A few years ago I went gluten free to see if it helped with some other health issues (it did, NCGS.)

So, between late 2016 and the end of 2020, I avoided gluten as best as I could. Which all but eliminates most fast food and the majority of prepackaged foods/snacks/etc.

Portion control became incredibly easy. I ate when I was hungry. Sometimes people would comment on how little I was eating, but I was still energetic and kicking ass at work/etc. My body also fairly quickly started to adjust to a more 'proper' weight. (As long as I wasn't drinking. There were parts of that time of my life where I sometimes did, never to where it interfered with work but definitely was hiding from my personal life circumstances.)

ANNNNYWAY. Late last year I decided to try gluten again to see whether I still had a bad reaction and/or if it was moreso specific types that caused me issues (They all kinda bother me, but barley makes me ragey....)

I remember the first thing I ate from McDonalds last year. It was a double cheeseburger.

I then spent the next 2 weeks straight getting at least one meal a day from McD's. It was an eye-opener on how addictive some of the components in a food can be to your neurons.

One prevalent theory about why just about elimination diet works is because of this effect of an easy decision heuristic to make smarter food choices. That seems more plausible to me than a single instance of the gluten in a 150 calorie bun being the culprit (unless you have something like celiacs disease, of course). Regardless, I’m glad you found a regimen that works for you.

Happy to hear you managed to cut out the junk for a long time, I hope you haven't rebounded in full!

I think we already do a pretty good job at this, don't you? Drug awareness education in one form or another has been part of the curriculum since the 19th century.

> help them in rehabilitation if they prefer to

We have lots of NGOs that are setup to help drug addicts. Are they not doing a good job?

So individuals are not responsible for their decisions? I personally would rather not live in a world where my choices are artificially limited by someone's idea of what is "good for me". I'm perfectly capable of deciding for myself, and willing to accept consequences of my mistakes.

Human factors isn't a binary question of whether or not we influence the choices made by individuals. In the real world, individual choices are always influenced by a variety of factors. The question is that, when we are aware that a particular design decision will influence the choices of individuals, is it ethical to make that decision in whatever way maximizes the profitability of the product, without regard for any predictable impact it will have? Simply maintaining willful ignorance of human factors in engineering does not make the world functionally better or worse than if that same decision had been made from a position of understanding of those factors and an attitude of malice/benevolence/apathy.

I don't think it's contradictory to tell consumers to make their own choices while at the same time telling producers not to design products that needlessly influence consumers to make destructive choices.

>I'm perfectly capable of deciding for myself

I think there’s a decent amount of evidence that humans aren’t as capable of making rational decisions, or at least not nearly as rational as we’d like to think. In the context of systems like nationalized healthcare, this can become a negative externality. If I’m responsible (in part) of paying for your healthcare, there may be an argument that I (in part) have a say in the decisions you make that effect your health.

Well then you (in part) become my master. No person has the right to be master of another. One doesn't need to always make rational decisions in order to be entitled to make them. This is also why I'm against nationalized healthcare.

Agreed. But regarding the “master” comment, I think that’s a bit hyperbolic. You give up certain decisions as part of the social contract. I can’t decide, for example, that I want to drive on the other side of the road. Giving up that choice also doesn’t make me subservient, especially in a representative democracy. It just means I know how to balance the rights of the individual with the overall welfare of society.

> I can’t decide, for example, that I want to drive on the other side of the road.

You can perfectly well drive on whatever side of whatever road you want assuming it's a private road. Public spaces have rules, and always have. What's not fine is managing the interactions of private people minding their own business.

Nationalized healthcare which you’ve previously stated you're against, for example, would likely be payed for by a tax. If you remember, the Supreme Court ruled the penalties within the ACA amounted to a tax and were legal. Article I Section 8 also outlines Congress’s ability to regulate commerce, despite your claim that amicable interactions of private individuals “minding their own business” are outside its jurisdiction. You can be against all of these as policy, but that doesn’t mean they breach the social contract or are somehow immoral.

Your Rugged Constitution[1], while old, is interesting because it frames each Article in terms of both what you give and what you get from the social contract, the former part being lost on many people. For example, regarding the aforementioned clause, you give the federal government additional power in exchange for the ability “to take care of the needs of the country at home”, I.e., general welfare.

[1] Findlay, Bruce Allyn, and Esther Blair Findlay. Your Rugged Constitution: How Americas House of Freedom is Planned and Built. -, 1919.

Did they forget to put the "addictive" additive in mine?

Misusing the word addictive to mean "things that aren't beneficial, and can be detrimental in excess" is not helpful to anyone.

People who are depressed self-sabotage in a wide variety of ways. They sleep all day. Maybe overeat. Maybe sit flicking through TikTok all day. Some even clean endlessly. That doesn't mean any of those things are "addictive".

This whole discussion borders on parody. People with zero responsibility or self-control screaming that they have no self direction and need their world corralled and constrained for them. Beyond bizarre. And apparently these amazingly addictive ingredients only work on Americans, who seem to lack any self-reflection or inquisitiveness as to why that is.

I read a Robertson Davies trilogy for hours last night. Probably stayed up a little late. Blame it on Big Books and the Book Cartel for Addicting me like this.

If you allow for different reactions to alcohol, why could the same not be true for sugar and fat?

Are the Japanese addicted to McDonalds? Are the French? Are Mexicans? Are the British? Are Chileans?

The tale in another comment that someone had McDonalds and then they went back every day for two weeks straight literally reads like parody. If someone were mocking that sort of lazy, not-my-faultism they'd author a comment precisely like that, thinking they were exaggerating and making it sound absurd.

Is it American Exceptionalism that makes for this remarkable, magical dietary addiction? Or is it a market that is particularly susceptible for easy victims and easy "not my fault" answers. Blame it on Big McDonalds. Make a documentary (usually cartoonishly full of misstatements and lies) and it gets Eaten Up, pardon the pun, because it's an easy, incredibly lazy thing to blame.

Obesity is a problem around the globe, and in every country it's different causes. Calories became a lot cheaper, and people like eating. If you think one magical ingredient is the cause, get a grip. It isn't so simple. And eventually it 100% comes down to self control.

If someone spends 9 hours scrolling through TikToks, that isn't TikTok's fault. It really isn't. It is remarkable reading people imagine up the nefarious ingredient that puts the responsibility on someone other than themselves.