San Francisco Will Sue Ultraprocessed Food Companies 143
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: The San Francisco city attorney filed on Tuesday the nation's first government lawsuit against food manufacturers over ultraprocessed fare (source may be paywalled; alternative source), arguing that cities and counties have been burdened with the costs of treating diseases that stem from the companies' products. David Chiu, the city attorney, sued 10 corporations that make some of the country's most popular food and drinks. Ultraprocessed products now comprise 70 percent of the American food supply and fill grocery store shelves with a kaleidoscope of colorful packages. Think Slim Jim meat sticks and Cool Ranch Doritos. But also aisles of breads, sauces and granola bars marketed as natural or healthy.
It is a rare issue on which the liberal leaders in San Francisco City Hall are fully aligned with the Trump administration, which has targeted ultraprocessed foods as part of its Make America Healthy Again mantra. Mr. Chiu's lawsuit, which was filed in San Francisco Superior Court on behalf of the State of California, seeks unspecified damages for the costs that local governments bear for treating residents whose health has been harmed by ultraprocessed food. The city accuses the companies of "unfair and deceptive acts" in how they market and sell their foods, arguing that such practices violate the state's Unfair Competition Law and public nuisance statute. The city also argues the companies knew that their food made people sick but sold it anyway.
It is a rare issue on which the liberal leaders in San Francisco City Hall are fully aligned with the Trump administration, which has targeted ultraprocessed foods as part of its Make America Healthy Again mantra. Mr. Chiu's lawsuit, which was filed in San Francisco Superior Court on behalf of the State of California, seeks unspecified damages for the costs that local governments bear for treating residents whose health has been harmed by ultraprocessed food. The city accuses the companies of "unfair and deceptive acts" in how they market and sell their foods, arguing that such practices violate the state's Unfair Competition Law and public nuisance statute. The city also argues the companies knew that their food made people sick but sold it anyway.
Grocery chains ... (Score:3, Interesting)
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Or grocery chains can defend themselves in court, probably easier than trying to investors why they are pulling out of a city of close to 1million wealthy westerners.
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Why would a grocery chain pull out if they can drop some products and give that shelf space to the rest?
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Ultra-processed crap is like 80% of the store.
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They're not suing the grocery chains.
They are suing the companies that make the trash food.
Just like the companies that made cigarettes were held liable for the damage they caused.
Re:Did the city of SF... (Score:5, Insightful)
Did the city of SF.. let them continue to be sold? If yes, they have no grounds to complain.
solid reasoning: if they haven't stop them, they can't try to stop them
sigh...
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Right, makes perfect sense. Just like hotels should not be able to complain about guests who stuff corpses inside their mattresses. If they accepted the guest's money to stay, why are they allowed to complain. Perfect sense.
Re:Did the city of SF... (Score:5, Insightful)
And why is that exactly? Is there some rule that says if you ever accepted tax money from someone doing illegal or harmful things without you knowing, you implicitly approve of that behavior and therefore aren't allowed to stop it when you do find out? Because that sounds pretty fucking stupid.
But they're not interested in stopping them, just finding a way to justify taxing them or taxing them more. We've known for decades that smoking causes cancer, respiratory issues and kills people, many have called for it's banning yet governments all over the world continue to allow it to continue despite making noises about banning it. Why? Tax revenue. The UK taxes cigarettes at £6.68 plus 16.5% of retail cost in Tobacco Duty plus 20% VAT (sales tax) per pack of 20. The average price of a pack of 20 cigarettes in the UK is now £16, 80% of that is tax. It raises around £10Bn for the UK government.
Re: Did the city of SF... (Score:2)
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Didn't Philadelphia do that with carbonated beverages? What happened was every store outside of the Philadelphia started selling much more of the stuff to people from Philadelphia.
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About 40 countries have enacted sugary drink taxes and they have been shown to reduce consumption.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Citing facts is trilling!
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[smoking] Why? Tax revenue.
Also: Voters. Smokers are still a fairly substantial fraction of the population, enough to swing a vote, especially if, and that appears to be the trend in most western democracies these days, there are two opposing political sides roughly evenly matched.
I mean, does it not strike anyone as a very weird coincidence that we have almost perfect 50/50 splits in so many countries?
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"Federal authorities became intent on jailing Capone and charged him with twenty-two counts of tax evasion. He was convicted of five counts in 1931. During a highly publicized case, the judge admitted as evidence Capone's admissions of his income and unpaid taxes, made during prior and ultimately abortive negotiations to pay the government taxes he owed."
Seems like the government expects even criminals to pay taxes on the gains made from crime. So it's not as stupid as you think. Unless the government appro
Re: Grocery chains ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Like letting people make their own choices? How is letting someone choose to sell or eat a Slim Jim immoral?
The suit is bullshit. San Francisco (collectively, via representation) chose to "burdened with the costs of treating diseases." San Francisco (residents) choose to eat ultraprocessed foods. Manufacturers are simply filling a demand. It is San Francisco alone which is responsible for the costs. What's immoral is trying to shift responsibility for the consequences of your own actions.
Re: Grocery chains ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Like letting people make their own choices? How is letting someone choose to sell or eat a Slim Jim immoral?
Because the processed food companies deliberately design their products to be as addictive as possible. As a society we (correctly) recognize that drug dealers bear some responsibility when users overdose on drugs, and cigarette companies have lost lawsuits because they knowingly sold an addictive and dangerous product while pretending it was perfectly healthy. Processed food companies are doing the same, even deliberately targeting children. Their products may not be *as* harmful as drugs or cigarettes, bu
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Manufacturers are simply filling a demand.
That doesn't mean what they do is automatically legal.
I'm pretty sure there's a demand for "murder my husband", or for "can someone please drown my neighbour". And yet it's illegal to offer such services.
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Like letting people make their own choices? How is letting someone choose to sell or eat a Slim Jim immoral?
Ok, I'll byte: Like letting people make their own choices? How is letting someone choose to sell or smoke meth immoral?
So then, why do we make selling or smoking meth illegal? Is it because of *shock* the costs to society?
Essentially, if you are against meth being legal, then you should equally be against 'ultraprocessed' foods being legal. The real bitch is defining what 'ultraprocessed' REALLY means.
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What is it with you guys, believing that economic and financial might make right. Ever heard of moral values? Society is built on them.
It's the same flawed thinking that a company can "just pull out" of somewhere. Somewhere where they'll have money invested, property, obligations to meet not to mention staff (as we all know staff are replaceable parasites in the Libertardinan world).
Also it's been conclusively demonstrated that "pulling out" doesn't work... As a method of contraception or means to effect a political change.
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Economics tell companies to NOT pull out,
Tell that to Fred Meyer. It turns out that they will probably be rewarded for closing stores in high crime areas, passing the savings on to their wealthier and less likely to shoplift, suburban customers.
And this helps how? (Score:4, Insightful)
Will it cause healthy food to become cheaper than the junk?
Or will they give people who can't afford healthy food money to buy it?
Although I don't buy the worst food because we have health standards here, if I would switch over to completely healthy my grocery bill would become two to three times more expensive.
Re:And this helps how? (Score:5, Interesting)
Are things different in the USA than across the Atlantic?
Over here you can fill like 2 shopping bags with fresh fruits, vegetables, pasta, rice, beans/lentils and all sorts of stuff easily for less than £15 (~$20) that will last 2 weeks or more. It's dirt cheap to buy that stuff in the UK and most of mainland Europe.
I genuinely wanna know?
Re:And this helps how? (Score:4, Informative)
Just as a comparison, at my local grocery store (not in a "food desert"), the cheapest 5lb bag of rice is about $3.50. 1lb of spaghetti is $1. A single head of broccoli is about $1.50 and a single bunch of bananas is also about $1.50 (which is about 5 bananas).
That's already $7.50 for about 1/2 a shopping bag
And that's for the basic store brand of those and not even counting other things you'd typically want with that (like sauce, spices, butter, meat, etc.)
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No, it really isn't, but some people don't consider food "good" unless it's organic vegan GMO-free products dew-picked at dawn by beautiful virgins.
Healthy food is generally cheap because it doesn't require processing.
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Are things different in the USA than across the Atlantic?
Over here you can fill like 2 shopping bags with fresh fruits, vegetables, pasta, rice, beans/lentils and all sorts of stuff easily for less than £15 (~$20) that will last 2 weeks or more. It's dirt cheap to buy that stuff in the UK and most of mainland Europe.
I genuinely wanna know?
I believe it is.
Although the cost of meat is getting up there these days in the UK.
The bigger issue is that most people don't have the first clue what to do with fresh food besides putting it in a pot and boiling it until its mush (then servicing it with sausages and gravy). This is a problem on both sides of the pond although I suspect it's worse over there. I grew up a poor lad in Oz, the notion that some Americans eat out for every meal was preposterous to me as there's no way it seemed remotely a
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According to my closest cousin and her husband, who spend half the year in the UK, yes. The biggest mental reset they have to make is around access to, quality of, and prices for vegetables. I hear about it every time they cycle through.
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Not really. US is a large country with a large range of cost of living.
Where I currently live, it's below median. The store nearby often has great sales.
The basic stuff you listed cost about the same. $1 pasta. Bananas 59c/lb etc. Chicken thighs 45c/lb on frequent sales. Legumes are cheap everywhere.
If you cook for yourself with traditional ingredients, food is highly affordable in US. The low income people have food banks and get money from the government. Food is perhaps 2% of my expenses unless I need to
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Healthy foods aren't too expensive, but you generally only get the raw ingredients and have to prepare them yourself.
Prepared foods should in theory cost more because you're paying for not only the ingredients but also the preparation, the only reason they're cheaper is because they can hide all kinds of unpleasant or inferior ingredients in there.
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You can believe that if it fits in with your particular set of conspiracy theories, but it's not true. The USDA is very big on inspecting commercial food plants and comes down like a metric ton of bricks on companies that try that sort of thing. No, what keeps the prices on
Re:And this helps how? (Score:4, Informative)
The real problem is that minimally processed food doesn't keep as long, and often takes more time to prepare.
Actually "ultraprocessed" is too broad a category. It includes things like cheese and yogurt. Probably also sauerkraut. But there definitely are ultraprocessed foods that should not be sold without a strong warning, and many do have deceptive advertising that appears intentionally deceptive.
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Regular cheese, yogurt and sauerkraut are not considered ultraprocessed.
Are there ultraprocessed cheese products and sugar loaded flavored yogurt products with fillers? Sure.
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That really depends on exactly what definition you are using. I suppose you could argue that yogurt could be made at home in a normal kitchen, but cheddar cheese couldn't. And I've never actually seen anyone make sauerkraut, though people certainly used to do so.
I.e., the first published definition of "ultraprocessed" specified "things that couldn't be made in a normal kitchen". I'll agree that it's a very sloppy definition, but I haven't heard a better one.
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> things that couldn't be made in a normal kitchen
It's a definition that a random influencer would give, not one used in science.
Nova is the most recognized classification/definition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The stuff you mentioned fall under: "minimally processed foods". That's the healthiest category.
Cottage cheese is in the minimally processed category.
Cheddar is processed. You don't need any special technology to make it. It was made by aging it in damp caves in the 12th century.
Cheese single
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> if I would switch over to completely healthy my grocery bill would become two to three times more expensive.
It would not. It would actually be cheaper. Mine is. You are doing it wrong.
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> Although I don't buy the worst food because we have health standards here
We have health standards to protect us from food poisoning and poisoning from additives.
We don't have health standards to protect us from chronic diseases.
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I still don't like celery.
Smother it in peanut butter and dip it in chocolate and it ain't bad.
Excellent! Can we do this here in the uk? (Score:5, Insightful)
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So once again you want to sue corporations for producing something that regulators in a regulated industry have permitted to be produced rather than addressing the underlying cause?
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The UK government is actually encouraging UPF with the sugar tax. Heavily tax sugar and manufacturers respond by replacing the sugar with something worse to avoid the tax.
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Depends on the individual UPF...
There have been various drives in the past to reduce fat and salt, and in some cases these things were replaced with unhealthy quantities of sugar, or corn syrup etc.
If you push them to remove/reduce sugar, it will be almost always be replaced with something even worse.
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Re:Excellent! Can we do this here in the uk? (Score:5, Insightful)
No one forced anyone to eat those ultraprocessed foods.
No one is forcing people to buy cars whose brakes don't work, yet selling such cars is illegal.
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The difference is that when one buys a car there is an assumption that it meets safety standards.
and there is no assumption that utraprocessed foods meet safety standards?
They do meet current standards.
Ultraprocessed foods meet all the current standards for safe food.
standards evolve. new information, new findings, new studies, new methodology, new results
True but until the standards are updated, they are what they are. You should have no right to sue for past actions because new regulations are needed. Create the new regulations.
Those standards may be inadequate, but that is not something that you should be able to sue the manufacturer over.
why not? aren't you the consumer of these products?
I am not suing. San Francisco is. Even if I was, I ate the stuff of my own free will, knowing that it was probably not the healthiest choice. (In fact, I try to avoid them as much as possible, although in the US it is very difficult, unless you cook everything yourself from scratch.)
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No one forced anyone to eat those ultraprocessed foods.
No, but they do everything BUT force to make it the most attractive option. Just as one silly example: With wages and prices as they are, having both partners work full-time is basically required unless you're in the top few percent of earners or inherited wealth. So who's going to cook? After a long work day? Convenience food is the obvious choice. You are not being forced, but unless food is a high-priority item in your life, you are very much steered into that direction.
Save the courts some time (Score:3)
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Or maybe people should keep their pets on the leash.
Oh wait no actually... It turns out 100,000 pets are killed each year by car drivers in the USA. I'm actually on board with your ideal. Let's ban cars completely. I mean sure we don't give enough of a shit about shooting kids in schools to ban guns, maybe though our pet fido can enact a change and get something banned on safety grounds.
Hey, howbout
By the way, next time start your post with "Hey, whatabout". If you're going to go with a stupid whataboutism you may as w
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Rice A Roni changing motto immiediately (Score:3)
"The Denver Treat" just doesn't have the same ring to it
Reality (Score:3, Insightful)
So what exactly makes these unhealthy? I consistently get voted down whenever I question this, but just because it's "ultraprocessed" doesn't make it unhealthy. If one person eats a homemade cupcake every day, and the other eats a Hostess Refined Palm Oil Dessert, is the Hostess one more unhealthy because it's "ultraprocessed"? If you control for calories and portion sizes, I doubt it.
No, the real problem lies in people eating shitty food that is convenient and tastes good. Perfectly rational thing to do in the short-term, which makes it a difficult behavior to change. So instead we have regressed to this "harm reduction" mode: Can't fix the problem, so let's invent another made-up bugaboo to fuel our two minutes hate and distract us from looking in the mirror. In this case, we blame the food--it must be poisoned by big corporations!--instead of blaming the person making bad lifestyle choices.
I'm not sure what the goal is here* but what result do they expect? Do they want Bimbo Bakeries to stop putting so much sugar in the bread? Or maybe McDonald's will stop salting their fries? Or maybe just put warning labels on everything with too much salt or saturated fat or sugar like they did in Canada. I'm sure none of those will help. We live in unprecedented times where we can eat like this, might as well enjoy it. Pass the Ozempic.
*I lied--I know the goal is for the lawyers involved to make boatloads of money at the taxpayers' expense.
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Depends on what you put in your cupcake (or any other food you prepare yourself). The ultraprocessed label is perfect for people that want to demonize classes of foods with certain ingredients in common without actually telling anyone which ingredients cause the offending food to be bad.
The usual suspects are colors, xanthan gum, and omega-6-rich seed oils. There are others but those seem to be the targets du jour.
Re:Reality (Score:5, Interesting)
I will certainly agree that the term "ultraprocessed" is vague. My favorite example of this is nixtamal. Traditionally Meso-Americans and other native Americans would ultraprocess corn meal by boiling it in a chemical solution (lime water, and not lime the fruit, to be clear). This released extra nutrients from the corn, making it healthier. The failure to nixtamalize corn after its export from the Americas led to nutritional diseases like pellagra and kwashiorkor in populations relying heavily on corn as a staple food.
So, obviously the idea that "ultraprocessed" foods are automatically unhealthy requires some qualification. Still, as a shorthand for all kinds of problematic practices in the food industry, it really is a problem. A term other than "ultraprocessed" might be better though.
As for the postulated Hostess product versus the homemade cupcake, it probably is less healthy. You specifically mentioned palm oil, but you were not clear on whether this is partially hydrogenated or fully hydrogenated palm oil or what other ingredients might be present. For example, the Hostess cake might have far more sugar and sodium than the homemade cupcake. Even the flour used in the Hostess cupcakes might be less healthy because the degree to which it is refined strips out nutrients present in the homemade cupcake. Then there's the question of dyes and preservatives that may be unhealthy. Will it be a problem in moderation? Probably not. The issue generally arises where the majority of people's diets consist of foods that are OK in moderation, but that they eat as their primary source of nutrition virtually every day.
Anyway, while in many cases you can blame this on the consumers of the food for not making careful choices, I have to point out that it's not actually always all that easy to work around. For example, I had a health issue persisting for several years that required a pretty strict diet. As soon as you are on a diet requiring avoiding certain things, it becomes immediately obvious how difficult it actually is to avoid those things. For example, phosphates. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find seafood that does not contain sodium tripolyphosphate? It is added to almost everything because it helps the seafood to retain water, which plumps it up and makes it heavier by 5 to 10%. That's the only reason it is added to seafood. It is actually toxic, but falls under "generally considered safe" by the FDA, although there are no long term studies on its effects. Since it is only added to seafood to scam customers into paying more for less and increase profit margins, it seems pretty scummy. There are premium brands that don't include it, but most stores don't even carry them.
The above is just one example among many, many examples of the food supply being full of unnecessary garbage that contributes in various small ways to making people's diets unhealthy, even if they try to be healthy.
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Healthy food and market capitalism are inherently incompatible...
The solution is moderate consumption of natural traditional foods, things that our bodies have evolved over thousands of years to consume. But moderate consumption is unprofitable, the market system forces companies to:
1) encourage excessive consumption, more consumption = more profit
2) look for ways to cheapen the product to either improve margins, or compete against others
The end result is always going to be junk packed full of the cheapest
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Sadly, I will say that what you say here generally rings true. It is a tricky problem though. On the one hand, you should not take away people's freedom to eat unhealthy food if they want, even food full of unnecessary dyes. On the other hand, the situation has become bad enough that the sections of the grocery store you can shop in for food you can make a healthy diet out of are relatively small. As Cookie Monster (somewhat hypocritically) tells us "cookies are a sometimes food". There is not anything per
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And they nodoubt run promotions encouraging you to buy more of this healthy food, buy one get one free offers, discounts for large quantities etc.
Even the healthiest of foods are unhealthy when consumed excessively.
What does this grocery store do to promote moderate consumption?
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Did they also add some hydrogenated fats, some E-numbered colouring, emulsifiers and stabilisers? No? Then it wasn't "ultraprocessed" - it was in fact, "processed".
There is no real singular definition of ultraprocessed foods of course, which is one of the fundamental problems in discussing them or in passing laws and regulations to control them. Also "emulsifiers and stabilizers", so... mayonnaise?
Processed food is anything we've done something to - cooking is a form of processing (drying, roasting, etc, all "processing"). Adding stuff that you don't find in your kitchen... ultra-processing.
Right, which makes nixtamalization ultraprocessed rather than just processed. Maybe you keep quicklime in your kitchen though. It's not typical for most people though.
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So what exactly makes these unhealthy? I consistently get voted down whenever I question this, but just because it's "ultraprocessed" doesn't make it unhealthy.
Sigh. You get voted down because you generalise the point in a way that makes the question unanswerable. There is a proven link between health outcomes and ultra processed foods, but the specifics of it is difficult to establish.
In this case, we blame the food--it must be poisoned by big corporations!--instead of blaming the person making bad lifestyle choices.
"Choices" I don't think you understand what that word means in this context. For "choices" to be a relevant defense here those choices need to be free from undue influence. They are not in this industry. It's an industry that goes out of its way to not only stack the deck against yo
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So what exactly makes these unhealthy? I consistently get voted down whenever I question this, but just because it's "ultraprocessed" doesn't make it unhealthy.
Sigh. You get voted down because you generalise the point in a way that makes the question unanswerable. There is a proven link between health outcomes and ultra processed foods, but the specifics of it is difficult to establish.
LOL someone states the term ultra processed is too general and the response is you are generalizing. As it stands the term "ultra processed" is about as useful as a California cancer warning.
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When I dry brine a couple racks of ribs and cook them in my smoker, does that make them ultra-processed? It's probably not the healthiest of foods, but I started with fresh ingredients!
Proof is in the (ultra processed) pudding (Score:2)
I suspect they will need to provide specific evidence of harm caused by specific products rather than relying entirely on broad inductive inference.
Why not Coca Cola? (Score:2)
Sugared soft drinks dwarf any of this vague bullshit in harmful effect.
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The replacement artificial sweeteners used in the "low sugar" soft drinks are even worse, and couple that with the marketing which basically says "this doesnt contain any sugar so you can consume as much as you want" and you have a disaster in the making.
Sugar is not harmful in sensible quantities, i would rather drink a small quantity of full sugar coca-cola than any quantity of coke zero.
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The PPM ones would have to be incredibly toxic to have direct impact. Researchers are left to search for tiny little changes in microbiome and insulin response. Negligible, especially with the baseline health of obese people.
There are scary studies for the sugar alcohols, unfortunately truly abominable science.
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Take stevia, a plant-based sweetener. It is 250 times sweeter than sugar, and since it contains no calories and only a minimal amount of carbohydrates, it is highly unlikely to contribute to anyone's weight or blood sugar.
Coke Zero primarily
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A healthy body will regulate blood sugar, and when someone suffers from diabetes their ability to regulate blood sugar is compromised. This can result in either dangerously high or dangerously low blood sugar levels.
Doctors would recommend patients drinking a sugary energy drink if their blood sugar dips to dangerous levels, but this becomes difficult when a lot of places don't even sell full sugar drinks any more.
Someone with diabetes needs to control their sugar intake, not replace sugar entirely. This be
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The big problem for a diabetic is that the level can get too high, which has all sorts of negative effects on the body such as nerve damage, bad teeth, kidney damage, eye damage, heart damage, etc... It's a long list. The cause of low blood sugar for a diabetic
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I'm an insulin dependent (LADA) diabetic, thanks to Agent Orange. Unless I need to recover from hypoglycemia before I pass out, that is not an option for me. I'm sure that I'm not the only person reading this thread who has to avoid regular sugar except in very small amounts (Sugar in my morning coffee is part of my morning carbohydrates.) or in emergencies.
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Many species of ants definitely do not avoid sugar. Having a sugar bowl infested with ants is a disgusting but common experience.
Good luck (Score:2)
But yet cigarettes are still legal?
Sorry, but you have an enormous battle on your hands to prove anything. All FDA-approved ingredients, all approved food-industry practices, the expectation that consumers don't just live off one food item and exercise some common sense in their portioning and overall diet, etc....
It took decades to get close to tobacco bans and that was clear and obvious evidence of not just knowing it caused cancer but that it did so hugely significantly and then the entire thing was sur
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The harmful effects of cigarettes are well known. Those of us who don't want to suffer those effects simply don't smoke and we avoid *most* of those effects (aside when someone else is smoking nearby).
It's extremely easy to not smoke, there is no downside, we save money and experience better health.
For food it's much more difficult:
1) we need to consume food, we can't simply avoid it
2) smoking=bad is simple and easy to avoid, but the huge number of ingredients and processing methods are extremely difficult
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But at no point are you REQUIRED to eat nothing but ultra-processed foods either. It's entirely optional.
Of course some will be cheaper, but that's like saying "Ah well, we can afford to smoke the PREMIUM cigarettes, which are healthier" - it's WORSE.
And the listing of what's in your food is a million times better than what's in your cigarette or your vape, for instance.
Allergies and preferences also don't come into this. If you have an allergy, you can't just force every food to be hypoallergenic to you
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You are REQUIRED to eat something, you might only be able to afford the cheap low quality options. Not eating at all will result in a slow painful death.
You do not need to smoke, the cheapest option is not to smoke at all, anyone can afford to not smoke.
Restaurants used to be for the poor (Score:2)
Ultraprocessed products...fake meat then too ! (Score:2)
Italian ancestry is strong in SF (Score:2)
Take away salami, prosciutto and the other processed meats that are staples of the Mediterranean diet, and there will be hell to pay.
Re: Italian ancestry is strong in SF (Score:2)
These are expensive so the cost forces you to eat them in moderation. Because an Italian cannot live on procuttio alone, there is also the wine to consider.
If you don't ban the sale of such foods then STFU. (Score:2)
in a city with limited shelf space (Score:2)
There should not be any room for 20 flavors of corn chips. The city is able to regulate what sort of businesses and offerings are permissable. Think of not just a liquor license, but a junk food license, and soda license.
Re: No, I don't think so (Score:2)
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He's picking on small countries because politically he needs little, bloodless and victorious wars, and these tend to happen only when the opponents cannot defend themselves.
Against a formidable opponent putin will fold and run every time.
He ran from Ukraine in 2022, he ran from Turkey in Syria after 2015, he "pacified" the rebellious Chechens by buying them off.
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Trump doesn't have the will to deploy military strength.
Syria says "Hi".
His actions so far have been performance theater (ie, pick on small countries in hopes that Russia and China will be afraid).
We're the United States. The world's most powerful country. Outside of Russia and China, all countries are "small".
And Russia and China... they have nukes. Attacking them means WWIII. If you think this is a good idea, by all means, run for President on your End Humanity platform.
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Without the Repubican wars in the middle east, which put the cost of oil through the roof since 2001, putin would not have thought of attacking his neighbors.
Remember dubya, the guy who loved to look into putin's eyes?
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Trying to deflect isn't going to change history.
The reason putin was able to start all these wars is the foreign policy of the Republican/Tea/Trump party that provided him with the money to do so.
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Coca cola, Frito-Lay, and the Monsanto Corporation did not force San Francisco to give out free stuff to homeless people. San Francisco voters did that.
what are you referring to?
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Yeah... Absolutely no mention.
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Only entity that should be allowed to sue is the FDA. Period.
Why though? It is well established that government at the state level and below have regulatory powers for this sort of thing within their jurisdictions.
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Why though? It is well established that government at the state level and below have regulatory powers for this sort of thing within their jurisdictions.
I think his point is not the specifics but rather the body. You're right, they have regulatory bodies. The only people that should be allowed to be sued is the regulator. UPF includes additives that the regulator has deemed safe for human consumption and legal to sell. Why sue company for their legal regulated product?
Re:Fuck that (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, let's just come up with a hypothetical example. Let's say that baby formula manufacturers realize that the specific tests used by the regulator to check for protein can be fooled by melamine and so they use melamine as an ingredient to save money while fooling the regulator. Consequently hundreds of thousands of babies get sick and tens of thousands are hospitalized with some dying, and that's just the ones that are known about. Should the regulators be the only ones that get in trouble while the executives who made the decisions buy themselves some private islands? I mean, A. that's not a hypothetical example and, B. I just do not understand what you are trying to argue here. Maybe it's my fault, but it just seems incomprehensible to me given the actual, real-world history of corporate behavior when it comes to food and drug safety.
Re: (Score:2)
I presume you're referring to the 2008 Chinese Milk Scandal? I'll point out this was something perpetrated by the Chinese industry, not American. It was knowingly covered up with the complicity of the Chinese government to prevent it from embarrassing the ongoing Olympics. Only when the scandal became impossible to cover up did the CCP take any action.
You can point that out, and I'll point out that the original argument from registrations_suck is that only an agency at the federal level should be able to sue in such cases. That was one of the reasons I specifically chose an example from China, which has the kind of supreme federal power that registrations_suck was suggesting should be the case here. I mean, another reason was because it was such an egregious and horrible example. However, all the reasons you listed where the federal government might cove
Re: (Score:2)