4 ms·

The food industry needs a lot more regulation IMHO. It often misleads the consumer with its marketing, but a cereal or juice drink is not healthy when it's ramm

The food industry needs a lot more regulation IMHO. It often misleads the consumer with its marketing, but a cereal or juice drink is not healthy when it's rammed full of sugar.

arthurcolle 8y ago
On a related note, I'm repeatedly surprised by how much the packaging design in foods/edible products seems to be explicitly designed to convey a sense of "health-conscious" awareness/ things like cute leaf designs and appealing white/off-white packaging when really if you look at the ingredients, itll be full of refined sugars - seems like the related industries might need some kind of regulations as well But I guess this would just roll up into "food industry regulation" anyways
spodek 8y ago
> food industry When you refine the addictive, pleasure-causing white powder out of a plant and make cocaine or heroine we call it a drug. For historical reasons when we do it to make sugar we call it food, but it seems more of a drug. Maybe drug regulations should apply.
- wilsonnb2 8y ago
  > For historical reasons Seems more likely that it's because people eat sugar, and they don't eat heroin or cocaine.
  - pofilat 8y ago
    People chew and brew coca like coffee and tea
- stephen_g 8y ago
  I think we all agree that most people eat way too much refined sugar, and technically don't really need to eat any, but come on, that's just ridiculous hyperbole... Since most plant foods we eat, hell, even breast milk contains the exact same sugars that are refined into table sugar, syrups, etc. and the chemicals themselves are required by the body for things like brain function, it's probably fair enough to call it a food...
- nonbel 8y ago
  Actually, sugar seems to have originally been used more as a medicine than a food: >"There are records of knowledge of sugar among the ancient Greeks and Romans, but only as an imported medicine, and not as a food. For example, the Greek physician Dioscorides in the 1st century (AD) wrote: "There is a kind of coalesced honey called sakcharon [i.e. sugar] found in reeds in India and Eudaimon Arabia [i.e. Yemen[17]] similar in consistency to salt and brittle enough to be broken between the teeth like salt. It is good dissolved in water for the intestines and stomach, and [can be] taken as a drink to help [relieve] a painful bladder and kidneys."[18] Pliny the Elder, a 1st-century (AD) Roman, also described sugar as medicinal: "Sugar is made in Arabia as well, but Indian sugar is better. It is a kind of honey found in cane, white as gum, and it crunches between the teeth. It comes in lumps the size of a hazelnut. Sugar is used only for medical purposes."[19]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sugar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sugar And one of the mechanisms proposed for smoking addiction/withdrawal is that smoking spikes your blood sugar, while abstaining crashes it. Ie, a smoking habit may actually be an indirect sugar habit, although somewhat more addictive since you don't have the delayed reward due to digestion/absorption. Eg: http://whyquit.com/joel/Joel_03_21_blood_sugar.html http://whyquit.com/joel/Joel_03_21_blood_sugar.html https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7455580 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7455580 EDIT: I guess I should add I'm not in favor of any regulatory approach beyond the FDA's original purpose of making sure the label is complete and accurate.
mrlala 8y ago
Too bad one of Trump's first act as president was to reverse the enhanced food labeling practices that were supposed to come into place...
frockington 8y ago
Imagine the people who determine parking in your city also being in charge of the food you eat. I'd rather not let the government get their paws on food

The food industry needs a lot more regulation IMHO. It often misleads the consumer with its marketing, but a cereal or juice drink is not healthy when it's rammed full of sugar.

arthurcolle 8y ago

On a related note, I'm repeatedly surprised by how much the packaging design in foods/edible products seems to be explicitly designed to convey a sense of "health-conscious" awareness/ things like cute leaf designs and appealing white/off-white packaging when really if you look at the ingredients, itll be full of refined sugars - seems like the related industries might need some kind of regulations as well But I guess this would just roll up into "food industry regulation" anyways

spodek 8y ago

> food industry When you refine the addictive, pleasure-causing white powder out of a plant and make cocaine or heroine we call it a drug. For historical reasons when we do it to make sugar we call it food, but it seems more of a drug. Maybe drug regulations should apply.

wilsonnb2 8y ago
> For historical reasons Seems more likely that it's because people eat sugar, and they don't eat heroin or cocaine.
- pofilat 8y ago
  People chew and brew coca like coffee and tea
stephen_g 8y ago
I think we all agree that most people eat way too much refined sugar, and technically don't really need to eat any, but come on, that's just ridiculous hyperbole... Since most plant foods we eat, hell, even breast milk contains the exact same sugars that are refined into table sugar, syrups, etc. and the chemicals themselves are required by the body for things like brain function, it's probably fair enough to call it a food...
nonbel 8y ago
Actually, sugar seems to have originally been used more as a medicine than a food: >"There are records of knowledge of sugar among the ancient Greeks and Romans, but only as an imported medicine, and not as a food. For example, the Greek physician Dioscorides in the 1st century (AD) wrote: "There is a kind of coalesced honey called sakcharon [i.e. sugar] found in reeds in India and Eudaimon Arabia [i.e. Yemen[17]] similar in consistency to salt and brittle enough to be broken between the teeth like salt. It is good dissolved in water for the intestines and stomach, and [can be] taken as a drink to help [relieve] a painful bladder and kidneys."[18] Pliny the Elder, a 1st-century (AD) Roman, also described sugar as medicinal: "Sugar is made in Arabia as well, but Indian sugar is better. It is a kind of honey found in cane, white as gum, and it crunches between the teeth. It comes in lumps the size of a hazelnut. Sugar is used only for medical purposes."[19]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sugar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sugar And one of the mechanisms proposed for smoking addiction/withdrawal is that smoking spikes your blood sugar, while abstaining crashes it. Ie, a smoking habit may actually be an indirect sugar habit, although somewhat more addictive since you don't have the delayed reward due to digestion/absorption. Eg: http://whyquit.com/joel/Joel_03_21_blood_sugar.html http://whyquit.com/joel/Joel_03_21_blood_sugar.html https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7455580 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7455580 EDIT: I guess I should add I'm not in favor of any regulatory approach beyond the FDA's original purpose of making sure the label is complete and accurate.

mrlala 8y ago

Too bad one of Trump's first act as president was to reverse the enhanced food labeling practices that were supposed to come into place...

frockington 8y ago

Imagine the people who determine parking in your city also being in charge of the food you eat. I'd rather not let the government get their paws on food