 10y agoI've seen jars of honey-and-mustard and chocolate-chip hummus in the grocery store in the US. Needless to say, this is not how people eat hummus anywhere else in the world.
- Avshalom 10y agoinstead they just leave out the chickpeas and call it halva...
- fotbr 10y agoI suppose if they include Quaker oats in "oatmeal", then they might count as "good for you" -- but the pre-packaged instant oatmeal is sugar filled and probably shouldn't be included. Too many variations under one brand.
- miend 10y agoQuaker oatmeal is sugary? I thought it was simply "oats". I've never noticed any sugar that I haven't added myself.
- plorkyeran 10y agoThey do sell just plain oats with no other ingredients, but the instant oatmeal has a whole bunch of added sugar and the marketing deliberately conflates the two.
- tyingq 10y agoSabra's nutrition label seems to indicate no added sugar: http://i.imgur.com/1BstN2i.png http://i.imgur.com/1BstN2i.png
- Girlang 10y agoWe need to tax obese people. And insurers need to be able to charge more (say double) and have much higher premiums for the fat and obese.