8 ms·

Do these warnings actually do anything? In CA almost anything has a cancer warning. I don’t even look at them anymore. To me these warnings are a way to say

Do these warnings actually do anything? In CA almost anything has a cancer warning. I don’t even look at them anymore. To me these warnings are a way to say “we are doing something “ but I doubt they really have an effect. Considering how messed up American eating habits are I have no idea how they could be changed.

sparkling 7y ago
They produce nice, high paid government jobs at the agencies that are in charge of managing such programs.
Creationer 7y ago
1c/gram of added sugar as a tax would be much more effective. The problem is that unnatural sweeteners produce a similar insulin response as sugar, and also disrupt gut biota. We need to restrict sweeteners overall. As an addendum, if you're looking to lose fat, consume zero sugar: no sweets, no juice, no sweeteners, no added sugar in anything - is the most effective way to do it. You will have to inspect the labels of any processed food you buy though.
- wpietri 7y ago
  I cut out all refined carbs for a while and it was surprising to me how much my appetite changed. Normally I have a hard time leaving sugary things alone if they're nearby. But after a few weeks of not eating them, I just didn't care. I look forward to trying the experiment again soon.
  - maxxxxx 7y ago
    I have done that too but somehow the habit seems to always come back. As it seems to have happened to you.
  - specialist 7y ago
    It takes about 3 months for me to adapt to my paleo regiment. My hybrid of Dr Terry Wahls' Minding Your Mitochontria, Tim Ferriss' Four Hour Body, and calorie restriction. Works great for as long as I do it. Reverting takes about 1 week. My TLDR: It's super hard to avoid comfort food while in pain. Now that I've experienced this cause & effect a few times, I'm hoping to learn better strategies.
    - wpietri 7y ago
      Yeah, same. Stress reversion is a real thing.
- roganartu 7y ago
  > The problem is that unnatural sweeteners produce a similar insulin response as sugar Has this been demonstrated in humans? I've heard this many times before but have been unable to find any human studies to support it, and the mice studies I've seen often use ludicrously high dosages of the sweeteners.
  - hedora 7y ago
    Yes, artificial sweeteners have repeatedly been shown to cause more weight gain than equivalent sugar, and human studies back that up. Here is a brief survey of studies showing the effect in humans: http://time.com/3746047/diet-soda-weight-gain/ http://time.com/3746047/diet-soda-weight-gain/
    - ebg13 7y ago
      > shown to cause more weight gain than equivalent sugar The article you link doesn't say that. First, almost nothing in it even talks about real sugar. Second, it specifically starts with in the first paragraph "doesn’t prove that diet drinks and artificial sweeteners cause weight gain" and then goes on to have more paragraphs of speculation on correlation. But nothing mentioned in that article demonstrates a causal effect, and definitely not more than equivalent sugar. There's a lot of "may be" and "may cause" in there. Emphasis on may.
    - roganartu 7y ago
      None of the studies in that survey actually support the claim I questioned though, which is specifically about insulin response in humans. Further, they don't even support your claim that artificial sweeteners cause _more_ weight gain than equivalent sugar. imo a big problem with these kinds of studies is the huge number of confounding factors. They tend to be studies that select participants who report drinking diet soda and those who report not drinking it, without taking into the account the fundamental lifestyle differences between the two. This is also why I'm interested in specific, measurable things that are known to cause problems, such as insulin response. It is very common for overweight people to replace sugary soda with diet soda without making any other lifestyle changes. It is unsurprising that this doesn't yield positive results over the long-term. People who report drinking no soda, diet or otherwise, are likely already leading healthier lifestyles than those who report drinking diet soda regularly. Without controlling for these factors properly all that's really being said is that "healthier lifestyles are better for controlling weight". I agree that diet soda is probably worse than no soda, but I haven't seen any evidence to support the idea that diet soda is worse than sugary soda when consumed in otherwise identical diets.
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  The other problem is that even sugar-free sweeteners keep you suckling on the tit of sweetness addiction.
Fellshard 7y ago
This is the question no-one seems to ask. The over-saturation could be an issue, as it causes numbness to the warnings and actually makes warnings as a whole less effective. I thought there was something I read that had actual research on the impact, but I don't have it and can't cite it, so take this with a grain of salt.
bunderbunder 7y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if they make things worse, due to some sort of saturation effect. People generally don't respond well to nagging.
jasonsync 7y ago
California is big enough that manufacturers do not always package a separate product (without the warning) for other regions. Up here in Canada I'm happy to see the California Proposition 65 warnings on furniture purchased via Amazon and Wayfair. Agreed, it's easy to become desensitized. That said, I would have otherwise not been aware of the issue at all! So the labels do help (me) with general awareness. And although I can't always avoid it, I'm now on the lookout for furniture made without these types of chemicals. I would have been clueless sans warning. Big box restaurants here have to post calorie counts on their menus, and while I still can't believe my favourite burger combo is over 2400 calories (lunch), and I can't resist most of the time, it's got me thinking. Like maybe once per week, and then go for something not so heavy on the calories. A counter point article I just read - graphic health warnings on cigarette packages losing their impact, study shows: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/graphic-health-warnings-on-cigarette-packages-losing-their-impact-study-shows https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/graphic-health-warnings... But they did / still do have an impact.
- opencl 7y ago
  The problem with prop 65 is that it has a ridiculously low bar for evidence of harm for chemicals to be placed on the list. So the list is full of things that were found to cause cancer when fed to rats at ridiculously high doses, and then not found to cause cancer in human studies. Like acrylamide, which has landed every restaurant a prop 65 warning because it is present in literally all baked goods and also coffee.
  - jasonsync 7y ago
    That's a more difficult problem to solve. Can we trust these warnings? Do we err on the side of caution? Seems like some humans are more sensitive than others to certain chemicals, and that there's motivation from both sides .. corporate and even political. Imagine a warning label: this product known to cause global warming in a test environment ....
    - djrogers 7y ago
      > Can we trust these warnings? If we 'trusted' all prop 65 warnings, nobody would ever enter a building, as all of them have that warning tag on them somewhere.
helloguillecl 7y ago
Chile applied a similar policy in 2016. Clear warnings are displayed in high fructose / high fat processed food. According to at least a study, consumption of soft drinks with sugar added decreased by 25% in about 2 years. The sellers tried to avoid having the warnings so they decreased their sugar levels in their foods as well.
- glaugh 7y ago
  Your comment is the only one I’ve seen cite data so far. I couldn’t quickly find that study. Can you cite it? I did find this reference to a more qualitative but I think still useful study: https://www.foodnavigator-latam.com/Article/2019/02/20/Chile-s-food-regulations-are-changing-the-country-s-eating-habits https://www.foodnavigator-latam.com/Article/2019/02/20/Chile...
  - helloguillecl 7y ago
    Sorry, I should have linked to my sources after citing them. These articles, from what I consider some reputable sources cite the study (in Spanish), which original version I could not find: http://www.economiaynegocios.cl/noticias/noticias.asp?id=549236 http://www.economiaynegocios.cl/noticias/noticias.asp?id=549... https://inta.cl/estudio-muestra-que-la-ley-de-etiquetados-esta-cambiando-las-percepciones-de-los-alimentos-las-normas-y-los-comportamientos/ https://inta.cl/estudio-muestra-que-la-ley-de-etiquetados-es... http://www.uchile.cl/noticias/149365/ley-de-etiquetado-baja-el-consumo-de-bebidas-azucaradas-y-cereales http://www.uchile.cl/noticias/149365/ley-de-etiquetado-baja-...
davidgh 7y ago
I agree that blanket warning messages tend to help very little. However, I do find that actual data does influence my behavior. I’ve been particularly surprised at how much calorie information published on restaurant menus impacts my decisions. So, rather than a general warning that will be so widely published that it’ll be ignored, give me more data. If you can make the data visual, even better. For example, you’ll note on food labels that the sugar is represented in grams, but there’s no associated percentage like there is for the other items on the label. When you show me that this bottle of Coke contains double what I should consume for an entire day I think that will help me and will also incentivize manufactures to think more about the sugar content they add.
- 2Ccltvcm 7y ago
  Despite being presented with some data (kcal info) you don't know how to interpret it. It is, in fact, irrelevant. Calorie data is not helpful in determining proper eating habits. The actually useful measure is average meal insulin index times food quantity. This is a better metric of obesification since insulin drives weight gain.
  - 15155 7y ago
    Or just a macronutrient breakdown.
    - 2Ccltvcm 7y ago
      A diverse diet consisting of low average insulin index foods is the ticket to a long health span. No need to watch macros as long as the diet meets this criteria.
      - mnx 7y ago
        Can you tell me more? This is a bold claim, I'm curious what are you basing your apparent confidence on.
        7y ago
onion2k 7y ago
Do these warnings actually do anything? It seems very likely that the warnings will work to some extent based on existing packaging. Anything that can be considered "healthy", even for the most dubious and small health claims, has it written on the front in big bold letters. That would imply that what goes on the packet does influence the consumer. It's possible that positive messaging has a greater impact than negative messaging, but that's something that would need studying. Considering how messed up American eating habits are I have no idea how they could be changed. Putting warnings on things and measuring the change would be a great place to start.
- maxxxxx 7y ago
  “Putting warnings on things and measuring the change would be a great place to start.” From what I see people see the warnings and calories counts and they know that these foods are not good. But they really don’t seem to know how to eat right. I hear stuff like “You don’t get enough protein from vegetarian food” or they think eating be an appetizer plus a full dinner is healthy as long as it’s organic. Or they eat baked potato chips instead of fried. The perception of what the body needs is so far from reality that it will be really hard to change.
hedora 7y ago
The cancer warnings are to the point where we need to let people put a “nothing in this product is known to cause cancer in the state of California” smiley face sticker on things. Many stores just have blanket warnings that most products they sell cause cancer and contain bpa.
crehn 7y ago
Australian cigarette packs look absolutely disgusting, and back when I lived there, seemed to have a clear effect on people.
- conanbatt 7y ago
  I will be forever angry at what the state in most places has done to cigarettes. It's absolutely amazing that they can force someone to do something to heinous in their product.
  - code_duck 7y ago
    It's a heinous product that does horrible things to people, so good. This is an industry that intentionally targets children to sell them addictive, carcinogenic, toxic, foul-smelling items for profit.
    - conanbatt 7y ago
      You could say the same about cheese, coffee, cars, alcohol, etc. How about having to put a picture of a pregnant woman being run over on the hood of every tesla, to remind about the murderous and gruesome reality of the manslaughters of the autoindustry? The difference is not the product, its the popular sentiment that legitimizes a terrible overreach of state power.
      - code_duck 7y ago
        As far as the overall utility to harmfulness ratio, I'm sure cigarettes lose compared to those products. It's like comparing crack to cell phones. Yes, they are both somewhat addictive. However, one has demonstrable utility, and the other doesn't, even for narcoleptics. The discussion of whether the use of state power to regulate products is appropriate is a potentially lengthy political discussion that isn't worth starting here.
      - 300bps 7y ago
        You could say the same about cheese, coffee, cars, alcohol, etc. No. Cigarettes have no positive purpose. They are 100% negative and a society is well served by discouraging their use. Everything you listed has a positive purpose with the mere potential of being misused.
honestoHeminway 7y ago
They are busy waiting for actual law to step in and change something permanently.
vuln 7y ago
> “we are doing something “ Spot on. All of the issues Californians face and this is all they can accomplish? Another warning label? The largest economy in the US and this is it? What a shithole. Literally.
nshepperd 7y ago
Sounds like warning pollution to me. Not just ineffectual but actually harmful. http://www.econlib.org/archives/2013/04/proposition_65_1.html http://www.econlib.org/archives/2013/04/proposition_65_1.htm...
- hedora 7y ago
  This bill is even worse than warning pollution. It has carve outs for some of the most unhealthy drinks, so the warnings would be intentionally misleading. It reminds me of the Real(TM) milk brand. They spent decades lobbying against organic dairy and specialty cheese producers, so the label is now synonymous with “processed fake crap”, at least in my mind. I’m sure some reputable dairy producers in the US apply the Real logo to their product, but I don’t give their products a second glance at the store.
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
>Do these warnings actually do anything? "Not for sale in California" is basically a marketable feature when it comes to any chemical that you expect to be nasty and bad for your health in the first place (like paints and cleaning products).
- djrogers 7y ago
  True - I know people who buy deck stain out of state, as the stuff from Nevada lasts for more than 1/2 a season before breaking down...
microcolonel 7y ago
> Considering how messed up American eating habits are I have no idea how they could be changed. They're actually getting better, but the government will probably take credit for that like usual.
- maxxxxx 7y ago
  “but the government will probably take credit for that like usual.” It doesn’t really matter as long as things are improving. Go ahead and credit the free market if it makes you feel better.
  - microcolonel 7y ago
    Well, it does matter, in the sense that the government gets more expensive (and in the particular places where it is wasted) when people think the things they're doing are what's helping. When the government gets more expensive, the people get poorer, especially the people of the future.
Debugreality 7y ago
Does advertising do anything - if it doesn't why do companies spend so much money on it? This is basically a type of pro health advertising. We have anti smoking advertising which has shown to be effective (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-19/australias-plain-packaging-laws-are-a-success,-studies-show/6331736 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-19/australias-plain-pack...). I think with a good advertisement strategy it can be very effective.

sparkling 7y ago

They produce nice, high paid government jobs at the agencies that are in charge of managing such programs.

Creationer 7y ago

1c/gram of added sugar as a tax would be much more effective. The problem is that unnatural sweeteners produce a similar insulin response as sugar, and also disrupt gut biota. We need to restrict sweeteners overall. As an addendum, if you're looking to lose fat, consume zero sugar: no sweets, no juice, no sweeteners, no added sugar in anything - is the most effective way to do it. You will have to inspect the labels of any processed food you buy though.

wpietri 7y ago
I cut out all refined carbs for a while and it was surprising to me how much my appetite changed. Normally I have a hard time leaving sugary things alone if they're nearby. But after a few weeks of not eating them, I just didn't care. I look forward to trying the experiment again soon.
- maxxxxx 7y ago
  I have done that too but somehow the habit seems to always come back. As it seems to have happened to you.
- specialist 7y ago
  It takes about 3 months for me to adapt to my paleo regiment. My hybrid of Dr Terry Wahls' Minding Your Mitochontria, Tim Ferriss' Four Hour Body, and calorie restriction. Works great for as long as I do it. Reverting takes about 1 week. My TLDR: It's super hard to avoid comfort food while in pain. Now that I've experienced this cause & effect a few times, I'm hoping to learn better strategies.
  - wpietri 7y ago
    Yeah, same. Stress reversion is a real thing.
roganartu 7y ago
> The problem is that unnatural sweeteners produce a similar insulin response as sugar Has this been demonstrated in humans? I've heard this many times before but have been unable to find any human studies to support it, and the mice studies I've seen often use ludicrously high dosages of the sweeteners.
- hedora 7y ago
  Yes, artificial sweeteners have repeatedly been shown to cause more weight gain than equivalent sugar, and human studies back that up. Here is a brief survey of studies showing the effect in humans: http://time.com/3746047/diet-soda-weight-gain/ http://time.com/3746047/diet-soda-weight-gain/
  - ebg13 7y ago
    > shown to cause more weight gain than equivalent sugar The article you link doesn't say that. First, almost nothing in it even talks about real sugar. Second, it specifically starts with in the first paragraph "doesn’t prove that diet drinks and artificial sweeteners cause weight gain" and then goes on to have more paragraphs of speculation on correlation. But nothing mentioned in that article demonstrates a causal effect, and definitely not more than equivalent sugar. There's a lot of "may be" and "may cause" in there. Emphasis on may.
  - roganartu 7y ago
    None of the studies in that survey actually support the claim I questioned though, which is specifically about insulin response in humans. Further, they don't even support your claim that artificial sweeteners cause _more_ weight gain than equivalent sugar. imo a big problem with these kinds of studies is the huge number of confounding factors. They tend to be studies that select participants who report drinking diet soda and those who report not drinking it, without taking into the account the fundamental lifestyle differences between the two. This is also why I'm interested in specific, measurable things that are known to cause problems, such as insulin response. It is very common for overweight people to replace sugary soda with diet soda without making any other lifestyle changes. It is unsurprising that this doesn't yield positive results over the long-term. People who report drinking no soda, diet or otherwise, are likely already leading healthier lifestyles than those who report drinking diet soda regularly. Without controlling for these factors properly all that's really being said is that "healthier lifestyles are better for controlling weight". I agree that diet soda is probably worse than no soda, but I haven't seen any evidence to support the idea that diet soda is worse than sugary soda when consumed in otherwise identical diets.
hombre_fatal 7y ago
The other problem is that even sugar-free sweeteners keep you suckling on the tit of sweetness addiction.

Fellshard 7y ago

This is the question no-one seems to ask. The over-saturation could be an issue, as it causes numbness to the warnings and actually makes warnings as a whole less effective. I thought there was something I read that had actual research on the impact, but I don't have it and can't cite it, so take this with a grain of salt.

bunderbunder 7y ago

I wouldn't be surprised if they make things worse, due to some sort of saturation effect. People generally don't respond well to nagging.

jasonsync 7y ago

California is big enough that manufacturers do not always package a separate product (without the warning) for other regions. Up here in Canada I'm happy to see the California Proposition 65 warnings on furniture purchased via Amazon and Wayfair. Agreed, it's easy to become desensitized. That said, I would have otherwise not been aware of the issue at all! So the labels do help (me) with general awareness. And although I can't always avoid it, I'm now on the lookout for furniture made without these types of chemicals. I would have been clueless sans warning. Big box restaurants here have to post calorie counts on their menus, and while I still can't believe my favourite burger combo is over 2400 calories (lunch), and I can't resist most of the time, it's got me thinking. Like maybe once per week, and then go for something not so heavy on the calories. A counter point article I just read - graphic health warnings on cigarette packages losing their impact, study shows: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/graphic-health-warnings-on-cigarette-packages-losing-their-impact-study-shows https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/graphic-health-warnings... But they did / still do have an impact.

opencl 7y ago
The problem with prop 65 is that it has a ridiculously low bar for evidence of harm for chemicals to be placed on the list. So the list is full of things that were found to cause cancer when fed to rats at ridiculously high doses, and then not found to cause cancer in human studies. Like acrylamide, which has landed every restaurant a prop 65 warning because it is present in literally all baked goods and also coffee.
- jasonsync 7y ago
  That's a more difficult problem to solve. Can we trust these warnings? Do we err on the side of caution? Seems like some humans are more sensitive than others to certain chemicals, and that there's motivation from both sides .. corporate and even political. Imagine a warning label: this product known to cause global warming in a test environment ....
  - djrogers 7y ago
    > Can we trust these warnings? If we 'trusted' all prop 65 warnings, nobody would ever enter a building, as all of them have that warning tag on them somewhere.

helloguillecl 7y ago

Chile applied a similar policy in 2016. Clear warnings are displayed in high fructose / high fat processed food. According to at least a study, consumption of soft drinks with sugar added decreased by 25% in about 2 years. The sellers tried to avoid having the warnings so they decreased their sugar levels in their foods as well.

glaugh 7y ago
Your comment is the only one I’ve seen cite data so far. I couldn’t quickly find that study. Can you cite it? I did find this reference to a more qualitative but I think still useful study: https://www.foodnavigator-latam.com/Article/2019/02/20/Chile-s-food-regulations-are-changing-the-country-s-eating-habits https://www.foodnavigator-latam.com/Article/2019/02/20/Chile...
- helloguillecl 7y ago
  Sorry, I should have linked to my sources after citing them. These articles, from what I consider some reputable sources cite the study (in Spanish), which original version I could not find: http://www.economiaynegocios.cl/noticias/noticias.asp?id=549236 http://www.economiaynegocios.cl/noticias/noticias.asp?id=549... https://inta.cl/estudio-muestra-que-la-ley-de-etiquetados-esta-cambiando-las-percepciones-de-los-alimentos-las-normas-y-los-comportamientos/ https://inta.cl/estudio-muestra-que-la-ley-de-etiquetados-es... http://www.uchile.cl/noticias/149365/ley-de-etiquetado-baja-el-consumo-de-bebidas-azucaradas-y-cereales http://www.uchile.cl/noticias/149365/ley-de-etiquetado-baja-...

davidgh 7y ago

I agree that blanket warning messages tend to help very little. However, I do find that actual data does influence my behavior. I’ve been particularly surprised at how much calorie information published on restaurant menus impacts my decisions. So, rather than a general warning that will be so widely published that it’ll be ignored, give me more data. If you can make the data visual, even better. For example, you’ll note on food labels that the sugar is represented in grams, but there’s no associated percentage like there is for the other items on the label. When you show me that this bottle of Coke contains double what I should consume for an entire day I think that will help me and will also incentivize manufactures to think more about the sugar content they add.

2Ccltvcm 7y ago
Despite being presented with some data (kcal info) you don't know how to interpret it. It is, in fact, irrelevant. Calorie data is not helpful in determining proper eating habits. The actually useful measure is average meal insulin index times food quantity. This is a better metric of obesification since insulin drives weight gain.
- 15155 7y ago
  Or just a macronutrient breakdown.
  - 2Ccltvcm 7y ago
    A diverse diet consisting of low average insulin index foods is the ticket to a long health span. No need to watch macros as long as the diet meets this criteria.
    - mnx 7y ago
      Can you tell me more? This is a bold claim, I'm curious what are you basing your apparent confidence on.
      - 7y ago

onion2k 7y ago

Do these warnings actually do anything? It seems very likely that the warnings will work to some extent based on existing packaging. Anything that can be considered "healthy", even for the most dubious and small health claims, has it written on the front in big bold letters. That would imply that what goes on the packet does influence the consumer. It's possible that positive messaging has a greater impact than negative messaging, but that's something that would need studying. Considering how messed up American eating habits are I have no idea how they could be changed. Putting warnings on things and measuring the change would be a great place to start.

maxxxxx 7y ago
“Putting warnings on things and measuring the change would be a great place to start.” From what I see people see the warnings and calories counts and they know that these foods are not good. But they really don’t seem to know how to eat right. I hear stuff like “You don’t get enough protein from vegetarian food” or they think eating be an appetizer plus a full dinner is healthy as long as it’s organic. Or they eat baked potato chips instead of fried. The perception of what the body needs is so far from reality that it will be really hard to change.

hedora 7y ago

The cancer warnings are to the point where we need to let people put a “nothing in this product is known to cause cancer in the state of California” smiley face sticker on things. Many stores just have blanket warnings that most products they sell cause cancer and contain bpa.

crehn 7y ago

Australian cigarette packs look absolutely disgusting, and back when I lived there, seemed to have a clear effect on people.

conanbatt 7y ago
I will be forever angry at what the state in most places has done to cigarettes. It's absolutely amazing that they can force someone to do something to heinous in their product.
- code_duck 7y ago
  It's a heinous product that does horrible things to people, so good. This is an industry that intentionally targets children to sell them addictive, carcinogenic, toxic, foul-smelling items for profit.
  - conanbatt 7y ago
    You could say the same about cheese, coffee, cars, alcohol, etc. How about having to put a picture of a pregnant woman being run over on the hood of every tesla, to remind about the murderous and gruesome reality of the manslaughters of the autoindustry? The difference is not the product, its the popular sentiment that legitimizes a terrible overreach of state power.
    - code_duck 7y ago
      As far as the overall utility to harmfulness ratio, I'm sure cigarettes lose compared to those products. It's like comparing crack to cell phones. Yes, they are both somewhat addictive. However, one has demonstrable utility, and the other doesn't, even for narcoleptics. The discussion of whether the use of state power to regulate products is appropriate is a potentially lengthy political discussion that isn't worth starting here.
    - 300bps 7y ago
      You could say the same about cheese, coffee, cars, alcohol, etc. No. Cigarettes have no positive purpose. They are 100% negative and a society is well served by discouraging their use. Everything you listed has a positive purpose with the mere potential of being misused.

honestoHeminway 7y ago

They are busy waiting for actual law to step in and change something permanently.

vuln 7y ago

> “we are doing something “ Spot on. All of the issues Californians face and this is all they can accomplish? Another warning label? The largest economy in the US and this is it? What a shithole. Literally.

nshepperd 7y ago

Sounds like warning pollution to me. Not just ineffectual but actually harmful. http://www.econlib.org/archives/2013/04/proposition_65_1.html http://www.econlib.org/archives/2013/04/proposition_65_1.htm...

hedora 7y ago
This bill is even worse than warning pollution. It has carve outs for some of the most unhealthy drinks, so the warnings would be intentionally misleading. It reminds me of the Real(TM) milk brand. They spent decades lobbying against organic dairy and specialty cheese producers, so the label is now synonymous with “processed fake crap”, at least in my mind. I’m sure some reputable dairy producers in the US apply the Real logo to their product, but I don’t give their products a second glance at the store.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

>Do these warnings actually do anything? "Not for sale in California" is basically a marketable feature when it comes to any chemical that you expect to be nasty and bad for your health in the first place (like paints and cleaning products).

djrogers 7y ago
True - I know people who buy deck stain out of state, as the stuff from Nevada lasts for more than 1/2 a season before breaking down...

microcolonel 7y ago

> Considering how messed up American eating habits are I have no idea how they could be changed. They're actually getting better, but the government will probably take credit for that like usual.

maxxxxx 7y ago
“but the government will probably take credit for that like usual.” It doesn’t really matter as long as things are improving. Go ahead and credit the free market if it makes you feel better.
- microcolonel 7y ago
  Well, it does matter, in the sense that the government gets more expensive (and in the particular places where it is wasted) when people think the things they're doing are what's helping. When the government gets more expensive, the people get poorer, especially the people of the future.

Debugreality 7y ago

Does advertising do anything - if it doesn't why do companies spend so much money on it? This is basically a type of pro health advertising. We have anti smoking advertising which has shown to be effective (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-19/australias-plain-packaging-laws-are-a-success,-studies-show/6331736 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-19/australias-plain-pack...). I think with a good advertisement strategy it can be very effective.