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This type of thinking is obviously silly. People with opportunities to eat healthy food keep choosing to eat unhealthy food. This isn't a secret. I have person

by scythe 7y ago

This type of thinking is obviously silly. People with opportunities to eat healthy food keep choosing to eat unhealthy food. This isn't a secret. I have personally annoyed all my friends and my girlfriend with my constant hypochondriac nudging about nutrition. If you want to change eating habits you have to communicate with the consumers. You can't pull strings at the city-planning level and hope that the marionettes will march in tune. Even if dollar stores were prevented by magical aliens from selling produce (they're not), they still have freezers. They could still sell frozen vegetables. They could sell oats, beans or unsalted nuts in bulk. They could sell canned produce, high-fiber noodles, refrigerated tempeh... They are not selling these things because people aren't buying them. Dollar General is not intentionally trying to kill people. That's not a good business model. People are generally woefully uninformed about nutrition. People have been confused by the raging public debate about dietary theories that are almost never really practiced -- I had a friend tell me he didn't want to eat a mango because of the sugar content. The same friend had no trouble ordering soda at a drive-thru. That is how the average American thinks about food. If you want change, put the Doritos behind the counter. That's how you get change.

itsgrimetime 7y ago
Do you have any data that suggests that people are simply choosing unhealthy options vs healthy ones? You claim that better food isn’t available because people don’t buy it, but I’m not convinced. Can you provide any examples of food deserts that once had great selections of produce and non-processed foods, which disappeared because people weren’t choosing to shop there due to “too healthy” of a selection? No ones saying Dollar General’s business model is to ensure people only get access to unhealthy options. This is an absurd straw man that no one is claiming. What people _are_ pointing out is that Dollar General has virtually zero incentive to ensure consumers have access to healthy food. Grocery stores in America are essentially unregulated, and it appears that this is a clear example of the free market not providing a solution that ensures everyone has equal access to healthy food.
- baggy_trough 7y ago
  If people want to buy healthy food, then Dollar General will make money by providing it to them. That is the incentive, and it is a completely sufficient one.
- scythe 7y ago
  > Do you have any data that suggests that people are simply choosing unhealthy options vs healthy ones? Who do you think has more data regarding consumer behavior: you, me, or Dollar General? If you, me, and Dollar General were to try to predict the purchasing habits of 100 store customers, who would win? I don't have this data. Dollar General does. If Dollar General's data said something else, Dollar General's shelves would carry something else. >No ones saying Dollar General’s business model is to ensure people only get access to unhealthy options. This is an absurd straw man that no one is claiming. You are correct, that is an absurd distortion of my argument. My argument is that Dollar General wants to give its customers what its customers want to buy. If Dollar General's customers wanted healthy food, Dollar General would give it to them. Look, when I used to drive between cities on a nil budget, I would eat sardines and unsalted nuts at gas stations. I would walk up and down aisles full of brightly colored candy and crackers and find the little shelf in the corner with a tin of sardines. True story. You know why that shelf is in the corner and the candy is front and center? Because most customers will buy the candy. If people were walking in to the gas station every day and buying them out of sardines, they'd have to branch out into other healthy foods. If people kept buying those they'd diversify more. Eventually the candy might disappear. Guess what? This will not happen. Consumers aren't going to choose healthy food when modern engineered food products are singing sirens' lullabies on the next aisle. Not unless you change the consumers. >Can you provide any examples of food deserts that once had great selections of produce and non-processed foods, which disappeared because people weren’t choosing to shop there due to “too healthy” of a selection? All of them! Processed food is a modern invention. Every neighborhood has had to have some kind of food, as long as it has had people. Before the 50s it was a foregone conclusion that they sold relatively unprocessed foods. Those were the only ones! At some point between then and now, the balance shifted, and the real food was pushed aside. You can nitpick this by specifying neighborhoods that haven't gotten much denser since the '50s, but there are still plenty of those in food deserts. Every neighborhood market that exists evolved over time and became what it is today by responding to the needs of its customers. Markets don't close because people don't buy a product. They just stop selling that product. Look, this is not a defense of "the free market". This is about common sense. Just look around you. Look at what people are eating. Look at the options available to them. Look at how they choose from those options. This isn't even an argument against regulation. I am in favor of regulation. I am also in favor of regulations that make sense! You have to regulate food products, not food stores! Limit the sizes of snack food bags. Tax sugary drinks. Put warning labels on products that have been optimized with behavioral psychology. But for God's sake, do not simply regulate the size of stores and order them to stock lettuce! All that will get you is rotten lettuce.

by scythe 7y ago

itsgrimetime 7y ago

Do you have any data that suggests that people are simply choosing unhealthy options vs healthy ones? You claim that better food isn’t available because people don’t buy it, but I’m not convinced. Can you provide any examples of food deserts that once had great selections of produce and non-processed foods, which disappeared because people weren’t choosing to shop there due to “too healthy” of a selection? No ones saying Dollar General’s business model is to ensure people only get access to unhealthy options. This is an absurd straw man that no one is claiming. What people _are_ pointing out is that Dollar General has virtually zero incentive to ensure consumers have access to healthy food. Grocery stores in America are essentially unregulated, and it appears that this is a clear example of the free market not providing a solution that ensures everyone has equal access to healthy food.

baggy_trough 7y ago
If people want to buy healthy food, then Dollar General will make money by providing it to them. That is the incentive, and it is a completely sufficient one.
scythe 7y ago
> Do you have any data that suggests that people are simply choosing unhealthy options vs healthy ones? Who do you think has more data regarding consumer behavior: you, me, or Dollar General? If you, me, and Dollar General were to try to predict the purchasing habits of 100 store customers, who would win? I don't have this data. Dollar General does. If Dollar General's data said something else, Dollar General's shelves would carry something else. >No ones saying Dollar General’s business model is to ensure people only get access to unhealthy options. This is an absurd straw man that no one is claiming. You are correct, that is an absurd distortion of my argument. My argument is that Dollar General wants to give its customers what its customers want to buy. If Dollar General's customers wanted healthy food, Dollar General would give it to them. Look, when I used to drive between cities on a nil budget, I would eat sardines and unsalted nuts at gas stations. I would walk up and down aisles full of brightly colored candy and crackers and find the little shelf in the corner with a tin of sardines. True story. You know why that shelf is in the corner and the candy is front and center? Because most customers will buy the candy. If people were walking in to the gas station every day and buying them out of sardines, they'd have to branch out into other healthy foods. If people kept buying those they'd diversify more. Eventually the candy might disappear. Guess what? This will not happen. Consumers aren't going to choose healthy food when modern engineered food products are singing sirens' lullabies on the next aisle. Not unless you change the consumers. >Can you provide any examples of food deserts that once had great selections of produce and non-processed foods, which disappeared because people weren’t choosing to shop there due to “too healthy” of a selection? All of them! Processed food is a modern invention. Every neighborhood has had to have some kind of food, as long as it has had people. Before the 50s it was a foregone conclusion that they sold relatively unprocessed foods. Those were the only ones! At some point between then and now, the balance shifted, and the real food was pushed aside. You can nitpick this by specifying neighborhoods that haven't gotten much denser since the '50s, but there are still plenty of those in food deserts. Every neighborhood market that exists evolved over time and became what it is today by responding to the needs of its customers. Markets don't close because people don't buy a product. They just stop selling that product. Look, this is not a defense of "the free market". This is about common sense. Just look around you. Look at what people are eating. Look at the options available to them. Look at how they choose from those options. This isn't even an argument against regulation. I am in favor of regulation. I am also in favor of regulations that make sense! You have to regulate food products, not food stores! Limit the sizes of snack food bags. Tax sugary drinks. Put warning labels on products that have been optimized with behavioral psychology. But for God's sake, do not simply regulate the size of stores and order them to stock lettuce! All that will get you is rotten lettuce.