
PepsiCo Wants to Sell Healthy Food, Consumers Want Chips - redcastle
http://www.wsj.com/articles/pepsico-wants-to-sell-healthy-food-consumers-want-chips-1481481896
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Analemma_
It's a little dishonest of this article not to point out that junk food is
engineered- I mean _literally_ engineered, by teams of scientists running
controlled experiments- to be as addictive as possible. This isn't a question
of those wacky consumers and their revealed preference not matching their
stated intentions; human willpower should barely enter the conversation when
this topic comes up.

If PepsiCo is genuinely serious about encouraging healthy foods, the only way
that's ever going to work is if the Lay's and Doritos are re-designed to be
less appealing. Putting them in a fight head-to-head with the healthy foods in
their current state is a fight the healthy foods are always going to lose,
even if Pepsi's intentions were pure as the driven snow. But they can't
(again, irrespective of whether they're good or evil) because that would kill
the brands and competitors would simply swoop in and take the market share; so
once again we have a coordination problem where regulation is realistically
the only solution.

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foota
Is it possible to engineer healthy and addictive food?

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chrisfosterelli
I like to think diet pop can fit into this category... but then there's the
backlash of "unnatural chemicals" which sceptics believe must obviously be bad
for you.

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djrogers
> the backlash of "unnatural chemicals" which sceptics (sic.) believe must
> obviously be bad for you.

You mean like the fact that they inhibit beneficial intestinal flora [1], or
that numerous studies have found that people have a higher risk for diabetes
if they drink diet soda [2], or that people gain weight when they switch to
diet sofa from regular [3]?

Yeah, those wacky skeptics - they'll believe anything...

[1]
[http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/10.1139/apnm-2016-0346#....](http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/10.1139/apnm-2016-0346#.WDxeChIrKRs)

[2]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/23364017/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/23364017/)

[3]
[http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0167241#sec020)

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ClassyJacket
It's literally impossible to gain weight from drinking diet soda. It doesn't
have food energy. It can't break thermodynamics. It can only be explained by
other factors like people over compensating with other calorie consumption.

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bowersbros
Could things such as chemical imbalance or just the chemicals themselves
affect metabolism / digestion, causing weight gain?

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AstralStorm
That requires some good research to prove.

What is known is that suddenly cutting caffeine after large regular intake
will cause weight gain.

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nibs
It would be easier to make people give up most of their rights and freedoms
than it would be to make them stop eating bad food that will make them an
expensive burden to the healthcare system. The only solution is to regulate
and tax the way cigarettes are. All that Pepsi goes to fund all that diabetes
and heart disease. Everyone, including the highly competent managers and
researchers at Pepsi, knows it is bad for you. That does not mean no one
should work for Philip Morris - it just means there are probably more virtuous
ways to spend your time. Ultimately, society will give the people what they
want, so we should tax the bad wants.

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Spooky23
I never understood why it's ok to tax alcohol, and keep the price of sucrose
high for Cuban-American farmers, but anti-freedom to tax it's cousin fructose.

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TillE
The left criticism of sugar taxes is simply that it's a regressive tax, which
disproportionately harms poor people. Forcing only certain people to reduce
their sugar consumption like this is a bit repulsive.

A lot of policies would make more sense if we had radically different systems
in place to mitigate their side effects, but we simply don't. Until then,
things like the trans fat ban are solid, fair policies.

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zeroer
The WSJ and Pepsi mention " Quaker oatmeal, Naked juice and Sabra hummus" as
"good for you" foods.

I've never tried Sabra hummus, but the others are super sugary. A couple years
ago I made a conscious attempt to eat less salt and sugar, and once you do so
it's amazing how much sugar you notice added to virtually every processed food
you'll find at a grocery store.

Cooking food from scratch is basically the only way to have control over your
diet.

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KKKKkkkk1
I've seen jars of honey-and-mustard and chocolate-chip hummus in the grocery
store in the US. Needless to say, this is not how people eat hummus anywhere
else in the world.

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Avshalom
instead they just leave out the chickpeas and call it halva...

