FDA to propose new food labels

Dick, I have no clue what you are looking for. Seriously.

Atlas Shrugged? A rigorous academic study of some sort? About what?

What you bolded: You are disputing that people have gotten unhealthier since those labels were mandated two decades ago? OK. If you see the world that way, so be it. But then why exactly is the rationale for the FDA nannying everyone with a brand NEW edict (to replace the old edict) that we are so unhealthy and SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE?

In the FDA's press release, the reasons for its new random "food facts" that need to be emphasized -- i.e. "added sugars" are now important (as opposed to the old random food facts that were going to make people healthier -- two decades ago): "People are eating larger serving sizes. Rates of obesity, heart disease and stroke remain high."

That is the FDA telling us why we need their new random edict. We're unhealthier than we were when they first got into the nannying business (simply what I posted)!

The FDA randomly deciding that trans fats, no wait, sorry that isn't the problem du jour, it's added sugars need to be highlighted on a food label doesn't give anyone a key to eating healthy. No matter how much you, or anyone else conflating what you think the intentions of their mandates are with RESULTS. It is just someone with regulatory authority randomly mandating something that makes a segment of people feel good for making "policy," as you put it. It doesn't actually make anyone "healthier," though (not that I even want to try to quantify that).

Intentions are not results. In this case, those intentions DO create costs. Not just the obvious monetary costs that someone actually had trouble acknowledging on here. To the extent that those labels have confused people and created misinformation about "healthy eating," there are pretty persuasive arguments that they have created more harm than good -- in effect.

For example, and I'll try once more with feeling, when fats became the thing we had force everyone to highlight in bold on their labels (as per FDA mandate), it created a whole "non fat" processed food industry that thrived in response to what the FDA created. Those "non fat" foods are largely loaded sugar to make up for the taste lost by the lack of fat (which gives food taste). Voila. Sugar epidemic and the health problems associated with that.

Now, with that unintended consequence created by the FDA, they are back. ... to tell us that sugar is the problem!

Gee, I wonder why?

If that is your "policy," it is just random tinkering with things. ... without having any clue what you are doing or about what the unintended consequences might be. "Policy," as you see it, really equates to "random edict." And that is dangerous.

And if someone challenges the wisdom of that arbitrary regulation, well, this thread demonstrates that there are lots of people ready to shout them down with hyperbole.

The responses to me have been interesting.

Rather than simply reading what I say and responding to what I actually say (all I am trying to do on here), it's either about me personally, or if you want to pretend it isn't personal, say a dumb "Atlas Shrugged" post such as yours (And really? You have no clue who I am, obviously, but even less so if you think that sums me up or informs me any more than I think Bazooka Joe informs the things you post). Or several people have pivoted to the downright nonsensical.

For example, I have MrCreosote seeming to get angry with my posts and typing several times about "fucking poison in our food," or about "a full accounting of ingredients in our food," -- both of which obviously have zilch to do with the FDA's random "food facts" announcement that this thread was about.

In the mean time, I am scratching my head, for example, because he seems blithely unaware that food ingredient lists don't exist because the FDA suddenly mandated them and had to force food companies kicking and screaming to put them on labels -- the way he imagines.

When people started to get more interested in nutrition in the 1970s, food ingredient lists started appearing. Consumer demand for them was the incentive, obviously. Not a random edict.

By the 1980s, when I was growing up, more than half of food products had complete ingredient lists. By today, given consumer interest in nutrition, it likely would have been every food product (if you didn't do it, your competitor would because people are interested in that list) even without the FDA's mandated ever-changing "food facts" box.

That food facts box is not about a list of ingredients. It is about the FDA randomly forcing manufacturers to put arbitrary nutritional components in bold on the label and creating misinformation that has had people thinking that "fat free" is the way to go or now that "sugar free" is going to be the way to go. Which will create a whole other health epidemic, I am willing to bet.

You can distort my posts as much as you like with dumbassery where you put words in my mouth such as me saying "people were better off when they ate tiger marrow for breakfast."

I simply posted that if you think someone processing and engineering what you eat in a lab (for example, to make it "fat free") is doing you favors, as opposed to simply eating whole, natural foods (for example, eating an apple and not worrying about the nutrients in it that you really don't understand anyhow), my best guess is that the root of your eating problems lies with the obvious. The FDA is not going to help you, even if it mandates a useless label that drives up costs and makes you feel better about what you chose to eat.

But again, I am not the one who wants to nanny you. You are the one who wants to randomly mandate food packaging design if you think this is a good idea. It's incumbent on you to explain why it is necessary, not for me to explain why we shouldn't be putting arbitrary regulations in the name of "policy" on everything.

 

Dude, I am not lecturing YOU about YOUR eating problems. ... I was speaking generically.

That is kind of the point, by the way. I don't know you. And I certainly don't want to make your decisions for you (or anyone else). Eat only boxed items that were engineered by scientists in Switzerland to be fat free and fortified with random nutritional components that were synthesized in the lab (even as they stripped out the actual nutrients from any real food components in it to give it extended shelf life), if that floats your boat.

My point was: 1) Buyer beware if you eat that way, 2) To the extent that those processed foods might actually be a major problem that has contributed to our health woes in the aggregate, the FDA shouldn't be actually mandating labels that make people think those "fat free" or "sugar free" foods engineered in labs are doing them favors!