I think it's actually the opposite. They put the cancer in it by swapping out expensive ingredients like sugar and fat for high fructose corn syrup and palm kernel oil. Evey time you see the "same great taste" or "new formula" on a box it means they've re-engineered it to cut costs by substituting ingredients, usually for some engineered compound that's cheaper or more shelf stable.

Hershey's chocolate is now just rancid swill that just tastes of sugar with a hint of vomit.

Hershey's chocolate was like that on day 1, about 120 years ago, because they wanted to use milk without having to keep the supply refrigerated. Lipolysis of the milk fat produces butyric acid, which does taste a bit like vomit or parmesan cheese. People got addicted to the taste, so today the flavor is intentional. Some companies, targeting the American market, even add butyric acid to mimic the Hershey's taste.

That's interesting. I don't recall it being quite so bad 30 years ago.

Of all the things to point out in commercial food production you chose basically the two most benign things.

Swapping refined sugar for HFCS 55 (the most common type) is basically an even trade sans some extra water content in the syrup and palm kernel oil is just saturated fat but sourced from a plant instead of animals.

I don’t think anyone is gonna argue that a high sugar and saturated fat diet is healthy but no worse than the same things sourced from other places. In an alternative universe palm oil and corn syrup would have been the standard and people would complain about the switch to lard and white sugar.

a) Refined sugar and HFCS both cause fatty liver about equally.

b) HFCS is sourced from corn, which means pesticide residue.

c) Palm oil also leads to fatty liver.

They may be an "even trade", but certainly harmful to one's health.

b) White sugar is sourced from sugar cane which is also grown with pesticides. In both cases you have to trust the respective refining processes to clean your food.

I absolutely agree with you that sugar and saturated fat in anything other than moderation is harmful to your health but that, in this case, the source of those things doesn't really matter.

In terms of vegetables, much of the difference is selective breeding for varieties that look pretty in the store and can survive transport easily instead of for taste. No cancer involved.

The cancer is in the pesticide residue.

The pesticide residue wasn't what made it taste good, which was the context of the parents comment

Thanks