The food industry is manipulating us?

[Anonymous]

I think the food industry is merely giving us what we want.

What evidence is there that the food industry actually manipulates us and takes our choices away?

How are they overriding individual choice? How exactly does that mechanism work? How do you know that it is causal?

[DryGermanGuy]

The American food industry is manipulating its American customers. Many ingredients, add-ons and processes are allowed there that have never been in the EU or outlawed decades ago! I know some proud fools call that a "nanny state", yet I have to ask why they accept to eat willingly all that garbage food their companies are serving them? Record numbers of obesity, diabetics and decreasing life expectancy should be a clear warning that things have been going in the wrong direction for a long time.

[hahahmm]

I assume you're talking about in the US. I've been outside of the US to Europe and Asia. You can get food that is 1,000 times better tasting outside the U. S... Can be the exact same brand name. Until you've experienced that you will think the Fed & corporations are't fooling you. Also I *do* remember that food in the US (major stores) used to taste better than it does now. You can still get farmer's market stuff and that too is much better than what you get in the big stores.

[Asker]

But why does food taste less good? That depends on where you go.

Americans increasing are pressed for time. Our food choices mimick that. Foods that are more readily available to eat are going to take hits in quality.

I'm not saying that it's not true. I agree food has declined in quality in the US. But then again you have to think about economic factors.

We are capable of bringing in exported foods that taste better. They may be more expensive but it is what it is.

But we choose to eat what we eat. We vote for what we want with out dollars.

If food quality goes down in my opinion it is because of the choices we are making as consumers.

I don't see how you can prove that all of this is the result of manipulative companies trying to get away with evil deeds.

I'm sure companies do shady shit. It happens. But I don't think it's this conspiracy level stuff that I always hear about.

[hahahmm]

Uh, because corporations like to maximize profits and don't actually care about you. In some countries there is a limit on how far they can go because of COMPETITION. In a country where there's lots of quality alternatives you can't sell dog sh*t and make a profit. That is my only explanation for why two products from the same company/brand are totally different quality levels in two different countries. Although it's much worse than that when you consider how I was in a country where a US dollar was worth about 8x the local currency so in the US you'd be paying 8x more for BS that the people in that country get high quality versions of for the lower price.
Anyhow, I don't think we have to 'prove' things. We just have to look at EVIDENCE.
And sure, people make choices in what they buy but most people don't even know that they are making poor choices because the alternatives have been squeezed out.

Oh, and I am not just talking about obvious healthy type food. I mean across the board from any type of food you can think of, the quality is better outside the US when talking about big name brands/chains.

" But I don't think it's this conspiracy level stuff that I always hear about." Oh, it would have to be a conspiracy between companies similar to price fixing. Otherwise one company would bring in the better quality at a much lower price.. say 8 times lower than market. But obviously, the companies benefit from having prices go up and standards go... wait for it... down.

That said, people are responsible for their choices too. I suggest everyone start learning to process/make various foods at home and how to grow food. How to buy from farmer's markets and the like. You will need those skills in the future when there's a food crisis. Coming very soon, I'd say.

[Asker]

The question is, what causes a food crisis?

Lack of economic freedom causes a food crisis.

But economic freedom results in companies giving us what we want.

I'm still not seeing how companies are responsible our choices.

Of course a business is there to maximize profits. It's not their job to care about you, it's their to job to make money. It's their job to do their best to give us products we desire.

I think you could say that we will make bad choices. But I don't think you can say that we are forced in any way to buy particular products.

If we buy out of ignorance that is our own fault. It is the fault of a culture that sees business as evil rather than fundamental to our way of life.

We do not participate rational choices. We do everything bl9ndly and ignorantly.

That's not bus9nesses fault. That's government fault for not educating people, or not making sure businesses are doing bad things behind our backs.

But government can't stop and close all loopholes. Business will always try to get around red tape.

But they can't get around a market full of peope who think about what they're buying and who they're buying from and whether that company performs good business practices.

[Asker]

Secondly you have zerovevidence as to why exactly a product is different in one country to another.

What is the exact mechanism which causes this difference?

Only then do you know whether our products are being made bad to save a buck, or being made bad because we are just lazy thoughtless consumers.

The relevant information around the way the market works matters. It matters the geographic region, the amount of money people make, rhe kind of laws in place in a given region.

There are so many factors to consider. I would love to consider them if indeed one could point me to those facts.

[Asker]

Also I have traveled all over the world for military shit. I've had food all over the place. The quality of food depends on so many things. Even within the US. One mcdonalds can be absolute fire and another mcdonalds can be absolute shit.

I DO agree that things in the USA are degrading though. I feel like products are degrading. Food is degrading. Services are degrading. Contracted work. All kinda of things are just going down the shitter.

Businesses are closing earlier and earlier. There's less to choose from. Products are lower quality.

But why? Your claim is that the greedy businesses are causing this.

I don't agree with that. Not unless it caj be proven and I don't know how one goes about proving that.

[hahahmm]

If you're right then people in other countries make better buying decisions/choices but that's not true, because if I walk into a typical store in another country the brand products ARE higher quality than walking into a typical store in the U. S. That means that the choice was made for you.. if you trust "typical stores". If you were right then buyers in the other country would be actively making smarter choices. and we can only compare similar areas to each other: urban to urban, rural to ruaral. No point comparing what farmers in a 2nd world country eat to what urbanites in a 1st world country eat. it's apples and oranges.

[Asker]

It's not just choices but also the nature of laws and the culture.

I know that in eauropean countries they have different laws about what kind of chemicals can go in the food.

Generally their laws are more strict than in the US.

Our food and drug administration let's some chemicals through that other countries don't.

I know that sometimes a product is higher quality because the government banned an alternative food product and so they are forced to use a more expensive or more natural (usually the same) product that probably tastes better.

Also like I mentioned, costs are real and sometimes things that taste better cost more but there are always downsides and upsides to each product.

My question is about chemicals I suppose. Why don't we ban certain chemicals that other countries don't?

Another commenter said that the FDA is owned by the insurance companies who own the food companies and its all a giant conspiracy to legalize certain addictive chemicals in the food and drain out wallets with addictive food.

And that works because we expect the government to be looking out for us. So we had abdicated our responsibility towards shopping consciously.

But I don't know if that conspiracy is true or not.

[hahahmm]

It's s long video but this may give you a big hint as to the answer. When I originally saw this documentary a few months back it had only been up for 2 weeks and had millions of views. That video got taken down but this one is up with much fewer views. In case they delete it, here's the title: "Suppressing a cure for more than 40 years! BURZYNSKI: THE CANCER CURE COVER-UP"

https://youtu.be/Ro8C75XykLo

[MementoMori777]

you do know they are slowly poisoning us with chemicals in our food to cause health problems so we then pay for health solutions, big pharma own all the food companies

[Asker]

So are you saying that basically, the food and drug administration is being paid off by big pharma.

What is being paid off, is these specific chemicals or products as "healthy." Even though the food and drug administration knows they are not healthy, they allow it because they're being paid off.

And so big pharma who owns the food industry as well, can now sell us what it knows as basically delicious addictive poison.

Is that it?

[MementoMori777]

basically, big pharma controls our medicine but they also own the food industries ehich means they decide what to put into them, have you not seen the high amounts of sodium and sugar in all the foods that are completely unnecessary? look at any product you have and look at the sugar and sodium levels, they are unnecessarily high, we pay to eat, they poison us so then we pay for medicine to help us, for example one of their biggest sellers is cancer, therapy is a lot of money, yet our food has so many chemicals that cause cancer, its why i also believe a natural herb like marijuana is struggling to be legalized yet tobacco and nicotine products you can buy easily, its free cancer and then you go to chemo therapy and thats a few thousands right there in their pocket, there's many other ways they poison is, read up on those chem trail theories, i know damn well they aren't theories

[Asker]

Yea I hate the conspiracy theory stuff because it seems like such a big time sink to truly investigate lol.

I also don't like it because people who are angry about capitalism love to have conspiracy theories. They're just ignorant about economics or the way markets work.

But that doesn't really answer the question. I wouldn't be surprised if there is some kind of conspiracy going on.

So I can never just say "nah" to that stuff. You never know for sure. And rich and powerful people are just people. They're highly likely to be doing some devious shit.

[MementoMori777]

well the chem trail one is right over your head, literally lol

[Astarlessnightsky]

There is no free choice if 4 companies control 90% of the market.

If you choose between 10 brands of ketchup, but all are owned by Nestlé you don't have the choice.

[Asker]

When I go to the grocery store I see a lot to choose from. When I drive around I see a lot to choose from.

I don't know what you're talking about. Especially in the US where we have the most to choose from out of any country.

And that comes from how prosperous our country is.

We have endless choices. If people choose to eat unhealthy food in gargantuan amounts, how is that the food industry's fault?

If they are poisoning us that is the government's job to prevent.

But it's not the government's job to stop us from eating ourselves into morbid obesity.

[Asker]

I mean I suppose you could make the argument that the government should. prevent obesity.

Ok, fine. But don't act like it's businesses fault for selling people what we wanted.

[Astarlessnightsky]

Thats not the problem.

It doesn't matter how many different choices you got. Most of them are all owned by the company. Sometimes over 3 other parent companies, but in the end its all owned by 4 or 5 big corps.

And in term healthy/unhealthy food.
The unhealthy stuff is a lot cheaper, tastes better because of fat, sugar and salt, and some areas in the United States don't even have a supermarket, there are only fast food places, where the healthiest thing is the toilet paper.

[Anonymous]

So the we want carcinogens dumped into our foods? We want farm animals giving antibiotics so that when we get sick and need to use them they're useless? We want animals to be abused?

All of this is the price of cheaper supermarket prices. I'm not disagreeing with that. But to sy will flat out want these things are dead wrong.

[Paul09]

100 % yes. Always has been. Just look at the food pyramid. Has changed many times. Heck meat industry is the worst. People are so brainwashed into eating it.

[Asker]

How can you tell the difference between brain washing, and choices that people willingly make given the context of their lives, perspective, and knowledge?

Are you saying that the meat industry has lobbied the government and caused the food pyramid to be distorted such that they could profit on meat sales or whatever? I could believe that but I would need to see the proof of that

That also sounds like a government problem. It's a problem that government is open to whoever has a good amount of dollar and will say whatever like puppets.

That is a problem of government in my opinion.

[Paul09]

Exactly governments and religions rule the world. The control weak minded people in how to think and live their life. Crazy how people can't think for themselves and outside the box.

[LiamJHayden]

In some ways like a drug dealer manipulates his clientele.

[justcurious03xx]

yea I hate when they put crack in my cereal

[Asker]

The person doing drugs wants drugs though. I feel like drugs are the least manipulative thing.

It's the best product to sell! People wanna get high. It sells itself really. Drugs don't need no advertisers.

[LiamJHayden]

@justcurious03xx Some studies have suggested that sugar is as addictive as Cocaine.

[LiamJHayden]

@Asker The point is about addiction, not initial choice.

[Asker]

But what moral finger pointing does addiction have to do with giving people more of what they choose to buy?

How can you blame the companies for people not having self control?

[LiamJHayden]

@Asker How can you blame the heroin dealers for people not having self control?

[justcurious03xx]

You can definitely hold dealers responsible to an extent

[Asker]

You have to have better reasoning than that. How do you blame someone else for the actions of an individual?

Do individuals not have the ability to choose?

Do we not have free will?

If we do not have free will it's STILL not the dealers fault. He's just acting out his programming.

One could say, legislate, saying hey people don't have free will. We can't have these delicious foods and super fun drugs because people will be addicted because they have no free will.

So OK implement legislation to ban things that are addictive.

But I don't see how in either case it is the fault of the drug dealer that a drug addict wants to buy drugs.

[gorydetails]

Lol, don’t all industries try to give customers what they want