This canned "the government shouldn't choose what I eat" argument is reductionist to the point of deficiency at best, and disingenuous at worse.
The fact is an unregulated free market forces choices on us no different than government regulation. The quality and type of food a consumer has access to is highly dependent on market decisions — that is the food demanded by other consumers — not individual decisions. The problem is consumers in the US at large are either ignorant about health/nutrition or just plain don't prioritize the future (sustainable health) over the present (what I'm eating was iteratively designed in a lab to maximize my immediate dopamine hit).
Good regulation isn't binary. You can regulate the food industry to protect consumers from predatory/harmful practices (such as engineering food so that consumers overeat by "growth hacking" food via salt/sugar/fat in order to drive revenue growth) while still allowing an abundance of dietary choices.
>FWIW, I've eaten processed, fried, GMO foods my whole life (and consume fast food drive thru at least 5-6 times a week) and have no health issues whatsoever. But I try to not eat to excess and I exercise regularly.
Some people smoke two packs a day and die at the ripe old age of 100. The vast majority of smokers die significantly earlier than average. Much like you wouldn't consider a lottery ticket a wise investment even if it pays off, you shouldn't interpret your personal health and dietary experience to much other than good fortune. Your experience is an outlier in the face of mountains of data that tell a different and honestly quite depressing story.
Lastly, I know sometimes tone can be misinterpreted easily in text. So if my comment came off as brash or an attack etc, please re-read it with a polite and friendly tone in mind. I'm passionate about this topic because I want to help.
Carbs are carbs. Protein is protein. Fat is fat. Sure, some types of foods (including fried foods) have excessive calories for the average American lifestyle. That's been known for decades. But there is no evidence that calories from broccoli are any less or more cancerous than calories from potatoes or bread or vegetable oil.
My experience is not an outlier.
This guy has eaten 30,000 Big Macs, perfectly healthy: https://people.com/food/mcdonalds-big-mac-supersize-me-don-g...
Studies on diets with a variety of macros (but the same calories): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19246357 CONCLUSIONS: Reduced-calorie diets result in clinically meaningful weight loss regardless of which macronutrients they emphasize.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17413101 CONCLUSIONS: These findings provide more detailed evidence to suggest that diets differing substantially in glycemic load induce comparable long-term weight loss.
It isn’t that simple.
That said, that’s absolutely no argument for regulation. People should be free to entirely destroy themselves seeking short-term dopamine hits—if they so choose. It is staunchly immoral to impede them.
This ignores the entire premise of my comment, which is that people's choices in this context are not made in a vacuum.
If the market demands unhealthy food, then that is what the food industry will supply, and thus be the option made generally available to all.
The food industry has exploited human evolutionary traits (cravings for salt/sugar/fat and other nutrients that are high-value in moderation but detrimental in excess) to push the market in a direction that boosts consumption (and thus revenue growth) at a cost to our health.
Grocery stores still sell broccoli and chicken. People choose to buy oreos and croissants and other refined carbs. That’s not “the food industry”.
It’s variously described, but “consumer choice” and “market demands” don’t really capture it. It boils down to other adult humans, just like you and I, choosing what they want to spend their money on, choosing what foods they want to eat.
It is nobody’s place but the eater to tell them what they should or should not be doing. Full stop.
i could agree with you for individuals
but for corporations who are making money off of (and actively marketing) certain things (that indeed do harm people) i would say regulations should exist to at the very least mark thier products so the consumer is informed “this will most likely kill you if you take more than once a day” or “there are no proven claims in this product” etc...
after working at a few very large firms, i have little faith in companies being genuine about their products’s safety, and if one was to leave things to “the market” then being informed is the absolute minimum in my opinion... idk though maybe i am missing something...
I agree, but the government can use softer nudges like taxes and subsidies to help encourage healthier eating. A good start would be to examine existing farm subsidies and ask whether they encourage unhealthy dietary choices.
> have no health issues whatsoever
That you're aware of. What's your fasted glucose level, or A1c? What about inflammation markers? Given your lifestyle you should probably know your calcium score (heart) too.
You could be pre-diabetic and not even know it, which means without intervention, you'll be really screwed in your not so distant future. You might already have plaque and scars accumulating in your heart. Or elevated inflammation slowly damaging organs in your body. Know your numbers if you're going to eat fast food every day of the week.
That can be said about anyone.
Do you have any argument why they shouldn’t do this?
And to reiterate my point, advocating X based on "don't we already Y" instead of the actual merits of X is a big part of how dangerous slippery slopes occur, even if Y was a good thing.
"Education, public awareness, these kind of initiatives I can get behind. Regulation of food intake, is a step too far."
I merely pointed out that the thing identified as "a step too far" already exists. I wasn't advocating for anything so there isn't a slippery slope to fear.
Thanks for keeping us safe from government boogeymen though
People are dragging out this paranoid fantasy where Uncle Sam is literally spoon feeding you.
When tacitly he’s enabling you to spoon feed yourself his choices.
People seem really convinced the next step is a government assigned personal health manager.
I mean just cause you CAN view it from the perspective of concern that some G-man will show up every morning to check your pantry doesn’t mean one is on topic, or peddling reasonable discourse.
Yes, be on the lookout for government overreach. Sure. Immediately invoking paranoid nonsense and individualism (which ends being heavily constrained by social norms anyway) is just bizarre
Education, public awareness, these kind of initiatives I can get behind. Regulation of food intake, is a step too far.
FWIW, I've eaten processed, fried, GMO foods my whole life (and consume fast food drive thru at least 5-6 times a week) and have no health issues whatsoever. But I try to not eat to excess and I exercise regularly.