Large consumable product companies (I call them this because I refuse to acknowledge their items as food anymore) intentionally design their items to be as palatable as possible.
They do this by putting high amounts of fats and sugars, and depending on the food, salt, into these items. They do this because it guarantees the “comeback” of the person to these items, as it spikes dopamine, blood sugar, etc in the body. And due to the lack of nutrients in them, the body seeks to have more just to compensate for the lack of nutrition
These companies know this (although for my idea to work we have to get them to admit it).
These items, despite the companies knowledge of the unhealthiness of their items, they do not seek to change them. They continue to mass produce and market their products as good for you, using various marketing ploys such as “low sugar” (which often times means artificial sugars, which I doubt are much better), “low fat” (which I doubt really increases the benefit of these items, as they didn’t have much to begin with, and “made with real ingredients” (which is an awful premise to market these items around, because it willingly deceives the customer into buying them, under the guise of health, when in reality its not much better than most of the other products. And it is awful that marketing these items as “made with real ingredients” is even an incentive, because ALL FOOD should be made with real ingredients.
To get to the point, I think we need to form a class action lawsuit against these companies. We would demand that these companies phase out their production of these goods (using a contract of terms TBD), and make them produce healthy alternatives. Or, just shut them down completely due to the detriment to human life they are.
I see, however, that this would be very challenging, and would likely be dismissed by a court (for some reason, although most of my court knowledge come from some a few shows, including cartoons, so I’m actually likely wrong about this). Never the less, I don’t anticipate this to be easy, nor simple.
But this NEEDS to be done. And not just with the big food companies, but with big Pharmacy companies (though this might be harder to find grounds on), and other companies that may fall into the "Big ____ " company category.
I think there would be opportunity for this to be successful, also.
Thoughts? Am I just being crazy/ overly optimistic/ in a delusional mental state brought on by sickness?
It sounds like we’re vilifying the market reality of supply and demand and want someone else to be responsible for our decisions. Certainly that golden-paved path can only lead somewhere great…
This is the wrong approach. I personally don’t want it to be illegal for McDonald’s to sell Big Macs or for Hostess to sell Twinkies. I don’t choose to eat them, but I think people can and should decide for themselves. Also, you can certainly enjoy an occasional ice cream cone or a side of fries as a treat, and still be a healthy, informed adult.
Why not, instead, focus on education. If no one was buying snack cakes and crackers (or buying much less of them), the companies would not make them.
As another example, soda is certainly one of the worst things you can consume regularly. But you know what tastes awesome on the rare occasion? An ice cold Coke in the old-school glass bottles made with real sugar. I probably drink a few of these a year, and I don’t want a class action law suit from preventing me from doing so.
I think people just need to be educated about what they’re eating and why they should or shouldn’t eat it. Most people still think peanut butter is a good source of protein and that pizza is “carbs” rather than a ton of fat and a little bit of carbs. I mean yeah in a perfect world all food would be good quality and good for you but we don’t live in a perfect world and never will until we can figure out how to put our brains into personal simulations like that movie Don’t Worry Darling.
It’s addicting. That’s why I pretend they don’t exist.
When me and my brother in law used to go to movies together, he’d always get a coke icee and every single movie we saw he loved until he rewatched them. That coke icee hits different.
Unless you’re getting very thin crust, pizza is a wonderful combination of a lot of both. The foundation of it is a loaf of bread.
Which was also a fun way that Subway hoodwinked us into thinking that eating a loaf of bread in a single sitting was somehow a healthier alternative to other fast food options.
Full concur that people need to be educated on what they are eating, and also expand that people shouldn’t rely on their government, television, or the food industry to provide that education. I learned how to eat from television as a kid. That meant that I knew that milk makes a body good, fried eggs are what my brain looks like when it’s on drugs, and Pop Tarts and Cocoa Puffs are part of a complete and balanced breakfast, which included 4 slices of buttered toast, a glass of milk, a glass of orange juice, and no protein whatsoever.
I tried eating something like this once as a wide eyed youth, expecting to be bright and shiny. It didn’t work. I threw up somewhere between my house and the bmx track and spent the rest of the day hungry and smelly.
This also reminds me- we used to cover almost anywhere in a 10 mile radius on bikes that weren’t really made for distance and never even flinched. Similar to a 14 mile ride me & my son, neighbor and her daughter did- with them on Hot Wheels and Barbie bikes.
A twinkie isn’t gonna matter (detrimentally) even a tiny bit on a day like that.
It kind of makes me wonder if this is what caused this type of “food” to be some common place. For example, a pair of parents grew up eating the original formula/ingredients of pop tarts while being more active overall so they thought it would be fine to feed their kids that. While the kids in the modern day, are less active and are eating the cheap and more processed modern formula of pop tarts but the parents grew up eating it so it’s fine in their eyes. Kinda like a cycle with “food” that’s become less of food
I can’t speak to the difference of ingredients, but:
I know that convenience was part of it. In my house there was my sister and us 4 boys, me the youngest, and I would eat dry cat food (Friskies!) when we ran out of cereal. We would run out of cereal almost instantly. Like 8:01 am on saturday morning.
You couldn’t keep a box of zebra cakes or Little Debby anything in our house. It would (and often was) like lord of the flies.
Anyways- families were huge. Ours was small with only 5. Convenience was a necessity. And we would blast through energy every day, non stop. No internet. Building dirt tracks for bikes, riding bikes, walking from one township or borough to the next for no reason, all things out doors that required huge amounts of calories. By the time I was a teen- like 15 or so, our woods had a downhill dirt jumping track, a pond that we dug by hand, 3 sets of tarzan swings, and 2 shacks- 1 underground, and about an acre of randomly scattered pot plants.
I think one of the best skills my dad taught me was to make burger patties and bake a potato- which he would buy in 50 lb. bags.
Funny enough this is how it is with my grandma. If there’s a box of little debbies, you better take one and hide it because she’s going to eat the whole box!
Speaking of little debbies, my GF and I were talking and both agreed they tasted so much better 10+ years ago. I remember I hadn’t had a nutty buddy in years and I had one but my mouth felt super oily on the inside
If there was any chance of a class action against junk food manufacturers winning in court half of the state attorneys general in the USA would have filed such a case years ago. The only thing that will fix the world’s growing junk food addictions are regulations on food additives similar to regulations on the use of trans fats. That will eventually happen in less corrupt nations when the cost of health care related to junk food become overwhelming. But it will never happen in the USA because drug companies, pharmacies, and pharmacy benefit managers will be making far too much money selling weight loss drugs and drugs that treat conditions caused by obesity.
This is 100% spot on. Fast food has gone in a similar direction as well. Portion sizes are part of that too. When you’d get a soda at McDonalds back in the day, it was a 12oz soda. You’d drink it, and that was it. No 40oz with refills.
Navigating this food environment AND social environment is challenging as a parent IF you’re paying attention in the slightest. As you mentioned, kids are a lot more sedentary. Apart from a million other factors at play, check this one out. When I was a kid, my favorite TV show came on at 1630. I would diligently adjust my schedule to watch it, OR, if things got really bad, set up my VCR to record it. Once the show was over, I went about my day.
The other day, my kid says “Hey dad, can I watch Duck Tales in Disney plus?” Yeah, sure thing kiddo. I then go about my day, not thinking anything of it, come back to the living room 3 hours later…and they’re still watching Duck Tales. Oh yeah, sh*t, I forgot: TV is streaming and on demand now. Their favorite show is ALWAYS on TV. If left unchecked, they can literally just watch it all day. I eventually had to go do something else, because daytime soap operas would come on, but now there is never NOT something good on TV.
Pair that with the hyperaddictive snacks to eat while watching TV, and it’s just insane.
I grew up in a family of 4. My dad, my mom, my older brother and I.
My dad would do burger night every few weeks or so.
He’d always make 6 cheeseburgers.
My mom was 5’ and maybe 100lbs. So you can imagine how many burgers she would eat.
Do the rest of the math…and there’s a reason I was a fat kid that can 1 bite a cheeseburger while my brother was known as my “little big brother” growing up.
I swear my dad cooked that specific amount on purpose. It was like Thunderdome on burgernight.
