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Have packaged food and fast food manufacturers been sued for deliberately making their products addictive, knowing full well that the addictive substances cause

Have packaged food and fast food manufacturers been sued for deliberately making their products addictive, knowing full well that the addictive substances cause physical and mental harm?

DiabloD3 4y ago
No, not that I'm aware of, but I'm also surprised they haven't: they'd just need to follow the model proven to work by the case against Big Tobacco. Any business model that depends on exploiting their customers is inherently illegal and following the established case law to this conclusion is the only sane outcome. The only reason we haven't is that Big Sugar (or whatever it ends up being known as when they write the history books) has more money than Big Tobacco and has been laying out their defenses against it.
- whiplash451 4y ago
  This is a slippery slope, though, because then any provider of food with sugar in it would be a potential target.
  - oblio 4y ago
    Well, maybe they should, unless their food is clearly labeled as a dessert, and if their servings also have clear and obvious markings of how much of the daily intake is covered by them. More than that, food for which the average servings exceed the daily needs of the average person should have danger warnings. Maybe not that far off from what cigarettes show as health damage caused by them. Edit: Why is this downvoted? Come on, I want some arguments. The same system has worked for tobacco, and we know food with excess sugar is as bad if not worse. Why shouldn't we do the same thing?
    - azekai 4y ago
      I didn't downvote, but I think your solution isn't particularly effective. Part of the problem is food is more fundamental than tobacco; nearly everyone finds some kind of sweet treat appealing. Slapping labels on all the poptarts saying they are 'desserts' doesn't fix the fact that we are almost all hardwired to seek out fats and sugars.
      - AndrewUnmuted 4y ago
        We are also hard-wired to seek out salt, not to mention the energy boost and the hand occupation offered by cigarettes.
    - thirtyfivecent 4y ago
    - litesaber 4y ago
      I think I agree with you in some ways. You may be being downvoted because "clearly labeled as a dessert" is too strong. Maybe we need categorization for quantity of sugar per serving, eg. 1-10g, 10-20g, 30g+ or whatever with different colors or labels. It's very easy to fall for feel-good marketing (eg. healthy/low-fat/organic or whatever) and not realize how full of sugar something is.
    - Aerroon 4y ago
      You're just asking for ineffective labels (eg California prop 65) or corruption. Coca-cola has 10.6g of sugar in 100ml. Apple juice has 10g of sugar. Breast milk is about 7g of sugar. Cow milk is about 5g. Coke zero has 0g of sugar. Which of these would you label as dangerous? French fries, hamburgers, pizzas etc tend to have relatively little sugar in them. Apples have about 50x the sugar content of McDonald's French fries. They're high in carbs, but not necessarily "sugar". Will they escape the label or will they get it for general carb content?
- AndrewUnmuted 4y ago
  OK, but "Big Tobacco," is still around and still makes an ass-load of money from its customers. Wherever taxes made consumption too expensive within the US, the companies were more than able to make up for it with new overseas customers. Most governments around the world also actively exploit their own people. Should these governments be made illegal, too? And if so, what, pray tell, would we ever replace them with that would be better?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
micromacrofoot 4y ago
Multiple people have tried, though I don’t think any have been successful.
- ninkendo 4y ago
  Cigarette companies certainly have, and successfully. Social media is starting to become as easy of a political target as cigarettes once were, so IMO there’s reason to be hopeful.

Have packaged food and fast food manufacturers been sued for deliberately making their products addictive, knowing full well that the addictive substances cause physical and mental harm?

DiabloD3 4y ago

No, not that I'm aware of, but I'm also surprised they haven't: they'd just need to follow the model proven to work by the case against Big Tobacco. Any business model that depends on exploiting their customers is inherently illegal and following the established case law to this conclusion is the only sane outcome. The only reason we haven't is that Big Sugar (or whatever it ends up being known as when they write the history books) has more money than Big Tobacco and has been laying out their defenses against it.

whiplash451 4y ago
This is a slippery slope, though, because then any provider of food with sugar in it would be a potential target.
- oblio 4y ago
  Well, maybe they should, unless their food is clearly labeled as a dessert, and if their servings also have clear and obvious markings of how much of the daily intake is covered by them. More than that, food for which the average servings exceed the daily needs of the average person should have danger warnings. Maybe not that far off from what cigarettes show as health damage caused by them. Edit: Why is this downvoted? Come on, I want some arguments. The same system has worked for tobacco, and we know food with excess sugar is as bad if not worse. Why shouldn't we do the same thing?
  - azekai 4y ago
    I didn't downvote, but I think your solution isn't particularly effective. Part of the problem is food is more fundamental than tobacco; nearly everyone finds some kind of sweet treat appealing. Slapping labels on all the poptarts saying they are 'desserts' doesn't fix the fact that we are almost all hardwired to seek out fats and sugars.
    - AndrewUnmuted 4y ago
      We are also hard-wired to seek out salt, not to mention the energy boost and the hand occupation offered by cigarettes.
  - thirtyfivecent 4y ago
  - litesaber 4y ago
    I think I agree with you in some ways. You may be being downvoted because "clearly labeled as a dessert" is too strong. Maybe we need categorization for quantity of sugar per serving, eg. 1-10g, 10-20g, 30g+ or whatever with different colors or labels. It's very easy to fall for feel-good marketing (eg. healthy/low-fat/organic or whatever) and not realize how full of sugar something is.
  - Aerroon 4y ago
    You're just asking for ineffective labels (eg California prop 65) or corruption. Coca-cola has 10.6g of sugar in 100ml. Apple juice has 10g of sugar. Breast milk is about 7g of sugar. Cow milk is about 5g. Coke zero has 0g of sugar. Which of these would you label as dangerous? French fries, hamburgers, pizzas etc tend to have relatively little sugar in them. Apples have about 50x the sugar content of McDonald's French fries. They're high in carbs, but not necessarily "sugar". Will they escape the label or will they get it for general carb content?
AndrewUnmuted 4y ago
OK, but "Big Tobacco," is still around and still makes an ass-load of money from its customers. Wherever taxes made consumption too expensive within the US, the companies were more than able to make up for it with new overseas customers. Most governments around the world also actively exploit their own people. Should these governments be made illegal, too? And if so, what, pray tell, would we ever replace them with that would be better?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

micromacrofoot 4y ago

Multiple people have tried, though I don’t think any have been successful.

ninkendo 4y ago
Cigarette companies certainly have, and successfully. Social media is starting to become as easy of a political target as cigarettes once were, so IMO there’s reason to be hopeful.