

The Science of Addictive Junk Food (2013) - jkestner
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html?partner=rss&pagewanted=all&_r=0

======
harshreality
What's frightening is the conservative/libertarian view:

"Government has no business telling me what to eat."

Which is just nonsense, and not only because the decision on what to eat is
driven by genetics that did not evolve in the presence of modern processed
foods. Government isn't telling you what to eat if it keeps companies from
selling the worst junk food. If you want to make junk food yourself, you're
welcome to (and it will probably be a lot healthier than what you buy, too,
and taste better, subjectively, because you made it), but the problem with
junk food is the economy of scale. Companies can cheaply make stuff that
tastes great without being healthy, so why would you bother with more
expensive or healthier food, or anything you have to spend time making
yourself? It's about shifting incentives, not banning anything. They counter
that freedom applies to corporations too, and you're banning corporations from
doing things, which leads to the "do corporations deserve the same freedoms?"
argument.

The conservatives' position goes beyond unwise and into the realm of
hypocrisy, because conservatives have no problem when government wants to tell
me I can't grow salvia divinorum (yes, in my state it's banned), or poppies,
or marijuana plants, but forbid a _company_ from distributing disgustingly
unhealthy lunchables or soda and they lose their minds.

(I should add that another part of the problem is that both conservatives and
libertarians pretend the costs of eating badly only affect the people making
the choice, which isn't true. Particularly with the changes to healthcare,
everyone buying their own insurance during open enrollment, and maybe everyone
(I don't know, are there any plans where premiums are segmented by behavior
other than tobacco use?), is in a gigantic pool where no separation by diet is
allowed, even if it were practical which it's not. And if everything were
privatized and pools segmented by diet, there would still be costs to others,
because people in those pools have more health problems that negatively affect
not only their own, but their relatives' and friends', happiness and
productivity. Which works if their friends in turn exert influence back to eat
healthier, but that)

~~~
dylanjermiah
The government is not capable of 'shifting incentives' through the use of
force. Attempts made for a small group to dictate what others want and what's
best for them will, and have, ended in failure.

~~~
mrob
Governments have very effectively reduced tobacco use through advertising,
restrictions on where smoking is legal (backed by force), and taxation (backed
by force). Making something expensive and inconvient can make it unpopular
while avoiding potentially counterproductive bans. The same principles could
be applied to unnaturally delicious processed foods.

~~~
norea-armozel
I would hazard a guess that the decline in celebrity endorsement of tobacco
products had a larger influence on the total decline of smoking at least in
the adult population. Mind you, this wasn't uniform as the rate of smoking has
not declined at the same rate for poorer populations despite the absence of
both advertisements or celebrity endorsements.

------
_xcode
tl;dr anyone?

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Free market capitalism works really efficiently, except when externalities are
present, at which point it efficiently exploits them to everyone's detriment.
Your health is an externality to the corporations that make your food.

~~~
uptownJimmy
Brilliant. But completely incomprehensible to almost everyone.

~~~
Terr_
"Sometimes it _IS_ more profitable to poison your customers, even in the long-
run."

------
adwhit
How many millions of life-years have been lost due to the junk-food industry?
To me they are murderers with expense accounts.

~~~
sz4kerto
It is not that simple thought. The simple $1 McDonalds burger has one of the
best value/price ratio in the history of the human nutrition.

"The double cheeseburger provides 390 calories, 23 grams of protein – half a
daily serving – seven per cent of daily fibre, 19 grams of fat and 20 per cent
of daily calcium, all for between $1 and $2, or 65p and £1.30, The Times
reported."

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/10210327/McDouble-
is...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/10210327/McDouble-is-cheapest-
and-most-nutritious-food-in-human-history.html)

I think this topic is similar to 'how many life-years have been lost due the
pollution caused by industrial revolution' \-- many, of course. And many have
been saved as well. Here we can surely say that many life years have been
saved by the mass/junk food industry as it has provided the masses reliable,
usually not infected/spoiled food.

~~~
Happydayz
I usually bring up a similar point when people criticize modern agriculture
and food production.

Right now someone can buy a pound of ground beef for around $3-4. After tax
that represents around 30 minutes of labor for a minimum waged employee.

It is absolutely remarkable that our lowest skilled, lowest productivity
workers, can afford a pound of beef for 1/2 an hour of work.

Obviously there are clear environmental issues here, and we are not taking
into account all the externalities associated with meat production. But that
figure above, and what it represents in terms of human nutrition, should be
breathtaking.

~~~
toothbrush
That's only because we're exploiting other living species, which are much less
able to defend themselves than we are.

A society should be judged by how it treats its weakest members, and if you
ask me, that's the battery hens and mass-farmed pigs in their crowded "flats".
The atrociously low price of meat is actually not at all a mark of
civilisation, but rather of barbarism towards animals. Animals which, might i
add, consistently turn out to be more intelligent that we originally thought.

Everybody should read _Eating Animals_ by J.S. Foer, it's surprisingly level-
headed and non-ranty, but even so, it's hard to ignore what goes on in the
food industry.

