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The other day I went to buy some canned refried beans. When I read the label, I noticed that it contained refined sugar. WTF?!? There should be no need for suga

The other day I went to buy some canned refried beans. When I read the label, I noticed that it contained refined sugar. WTF?!? There should be no need for sugar in refried beans! After recovering from the shock, I went to another grocery store, where I found refried beans without sugar. Why does this happen? Obviously, sugar tastes good. That has to be why companies add it to all sorts of things. However, if most people were like me, they would read the label and refuse to buy anything that unnecessarily contained sugar. The companies doing this would lose money, and soon stop doing it. But the opposite has happened. Why? There can only be one explanation: most consumers are dumb. However, when you read about stuff like this in the mainstream media, it's always framed as if "big evil corporations" is the whole problem. That "average Joe" has a low intelligence is never mentioned. Of course, the media wants as many consumers as possible, too, so calling most of their potential readers/viewers stupid is probably a bad strategy, even though it's the truth.

madengr 10y ago
Ditto for pasta sauce. Difficult to find ones that don't have sugar. Only one at my grocery store despite a shelf full of various brands.
- linker3000 10y ago
  I make my own - start with a tin of decent quality tomatoes and go from there. No sugar needed.
  - logfromblammo 10y ago
    Preferably tomatoes grown in volcanic soil, like San Marzanos. It is well worth buying one can of several different brands of tomato sold in your locale, and making experimental taste-test batches with all other variables held constant. With good quality inputs, you can beat the pre-made jarred marinaras every single time, using nothing more than a very basic recipe and a minimum of cooking skill. Exercise caution. Once you know how to make a good sauce, you will never be able to stand eating at Olive Garden again.
  - scalio 10y ago
    Bingo. I've come to realise myself, cooking something very edible is not hard. Buy a physical cook book so as to not get distracted on the internet, and just try some things. The first couple tries at a new recipe might turn out slightly weird, so what? You'll still get the satisfaction of having produced something yourself, it won't kill you, and it'll be a whole lot healthier than ordering or microwaving fast food. Plus you'll know exactly what's in it because you put it there. Should you ever not have time to stand around in the kitchen, a loaf of bread, some jam and ham should do it. Add in some bacon, spread, whatever, and you've got dinner ready to go in the time it takes to take all of that out of the fridge. Heck, slice a couple pickles! There's so many ways to eat well and tasty if you just try for a moment. Though of course, not getting fucked over by your ingredients requires you to look at them before buying. Hoo-hah.
Nagyman 10y ago
A bit harsh to make a blanket statement about intelligence; people just need information which isn't being readily provided or is being drowned out with too much information. The collective actions seem counterintuitive to people paying attention, but paying attention requires time - which doesn't come easily if a swath of the population is busy with two part-time jobs and recovering with reality TV in the meantime.
- jensen123 10y ago
  If you read a few books on nutrition, you will learn that refined sugar is unhealthy. This is not hard for anybody with half a brain to figure out. As for working two part-time jobs etc., many of the people doing this buy status symbols like SUVs, iPhones, big houses etc. If they didn't buy so much unnecessary stuff, they wouldn't need to work so much.
  - goldbrick 10y ago
    I need that stuff to get laid though.
    - jensen123 10y ago
      Good point. I admit that I'm not very good at getting laid myself. However, if you eat healthily, you will look much better than if you eat unhealthily. We know that men are attracted to good looking women. However, women seem to be attracted to high-status men, and put less value good looks. I wish there were some studies that compared how much success healthy and good looking but relatively poor men would have with women, compared to unhealthy and bad looking but relatively rich ones. I hope I did not get too off topic here, but I think maybe it's possible that this is part of the explanation. That people want status symbols in order to get laid, and thus have less time for health. So maybe I was wrong about the Average Joe having a low intelligence...
    - 5ilv3r 10y ago
      Find a lady that likes debt free men and try to make her happy.
jxdjsks 10y ago
But a corporation can be smarter than any individual can possibly be. They have far more information and far more time than any individual to put into manipulating the transaction. Of course consumers are going to be stupid, it's not their fault they don't have a team of people running around with them performing in depth analysis of every purchase decision they make. This isn't about evil corporations (although I suspect the world is actually evil (circumcision)), this is about an imbalance of power.
dahart 10y ago
> Why does this happen? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_(food) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_(food) > There can be only one explanation Why/how have you arrived at this conclusion? > it's always framed as if "big evil corporations" is the whole problem So, you have evidence of food that shouldn't have sugar in it but does in fact have sugar anyway. And you conclude that it's the consumer's fault, because they're stupid, and not the company that puts the sugar in? Humans have lots of biological and mental weaknesses that can be exploited for profit. Preferring highly caloric food is one of them. It seems fairly pessimistic to call that "dumb". Before the invention of mass produced food, preferring sweet things was an evolutionary advantage. That fact is now being used against you, and all of us, in a big conspiracy called "marketing".
- mulletbum 10y ago
  Do you feel that a consumer is responsible for what they put in their body? If they never tasted the food, they would miss out on this "marketing." The fact remains, if those manufacturers have always produced their beans with sugar, then they should not be at fault. If those companies changed their recipe to contain sugar after they found people grey addicted to it, there should be a label to warn the consumer that a change has suddenly been made.
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    >Do you feel that a consumer is responsible for what they put in their body? Of course. But the average consumer is not only at a disadvantage, they are regularly deceived into believing that unhealthy foods are in fact healthy. In reality, culpability is a complex calculation that passes through the farmer, the food processor, the manufacturer, the ad firm, the grocer, the consumer, and any other party involved in the transaction. All share some part of the blame. However, the blame game is rarely productive. When something is having a serious negative impact on 50%+ of the population, it's time to stop pushing blame around and start focusing on finding a workable solution. If 50%+ of your website's users were getting lost on your page and having a hard time finding an efficient way to do things, would you spend all your time blaming them for their idiocy, or would you up the ante for your UX people and make it work? (hint for the n00bs out there: in this situation you should up the ante, not sit around and blame your customers) It's society's problem to figure out how to fix this public health crisis, because regardless of our beliefs about whether someone should be able to carefully select healthy foods, the evident reality is that people aren't able to do so, and we have to accept that and adjust our processes and habits to accommodate. The goal is not to admonish or uphold anyone, not to protect or liquidate profit, not to see one brand or flavor triumph over others. The goal is simply to cause the obesity rate to rapidly decline and stay declined. That's what we should focus on making happen at the macro level.
orangecat 10y ago
There can only be one explanation: most consumers are dumb. Or other people have different tradeoffs between short-term pleasure and statistical long-term health. You can define that as "stupid" if you want, but I'm guessing there are plenty of things that you do because you enjoy them that you would not do if maximizing health were your sole priority.
- ewzimm 10y ago
  Nothing beats being healthy, which is why I'm not one of these idiots who doesn't read labels. I've put in the work to optimize my purchasing habits, so I know that the average grocery store contains about 38,718 items. It only takes me around 15 seconds to skim a label for nutritional content and add a mental note of it's contribution to my dietary needs, so I can finish shopping in a new store in just over 161 hours. I have a special exercise routine I do during that time to maximize the experience.
  - em3rgent0rdr 10y ago
    You only have to read every label in the store if you want to make the optimal decision. But a healty diet can still be achieved by only reading labels of products you are most interested in, but not purchasing the unhealthy ones.
    - ewzimm 10y ago
      You're right, of course, but I have to do something to break up all the time I spend reading EULAs and terms of service for all the websites I visit.
- ghock 10y ago
  I think this "stupid" and choice discussion that comes up quite often for this subject is somewhat of a distraction. There's plenty of people who eat relativly healthy not because they are "smart" about it, but because that's how they grew up. They are just "dumb" in the right direction. I doubt people were more knowledgeable about food when everyone smoked and there was lead in everything.
borplk 10y ago
This is the equivalent of RTFM or the 15 page terms of service documents that no one can possibly read. Sure it makes sense in some cases but you can't use it as an excuse to shift the burden to the consumer however you like.
- cisstrd 10y ago
  15 page terms of service document versus an easy to read table that lists sugar, salt and fat content of a product? It is my view that companies have the obligation to make information available about their products and do so in an easy-to-read manner, everything else is consumer's choice. Your comparison lacks relevance in my opinion. (and in cases where someone asks stupid questions, which can be easily answered by looking in the manual page, yes... please read it...)
  - Dylan16807 10y ago
    If you're willing to completely upend your diet, then you might only look at the nutrition table and buy the things with the lowest sugar. If you're trying to make a normal diet healthier, then the amount of unnecessarily added sugar becomes much more relevant. It tells you when you need to find a better brand, improving the health of your food without disrupting your diet. And to do that, you need to read and decode the ingredient list. Doing this for every single food you buy is slow. When it comes to RTFM: Sure, read before asking, but if something was confusing in the first place it's often the fault of the design. Don't let yourself forget that.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > If you're willing to completely upend your diet, then you might only look at the nutrition table and buy the things with the lowest sugar. Which would reduce sugar, and quite likely be unhealthy for all kinds of other reasons. Overreliance on sugar may be the most common problem in modern US diet, but that doesn't mean that a naïve and monomaniacal effort to reduce sugar won't result in some worse problem.
thecrow1213 10y ago
I feel like shifting the blame towards consumers only shirks the responsibility that companies have to act responsibly. How much longer are we gonna excuse companies that only act in their self interest just so we don't have to do anything about it? EDIT: Whether people like it or not, free market forces don't always offer the best outcome. We stopped depending solely on free market forces when we put in place anti-monopoly laws. We've identified that regulation is needed in some cases. Lets use it damnit.
NetStrikeForce 10y ago
Sugar removes acidity. I would add some sugar to home made tomato sauce sometimes. Sugar is bad, but it's got some qualities as well. The same could be said about many things we still eat/drink/breath, but the problem with sugar is that we just use too much of it.
- jrjr 10y ago
  sugar does not reduce acidity, it masks it. Bicarbonate of Soda reduces it, and brings the sugar already present to the fore. a micro pinch in the tomato sauce makes it bite less and reduces digestive acidity reflux from eating a tomato based meal(spag.sauce) jrjr
  - chrisbennet 10y ago
    Thanks for the tip!
  - NetStrikeForce 10y ago
    The more you know! I totally used the wrong word (as I really wanted to say that masks it - I've got zero chemistry knowledge), but I'll try your tip next time. Thank you!
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noxToken 10y ago
I don't know if dumb is the right word. Ignorant is probably most apt. I want you to think about all of the food that's in your house. Eliminate anything that you would consider intentionally sugary like candy, confection, soda, etc. Now how much of a time consuming task would it be to scrutinize every label for needlessly added sugar? Consider how many people would be willing to do that to check for some extra sugar? And that's why, I believe, companies can throw extra sugar in their products without most of the public being none the wiser. Not only would you have to check your current inventory, you'd have to stay abreast of the issue every time you went shopping. If you went shopping for the entire month like me, you'd spend an extra hour in the store reading labels to check for newly added sugar.
- helloguille 10y ago
  Most of the time is about ignorance, but even if you know Sugar is not good (Parent wrongly assumes just refined sugar is the problem) it will be very difficult to see where is contained. There are many names for "Sugar" and hidden in different ingredients, like HFCS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup
- rusabd 10y ago
  It's easier than someone might think. If you avoid food that contains ingredient list as a general rule scrutinizing the rest would be not such a hard work
- MisterBastahrd 10y ago
  Time consuming? I read the label of every product I buy when I go to the supermarket. If I do it often enough, I keep track of what's got added sugar and I just don't buy those anymore. It isn't that hard.
- andrewjl 10y ago
  The solution is to have the FDA mandate big bold warning labels stating that long-term consumption of high quantities of sugar has been linked to diabetes and other health problems. Give consumers some information to help make an informative decision.
Sharlin 10y ago
Really? You're surprised that people in general don't make the most healthy dietary choices? Given the almost epidemic rise of obesity and related issues in the West and particularly in the US? Your conclusion is arrogant, unfair, unhelpful, and unactionable. To be fair, the "corporations are evil" conclusion is similarly unhelpful. This is actually a prime example of a coordination problem [1]. We're going to have to do better than just pushing the blame around if we're going to do something about it. For instance, obesity is a bigger problem among the poor than the well-to-do. Why? One of the most trivial reasons is the fact that unhealthy food is also inexpensive! [1] http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
hawleyal 10y ago
There are many other explanations.
lucozade 10y ago
On a vaguely related note, Mars Foods is planning on changing its labeling to indicate approx how often you should eat their products [1]. This was most likely a preemptive move on their part, presumably to counter the anti-sugar law being mooted in the UK. My guess is that their argument will be that people should have the choice to eat unhealthily as long as they do it in moderation. If so, I would tend to agree but I think I'm inclined to moan about a lack of personal responsibility so I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask. [1] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-36051333 http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-36051333
zwarag 10y ago
> However, if most people were like me, ... My teacher always said: Imagine the most average american citizen. Then realize that half of the american population is dumber that. Really brings things in perspective.
- tdkl 10y ago
  He must've been a Carlin fan (American stand up comedian).
- mikestew 10y ago
  Really brings things in perspective. It does, doesnt it? I mean, you'd think a math teacher of all people would know not to use "average" when they really mean "median". I always wondered whether Carlin was being ironic when he told the joke.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > you'd think a math teacher of all people would know not to use "average" when they really mean "median". I think a math teacher would be well aware that "average" can be used for "median", "mode", "arithmetic mean", or any of the other means (geometric, harmonic, etc.), as well as other computed values that are somewhere in the space bounded by the extremes of a data set, and would likewise be aware that, while in a formal context "average" should -- for that reason -- be avoided in favor of identifying the specific measure more precisely, it was acceptable and unambiguous to use "average" for any of those, including the median, where context made it clear which was intended.
    - lotharbot 10y ago
      I like this comment so much that I reposted it to facebook. "Average" is, in fact, a generic term which we shouldn't freak out about too much.
cookiecaper 10y ago
Wherever the baseline intelligence quotient of John Q. Public sits on an absolute scale, when we're discussing something as critical and universal as food distribution, it should be pretty easy to accept that, at a minimum, the median IQ should be accommodated. It should be easy for the consumer to understand what's in the food he's going to eat. Manually picking up every food item and reviewing the list of ingredients by hand in the middle of grocery store does not comport with this; this is a matter of efficiency more than a lack of the intellectual faculty to process a list of ingredients (though when half of those ingredients are impenetrable chemical names that only commercial food chemists understand, it makes even more sense to skip it). Lament the average consumer's lack of gross intelligence all you want, but the fact is that it's irrelevant in this circumstance. Food distribution should be accessible and understandable by nearly all adults, and if it's not, it's a systemic failure, not an individual one. This is especially true now that all of the food for sale in a typical grocery store is altered by chemists. This artificial manipulation should cause us to be more careful about food, not less. It is absolutely true that nearly every food item in the mainstream grocery store contains superfluous sugar, including foods that you wouldn't expect or think about. While many stores will carry one or two SKUs of a particular product without sugar, you have to be really careful to pick out the right one. For instance, canned pears come "in heavy syrup" (i.e., drenched in sugar) by default. They also offer pears in "light syrup" (i.e., sugar added). There are various combinations of heavy/light syrup canned pear offerings, and then, at the very back, you may luck out and find one can of pears "in water". These aren't Oreos -- people are buying canned fruits and vegetables because they are trying to be healthy, and the corporate grocers are pulling a fast one on them by dumping large helpings of sugar into everything to try to make the food more addictive (and thereby, increase sales). Corporate profiteering absolutely plays a massive role in the obesity epidemic. Discounting that is playing into their hands at the peril of public health.
- hinkley 10y ago
  Median means it's okay to trick nearly half of the population. I think we can do a little better than that. Aren't there laws on the books that define what the minimum mental faculty is to be an independent adult? And below that point a relative can assert power of attorney/legal guardianship over you?
tremon 10y ago
if most people were like me, they would read the label and refuse to buy Well, obvious conclusion is obvious: people are not like you. Especially since you said earlier: WTF?!? There should be no need for sugar in refried beans! So why would you expect people to read the label for a product that clearly names what it should contain? There can only be one explanation: most consumers are dumb. In light of the above, I can offer another explanation: most consumers are too trusting. Distrust takes mental effort, so people pick their battles. I would not have read the label for a can of refried beans either. (as an aside: I believe this is where many Europeans would say that this is what food standards are for, to which many Americans would respond: wtf regulation)
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
  I read the label for unfamiliar brands of re-fried beans to make sure they're vegetarian.
msluyter 10y ago
Adding to the varieties of other explanations countering your "one explanation:" 1.) Time. Although I'm (perhaps overly) sensitive to which foods are healthy and which aren't, I often find myself eating sub-optimally simply because I can't muster the time/energy to make something healthy, do the resulting dishes, etc... And veggies can be some of the most labor intensive. Or, you want a quick snack that's also really healthy? Here's $5 for a small bag of kale chips (see "Cost," below.) 2.) Skill. It's taken me a while to learn to cook well enough that much of what I make is at least on par with (non-gourmet) restaurant food. 3.) Cost. Compare the beans with sugar to higher end -- organic, in particular -- varieties.
fucking_tragedy 10y ago
The truth is you can add enough corn syrup, fat and salt to pretty much any cheap low quality ingredient to make palatable. Often, the available or cheaper option is not the healthiest. I don't blame consumers for having to make that trade off. Personally, to find products that I enjoy that aren't loaded with sugar beyond reason (29g vs an equally enjoyable 6g per serving?), I had to visit four shops. That's not something you should have to do for each food product you purchase. Someone that doesn't go to those lengths certainly isn't stupid either.
- hinkley 10y ago
  See also: food desert https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert
amelius 10y ago
> There can only be one explanation: most consumers are dumb. Incidentally, this also shows why democracy is flawed.
ksk 10y ago
Well, there is one question you have forgotten to ask. How many people have YOU educated about this? If everyone spread the word and spent time educating others, the companies would lose money, and soon stop doing it. It's easy to blame others.
scalio 10y ago
Right on. The masses that can't be bothered to willingly switch on a couple neurons every now and again are the real problem. We "the People" have unbelievable power once we unite behind an issue. Only problem is, the vast majority can't be bothered to unhinge their eyeballs from their newsfeeds for a moment and try and understand the world. Capitalist corps are only happy to feed that behaviour with more happy-hormone-releasing crap.
malz 10y ago
Another explanation: EVERY can of beans at a mass supermarket like Safeway has the same ingredients. You have to go to Trader Joe's or Whole Foods to avoid the national brands. Many people don't have that option or choose to use it.
giardini 10y ago
"Why does this happen? Obviously, sugar tastes good. That has to be why companies add it to all sorts of things." There are more reasons. Googling "uses of sugar": "Although the main reason for the use of sugar is its sweet taste, sugar has many other functions in food technology. The most important among these are that added sugar in foods acts as a sweetener, preservative, texture modifier, fermentation substrate, flavouring and colouring agent, bulking agent."
mikestew 10y ago
There can only be one explanation: most consumers are dumb. You know how that makes you sound? Like a 9/11-was-an-inside-job, "we never went to the moon" conspiracy theorist. "There can be only explanation: the majority people aren't as enlightened as I; wake up sheeple!" But let's go with that: people are dumb. Assuming that to be true, are you arguing for or against regulating what goes into a can of refried beans? As you've already proven, people are not capable of making sense of nutritional labels, therefore it is not fair to put the onus on those who are incapable, I see no other option than to regulate the industry with heavy oversight for the good of those who are not as enlightened as you. Just thinking out loud here, but what options open up to us if we don't assume we're smarter than everyone else?
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  The Reinheitsgebot Bavarian beer purity law [0] restricted the allowable ingredients for "beer" to water, barley, hops, and yeast. US Federal Standards of Identity for bourbon restricts ingredients to at least 51% corn (Zea mays) in the mash, new charred oak barrels, and mandates alcohol content in the final product. The specific type of bourbon traded as Tennessee Whiskey has additional requirements for charcoal filtering and geographical origin. There is ample precedent for regulating the ingredients, processes, and geographic origins of food or beverage products using a particular product name. It doesn't even need to have the force of regulatory law behind it. You could invent a trademark for frijoles refritos, and license it as a marketing aid to any manufacturer willing to meet your requirements. Specify that the ingredients must be specific types of beans without their skins, chicken stock, onion, garlic, pork fat, salt, and a consistent spice mix which may include any herb from a pre-approved list. You could require different qualifiers for pinto beans (no qualifier, or "norteño"), black beans ("negro"), kidney beans ("rojo"), or subbing vegetable oil and vegetable stock for chicken broth and pork fat ("vegetariano"). And there you are. Just look for the trademarked logo on cans, and you can be assured that you are eating "real" refrito beans. In theory, this is no different from putting the UL logo on a tested appliance, or a Kosher-certifying logo on compliant foods. An independent food certification company can operate entirely on quality control inspectors, marketers, public relations flacks, and trademark lawyers. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinheitsgebot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinheitsgebot
cloudjacker 10y ago
> Of course, the media wants as many consumers as possible, too, so calling most of their potential readers/viewers stupid is probably a bad strategy, even though it's the truth. And this is where state sponsored media excels. So many people concerned about imaginary covered up human rights abuses to see how all the other news gets reported in a much more informative way.
nefitty 10y ago
A person doesn't necessarily have to be dumb to fall for these traps. Consider if you had been at the grocery store, particularly exhausted from the day, and just wanted to grab some ingredients. Maybe today you don't notice the added sugar. Today your brain was just spent. Does that make you a dumb consumer all of a sudden? Most of us average Joe's and Jane's have a lot to juggle in our heads at any given moment. Can I please be excused for not scrounging several stores for sugar free beans, palm oil free chocolate, free range chicken, ethically sourced coffee, etc.? I'm not dumb, it just happens to be that the beans with the sugar are right here in front of me, I have other things to do, and I value my time considerably more than I value this one ethical preference, at the moment. Default and convenient choices are what consumers respond to. Producers responded to basic biological facts like needing sugar and salt and fat, and so now we're in a place where I can get a Big Mac more cheaply and easily than I can get a cold veggie sandwich. I'm not dumb, I'm busy.
wrsh07 10y ago
Your explanation seems flawed. Why do people play games with microtransactions? Why are casino games mind-numbingly bland? Companies do things that generate profit. Profit is generated by manipulating consumer behavior. Consumers aren't necessarily stupid for being exploited. In fact, that's the whole point: their instinctive behavior is being exploited.
Aelinsaar 10y ago
Why not both? If you're big and don't care about your consumer beyond their role as a source of money, maybe a stupid consumer is desirable? I think it just happens to be that almost anyone in a position of entrenched power, in government or industry, thinks they benefit from a stupid populace.
marknutter 10y ago
> most consumers are dumb If only all consumers could be as smart as jensen123. Sigh.

madengr 10y ago

Ditto for pasta sauce. Difficult to find ones that don't have sugar. Only one at my grocery store despite a shelf full of various brands.

linker3000 10y ago
I make my own - start with a tin of decent quality tomatoes and go from there. No sugar needed.
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  Preferably tomatoes grown in volcanic soil, like San Marzanos. It is well worth buying one can of several different brands of tomato sold in your locale, and making experimental taste-test batches with all other variables held constant. With good quality inputs, you can beat the pre-made jarred marinaras every single time, using nothing more than a very basic recipe and a minimum of cooking skill. Exercise caution. Once you know how to make a good sauce, you will never be able to stand eating at Olive Garden again.
- scalio 10y ago
  Bingo. I've come to realise myself, cooking something very edible is not hard. Buy a physical cook book so as to not get distracted on the internet, and just try some things. The first couple tries at a new recipe might turn out slightly weird, so what? You'll still get the satisfaction of having produced something yourself, it won't kill you, and it'll be a whole lot healthier than ordering or microwaving fast food. Plus you'll know exactly what's in it because you put it there. Should you ever not have time to stand around in the kitchen, a loaf of bread, some jam and ham should do it. Add in some bacon, spread, whatever, and you've got dinner ready to go in the time it takes to take all of that out of the fridge. Heck, slice a couple pickles! There's so many ways to eat well and tasty if you just try for a moment. Though of course, not getting fucked over by your ingredients requires you to look at them before buying. Hoo-hah.

Nagyman 10y ago

A bit harsh to make a blanket statement about intelligence; people just need information which isn't being readily provided or is being drowned out with too much information. The collective actions seem counterintuitive to people paying attention, but paying attention requires time - which doesn't come easily if a swath of the population is busy with two part-time jobs and recovering with reality TV in the meantime.

jensen123 10y ago
If you read a few books on nutrition, you will learn that refined sugar is unhealthy. This is not hard for anybody with half a brain to figure out. As for working two part-time jobs etc., many of the people doing this buy status symbols like SUVs, iPhones, big houses etc. If they didn't buy so much unnecessary stuff, they wouldn't need to work so much.
- goldbrick 10y ago
  I need that stuff to get laid though.
  - jensen123 10y ago
    Good point. I admit that I'm not very good at getting laid myself. However, if you eat healthily, you will look much better than if you eat unhealthily. We know that men are attracted to good looking women. However, women seem to be attracted to high-status men, and put less value good looks. I wish there were some studies that compared how much success healthy and good looking but relatively poor men would have with women, compared to unhealthy and bad looking but relatively rich ones. I hope I did not get too off topic here, but I think maybe it's possible that this is part of the explanation. That people want status symbols in order to get laid, and thus have less time for health. So maybe I was wrong about the Average Joe having a low intelligence...
  - 5ilv3r 10y ago
    Find a lady that likes debt free men and try to make her happy.

jxdjsks 10y ago

But a corporation can be smarter than any individual can possibly be. They have far more information and far more time than any individual to put into manipulating the transaction. Of course consumers are going to be stupid, it's not their fault they don't have a team of people running around with them performing in depth analysis of every purchase decision they make. This isn't about evil corporations (although I suspect the world is actually evil (circumcision)), this is about an imbalance of power.

dahart 10y ago

> Why does this happen? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_(food) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_(food) > There can be only one explanation Why/how have you arrived at this conclusion? > it's always framed as if "big evil corporations" is the whole problem So, you have evidence of food that shouldn't have sugar in it but does in fact have sugar anyway. And you conclude that it's the consumer's fault, because they're stupid, and not the company that puts the sugar in? Humans have lots of biological and mental weaknesses that can be exploited for profit. Preferring highly caloric food is one of them. It seems fairly pessimistic to call that "dumb". Before the invention of mass produced food, preferring sweet things was an evolutionary advantage. That fact is now being used against you, and all of us, in a big conspiracy called "marketing".

mulletbum 10y ago
Do you feel that a consumer is responsible for what they put in their body? If they never tasted the food, they would miss out on this "marketing." The fact remains, if those manufacturers have always produced their beans with sugar, then they should not be at fault. If those companies changed their recipe to contain sugar after they found people grey addicted to it, there should be a label to warn the consumer that a change has suddenly been made.
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  >Do you feel that a consumer is responsible for what they put in their body? Of course. But the average consumer is not only at a disadvantage, they are regularly deceived into believing that unhealthy foods are in fact healthy. In reality, culpability is a complex calculation that passes through the farmer, the food processor, the manufacturer, the ad firm, the grocer, the consumer, and any other party involved in the transaction. All share some part of the blame. However, the blame game is rarely productive. When something is having a serious negative impact on 50%+ of the population, it's time to stop pushing blame around and start focusing on finding a workable solution. If 50%+ of your website's users were getting lost on your page and having a hard time finding an efficient way to do things, would you spend all your time blaming them for their idiocy, or would you up the ante for your UX people and make it work? (hint for the n00bs out there: in this situation you should up the ante, not sit around and blame your customers) It's society's problem to figure out how to fix this public health crisis, because regardless of our beliefs about whether someone should be able to carefully select healthy foods, the evident reality is that people aren't able to do so, and we have to accept that and adjust our processes and habits to accommodate. The goal is not to admonish or uphold anyone, not to protect or liquidate profit, not to see one brand or flavor triumph over others. The goal is simply to cause the obesity rate to rapidly decline and stay declined. That's what we should focus on making happen at the macro level.

orangecat 10y ago

There can only be one explanation: most consumers are dumb. Or other people have different tradeoffs between short-term pleasure and statistical long-term health. You can define that as "stupid" if you want, but I'm guessing there are plenty of things that you do because you enjoy them that you would not do if maximizing health were your sole priority.

ewzimm 10y ago
Nothing beats being healthy, which is why I'm not one of these idiots who doesn't read labels. I've put in the work to optimize my purchasing habits, so I know that the average grocery store contains about 38,718 items. It only takes me around 15 seconds to skim a label for nutritional content and add a mental note of it's contribution to my dietary needs, so I can finish shopping in a new store in just over 161 hours. I have a special exercise routine I do during that time to maximize the experience.
- em3rgent0rdr 10y ago
  You only have to read every label in the store if you want to make the optimal decision. But a healty diet can still be achieved by only reading labels of products you are most interested in, but not purchasing the unhealthy ones.
  - ewzimm 10y ago
    You're right, of course, but I have to do something to break up all the time I spend reading EULAs and terms of service for all the websites I visit.
ghock 10y ago
I think this "stupid" and choice discussion that comes up quite often for this subject is somewhat of a distraction. There's plenty of people who eat relativly healthy not because they are "smart" about it, but because that's how they grew up. They are just "dumb" in the right direction. I doubt people were more knowledgeable about food when everyone smoked and there was lead in everything.

borplk 10y ago

This is the equivalent of RTFM or the 15 page terms of service documents that no one can possibly read. Sure it makes sense in some cases but you can't use it as an excuse to shift the burden to the consumer however you like.

cisstrd 10y ago
15 page terms of service document versus an easy to read table that lists sugar, salt and fat content of a product? It is my view that companies have the obligation to make information available about their products and do so in an easy-to-read manner, everything else is consumer's choice. Your comparison lacks relevance in my opinion. (and in cases where someone asks stupid questions, which can be easily answered by looking in the manual page, yes... please read it...)
- Dylan16807 10y ago
  If you're willing to completely upend your diet, then you might only look at the nutrition table and buy the things with the lowest sugar. If you're trying to make a normal diet healthier, then the amount of unnecessarily added sugar becomes much more relevant. It tells you when you need to find a better brand, improving the health of your food without disrupting your diet. And to do that, you need to read and decode the ingredient list. Doing this for every single food you buy is slow. When it comes to RTFM: Sure, read before asking, but if something was confusing in the first place it's often the fault of the design. Don't let yourself forget that.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > If you're willing to completely upend your diet, then you might only look at the nutrition table and buy the things with the lowest sugar. Which would reduce sugar, and quite likely be unhealthy for all kinds of other reasons. Overreliance on sugar may be the most common problem in modern US diet, but that doesn't mean that a naïve and monomaniacal effort to reduce sugar won't result in some worse problem.

thecrow1213 10y ago

I feel like shifting the blame towards consumers only shirks the responsibility that companies have to act responsibly. How much longer are we gonna excuse companies that only act in their self interest just so we don't have to do anything about it? EDIT: Whether people like it or not, free market forces don't always offer the best outcome. We stopped depending solely on free market forces when we put in place anti-monopoly laws. We've identified that regulation is needed in some cases. Lets use it damnit.

NetStrikeForce 10y ago

Sugar removes acidity. I would add some sugar to home made tomato sauce sometimes. Sugar is bad, but it's got some qualities as well. The same could be said about many things we still eat/drink/breath, but the problem with sugar is that we just use too much of it.

jrjr 10y ago
sugar does not reduce acidity, it masks it. Bicarbonate of Soda reduces it, and brings the sugar already present to the fore. a micro pinch in the tomato sauce makes it bite less and reduces digestive acidity reflux from eating a tomato based meal(spag.sauce) jrjr
- chrisbennet 10y ago
  Thanks for the tip!
- NetStrikeForce 10y ago
  The more you know! I totally used the wrong word (as I really wanted to say that masks it - I've got zero chemistry knowledge), but I'll try your tip next time. Thank you!

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noxToken 10y ago

I don't know if dumb is the right word. Ignorant is probably most apt. I want you to think about all of the food that's in your house. Eliminate anything that you would consider intentionally sugary like candy, confection, soda, etc. Now how much of a time consuming task would it be to scrutinize every label for needlessly added sugar? Consider how many people would be willing to do that to check for some extra sugar? And that's why, I believe, companies can throw extra sugar in their products without most of the public being none the wiser. Not only would you have to check your current inventory, you'd have to stay abreast of the issue every time you went shopping. If you went shopping for the entire month like me, you'd spend an extra hour in the store reading labels to check for newly added sugar.

helloguille 10y ago
Most of the time is about ignorance, but even if you know Sugar is not good (Parent wrongly assumes just refined sugar is the problem) it will be very difficult to see where is contained. There are many names for "Sugar" and hidden in different ingredients, like HFCS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup
rusabd 10y ago
It's easier than someone might think. If you avoid food that contains ingredient list as a general rule scrutinizing the rest would be not such a hard work
MisterBastahrd 10y ago
Time consuming? I read the label of every product I buy when I go to the supermarket. If I do it often enough, I keep track of what's got added sugar and I just don't buy those anymore. It isn't that hard.
andrewjl 10y ago
The solution is to have the FDA mandate big bold warning labels stating that long-term consumption of high quantities of sugar has been linked to diabetes and other health problems. Give consumers some information to help make an informative decision.

Sharlin 10y ago

Really? You're surprised that people in general don't make the most healthy dietary choices? Given the almost epidemic rise of obesity and related issues in the West and particularly in the US? Your conclusion is arrogant, unfair, unhelpful, and unactionable. To be fair, the "corporations are evil" conclusion is similarly unhelpful. This is actually a prime example of a coordination problem [1]. We're going to have to do better than just pushing the blame around if we're going to do something about it. For instance, obesity is a bigger problem among the poor than the well-to-do. Why? One of the most trivial reasons is the fact that unhealthy food is also inexpensive! [1] http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

hawleyal 10y ago

There are many other explanations.

lucozade 10y ago

On a vaguely related note, Mars Foods is planning on changing its labeling to indicate approx how often you should eat their products [1]. This was most likely a preemptive move on their part, presumably to counter the anti-sugar law being mooted in the UK. My guess is that their argument will be that people should have the choice to eat unhealthily as long as they do it in moderation. If so, I would tend to agree but I think I'm inclined to moan about a lack of personal responsibility so I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask. [1] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-36051333 http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-36051333

zwarag 10y ago

> However, if most people were like me, ... My teacher always said: Imagine the most average american citizen. Then realize that half of the american population is dumber that. Really brings things in perspective.

tdkl 10y ago
He must've been a Carlin fan (American stand up comedian).
mikestew 10y ago
Really brings things in perspective. It does, doesnt it? I mean, you'd think a math teacher of all people would know not to use "average" when they really mean "median". I always wondered whether Carlin was being ironic when he told the joke.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > you'd think a math teacher of all people would know not to use "average" when they really mean "median". I think a math teacher would be well aware that "average" can be used for "median", "mode", "arithmetic mean", or any of the other means (geometric, harmonic, etc.), as well as other computed values that are somewhere in the space bounded by the extremes of a data set, and would likewise be aware that, while in a formal context "average" should -- for that reason -- be avoided in favor of identifying the specific measure more precisely, it was acceptable and unambiguous to use "average" for any of those, including the median, where context made it clear which was intended.
  - lotharbot 10y ago
    I like this comment so much that I reposted it to facebook. "Average" is, in fact, a generic term which we shouldn't freak out about too much.

cookiecaper 10y ago

Wherever the baseline intelligence quotient of John Q. Public sits on an absolute scale, when we're discussing something as critical and universal as food distribution, it should be pretty easy to accept that, at a minimum, the median IQ should be accommodated. It should be easy for the consumer to understand what's in the food he's going to eat. Manually picking up every food item and reviewing the list of ingredients by hand in the middle of grocery store does not comport with this; this is a matter of efficiency more than a lack of the intellectual faculty to process a list of ingredients (though when half of those ingredients are impenetrable chemical names that only commercial food chemists understand, it makes even more sense to skip it). Lament the average consumer's lack of gross intelligence all you want, but the fact is that it's irrelevant in this circumstance. Food distribution should be accessible and understandable by nearly all adults, and if it's not, it's a systemic failure, not an individual one. This is especially true now that all of the food for sale in a typical grocery store is altered by chemists. This artificial manipulation should cause us to be more careful about food, not less. It is absolutely true that nearly every food item in the mainstream grocery store contains superfluous sugar, including foods that you wouldn't expect or think about. While many stores will carry one or two SKUs of a particular product without sugar, you have to be really careful to pick out the right one. For instance, canned pears come "in heavy syrup" (i.e., drenched in sugar) by default. They also offer pears in "light syrup" (i.e., sugar added). There are various combinations of heavy/light syrup canned pear offerings, and then, at the very back, you may luck out and find one can of pears "in water". These aren't Oreos -- people are buying canned fruits and vegetables because they are trying to be healthy, and the corporate grocers are pulling a fast one on them by dumping large helpings of sugar into everything to try to make the food more addictive (and thereby, increase sales). Corporate profiteering absolutely plays a massive role in the obesity epidemic. Discounting that is playing into their hands at the peril of public health.

hinkley 10y ago
Median means it's okay to trick nearly half of the population. I think we can do a little better than that. Aren't there laws on the books that define what the minimum mental faculty is to be an independent adult? And below that point a relative can assert power of attorney/legal guardianship over you?

tremon 10y ago

if most people were like me, they would read the label and refuse to buy Well, obvious conclusion is obvious: people are not like you. Especially since you said earlier: WTF?!? There should be no need for sugar in refried beans! So why would you expect people to read the label for a product that clearly names what it should contain? There can only be one explanation: most consumers are dumb. In light of the above, I can offer another explanation: most consumers are too trusting. Distrust takes mental effort, so people pick their battles. I would not have read the label for a can of refried beans either. (as an aside: I believe this is where many Europeans would say that this is what food standards are for, to which many Americans would respond: wtf regulation)

GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
I read the label for unfamiliar brands of re-fried beans to make sure they're vegetarian.

msluyter 10y ago

Adding to the varieties of other explanations countering your "one explanation:" 1.) Time. Although I'm (perhaps overly) sensitive to which foods are healthy and which aren't, I often find myself eating sub-optimally simply because I can't muster the time/energy to make something healthy, do the resulting dishes, etc... And veggies can be some of the most labor intensive. Or, you want a quick snack that's also really healthy? Here's $5 for a small bag of kale chips (see "Cost," below.) 2.) Skill. It's taken me a while to learn to cook well enough that much of what I make is at least on par with (non-gourmet) restaurant food. 3.) Cost. Compare the beans with sugar to higher end -- organic, in particular -- varieties.

fucking_tragedy 10y ago

The truth is you can add enough corn syrup, fat and salt to pretty much any cheap low quality ingredient to make palatable. Often, the available or cheaper option is not the healthiest. I don't blame consumers for having to make that trade off. Personally, to find products that I enjoy that aren't loaded with sugar beyond reason (29g vs an equally enjoyable 6g per serving?), I had to visit four shops. That's not something you should have to do for each food product you purchase. Someone that doesn't go to those lengths certainly isn't stupid either.

hinkley 10y ago
See also: food desert https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert

amelius 10y ago

> There can only be one explanation: most consumers are dumb. Incidentally, this also shows why democracy is flawed.

ksk 10y ago

Well, there is one question you have forgotten to ask. How many people have YOU educated about this? If everyone spread the word and spent time educating others, the companies would lose money, and soon stop doing it. It's easy to blame others.

scalio 10y ago

Right on. The masses that can't be bothered to willingly switch on a couple neurons every now and again are the real problem. We "the People" have unbelievable power once we unite behind an issue. Only problem is, the vast majority can't be bothered to unhinge their eyeballs from their newsfeeds for a moment and try and understand the world. Capitalist corps are only happy to feed that behaviour with more happy-hormone-releasing crap.

malz 10y ago

Another explanation: EVERY can of beans at a mass supermarket like Safeway has the same ingredients. You have to go to Trader Joe's or Whole Foods to avoid the national brands. Many people don't have that option or choose to use it.

giardini 10y ago

"Why does this happen? Obviously, sugar tastes good. That has to be why companies add it to all sorts of things." There are more reasons. Googling "uses of sugar": "Although the main reason for the use of sugar is its sweet taste, sugar has many other functions in food technology. The most important among these are that added sugar in foods acts as a sweetener, preservative, texture modifier, fermentation substrate, flavouring and colouring agent, bulking agent."

mikestew 10y ago

There can only be one explanation: most consumers are dumb. You know how that makes you sound? Like a 9/11-was-an-inside-job, "we never went to the moon" conspiracy theorist. "There can be only explanation: the majority people aren't as enlightened as I; wake up sheeple!" But let's go with that: people are dumb. Assuming that to be true, are you arguing for or against regulating what goes into a can of refried beans? As you've already proven, people are not capable of making sense of nutritional labels, therefore it is not fair to put the onus on those who are incapable, I see no other option than to regulate the industry with heavy oversight for the good of those who are not as enlightened as you. Just thinking out loud here, but what options open up to us if we don't assume we're smarter than everyone else?

logfromblammo 10y ago
The Reinheitsgebot Bavarian beer purity law [0] restricted the allowable ingredients for "beer" to water, barley, hops, and yeast. US Federal Standards of Identity for bourbon restricts ingredients to at least 51% corn (Zea mays) in the mash, new charred oak barrels, and mandates alcohol content in the final product. The specific type of bourbon traded as Tennessee Whiskey has additional requirements for charcoal filtering and geographical origin. There is ample precedent for regulating the ingredients, processes, and geographic origins of food or beverage products using a particular product name. It doesn't even need to have the force of regulatory law behind it. You could invent a trademark for frijoles refritos, and license it as a marketing aid to any manufacturer willing to meet your requirements. Specify that the ingredients must be specific types of beans without their skins, chicken stock, onion, garlic, pork fat, salt, and a consistent spice mix which may include any herb from a pre-approved list. You could require different qualifiers for pinto beans (no qualifier, or "norteño"), black beans ("negro"), kidney beans ("rojo"), or subbing vegetable oil and vegetable stock for chicken broth and pork fat ("vegetariano"). And there you are. Just look for the trademarked logo on cans, and you can be assured that you are eating "real" refrito beans. In theory, this is no different from putting the UL logo on a tested appliance, or a Kosher-certifying logo on compliant foods. An independent food certification company can operate entirely on quality control inspectors, marketers, public relations flacks, and trademark lawyers. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinheitsgebot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinheitsgebot

cloudjacker 10y ago

> Of course, the media wants as many consumers as possible, too, so calling most of their potential readers/viewers stupid is probably a bad strategy, even though it's the truth. And this is where state sponsored media excels. So many people concerned about imaginary covered up human rights abuses to see how all the other news gets reported in a much more informative way.

nefitty 10y ago

A person doesn't necessarily have to be dumb to fall for these traps. Consider if you had been at the grocery store, particularly exhausted from the day, and just wanted to grab some ingredients. Maybe today you don't notice the added sugar. Today your brain was just spent. Does that make you a dumb consumer all of a sudden? Most of us average Joe's and Jane's have a lot to juggle in our heads at any given moment. Can I please be excused for not scrounging several stores for sugar free beans, palm oil free chocolate, free range chicken, ethically sourced coffee, etc.? I'm not dumb, it just happens to be that the beans with the sugar are right here in front of me, I have other things to do, and I value my time considerably more than I value this one ethical preference, at the moment. Default and convenient choices are what consumers respond to. Producers responded to basic biological facts like needing sugar and salt and fat, and so now we're in a place where I can get a Big Mac more cheaply and easily than I can get a cold veggie sandwich. I'm not dumb, I'm busy.

wrsh07 10y ago

Your explanation seems flawed. Why do people play games with microtransactions? Why are casino games mind-numbingly bland? Companies do things that generate profit. Profit is generated by manipulating consumer behavior. Consumers aren't necessarily stupid for being exploited. In fact, that's the whole point: their instinctive behavior is being exploited.

Aelinsaar 10y ago

Why not both? If you're big and don't care about your consumer beyond their role as a source of money, maybe a stupid consumer is desirable? I think it just happens to be that almost anyone in a position of entrenched power, in government or industry, thinks they benefit from a stupid populace.

marknutter 10y ago

> most consumers are dumb If only all consumers could be as smart as jensen123. Sigh.