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Does grandma have a profit motive? Does grandma care about your wellbeing? Is grandma a vast conglomerate of strangers who couldn't give two flying fucks about

Does grandma have a profit motive? Does grandma care about your wellbeing? Is grandma a vast conglomerate of strangers who couldn't give two flying fucks about you on a good day? Is plain old sugar, animal fat, and salt unhealthy in large quantities? Of course, but eating grandma's mashed potatoes and cherry pie once a week will not materially affect your health. Meanwhile you pass 8 taco bells on your way home from her house, not to mention the 3 fast food ads you heard on youtube or the radio. Come on.

crazygringo 2y ago
Right. But that's my whole point, you're agreeing with me. It's not the food itself. The food isn't being "manipulated" in some sinister, unnatural way. It's not about supposedly addictive "dopamine pathways". It's other things, whether convenience or advertising or whatever.
- walleeee 2y ago
  No, I don't think I am. > > Big food corporations profit from ultra-processed foods that manipulate our natural systems. > I've just never bought this Yours is a rather strange reading if you truly mean to absolve the food of sinister intent. Clearly it has none. Nor must the corporate entity producing it. That's the nature of moloch. You get bad outcomes even without outright villainy on anyone's part. The food is being "manipulated" in the same way Grandma manipulates it, sure. Grandma bakes a pie from whole ingredients, sourced perhaps from an area farm or maybe even her backyard, with her bare hands. Show me how a Twinkie is made. The naturalistic fallacy is irrelevant. It is simply wrong, not to mention naive, to think companies do not optimize their products to maximize impulse/repeat consumption. They are most certainly aware of dopamine pathways. This is one, and indeed a big one, of those > other things you mention. Convenience and advertising are big ones too. Why do we need so much convenience, and see so much advertising? Perhaps it has to do with the ordering of our lives around the very sort of institutions that sell us ultra-processed foods.
  - HDThoreaun 2y ago
    Food companies maximizing the utility we get from eating their food is a good thing actaully. Im very grateful for all the delicious food on the market. Not the companies fault that some people never learned to consume in moderation.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]

crazygringo 2y ago

Right. But that's my whole point, you're agreeing with me. It's not the food itself. The food isn't being "manipulated" in some sinister, unnatural way. It's not about supposedly addictive "dopamine pathways". It's other things, whether convenience or advertising or whatever.

walleeee 2y ago
No, I don't think I am. > > Big food corporations profit from ultra-processed foods that manipulate our natural systems. > I've just never bought this Yours is a rather strange reading if you truly mean to absolve the food of sinister intent. Clearly it has none. Nor must the corporate entity producing it. That's the nature of moloch. You get bad outcomes even without outright villainy on anyone's part. The food is being "manipulated" in the same way Grandma manipulates it, sure. Grandma bakes a pie from whole ingredients, sourced perhaps from an area farm or maybe even her backyard, with her bare hands. Show me how a Twinkie is made. The naturalistic fallacy is irrelevant. It is simply wrong, not to mention naive, to think companies do not optimize their products to maximize impulse/repeat consumption. They are most certainly aware of dopamine pathways. This is one, and indeed a big one, of those > other things you mention. Convenience and advertising are big ones too. Why do we need so much convenience, and see so much advertising? Perhaps it has to do with the ordering of our lives around the very sort of institutions that sell us ultra-processed foods.
- HDThoreaun 2y ago
  Food companies maximizing the utility we get from eating their food is a good thing actaully. Im very grateful for all the delicious food on the market. Not the companies fault that some people never learned to consume in moderation.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]