Big Food vs. the People
lighthousereports.com134 points by jruohonen 5 hours ago
134 points by jruohonen 5 hours ago
Can you blame them? Would you sue if the government suddenly decided your industry has to pay extra taxes, or they tried to restrict your advertising?
Honestly coca cola should probably thank the UK government for the sugar tax. They are the only ones that had the courage to keep the sugar and pay the tax, making their original soda the only potable soda in the UK.
I'm about as hippie with my food as you can get, but this "article" is badly written propaganda that conceals more than it reveals. Half way down the article you learn that ~80% (193 out of 239) of the lawsuits are in Mexico and
> many of them were against the country’s labelling regulation. Quinto Elemento Lab reveals the companies’ arguments: that the laws were a violation of their constitutional rights
But the article doesn't say what those rights are, which makes me think the lawsuits were just
I don’t know that the lack of information should lead you to assume that the Mexico lawsuits are justified. From what I’ve read, they’re contesting (among other things) the mandated black octagon on the front of packaging that says “exceso calorías” or “exceso azucáres” (excessive calories and sugar) and also bans on advertising to children. The cases that have already been decided have overwhelmingly been in favor of the government.
I realize “just” is very subjective, but I think that mandatory “excessive sugar” markers is a proportional response to the obesity and diabetes epidemic. Ultimately society has to bear the externalities of this stuff. And I think advertising any products to kids is a bit of a moral hazard.
I have nothing of substance to add, but that term moral hazard is not being used as intended. it's a term used to describe when you spend someone else's money it actually doesnt have to do with morals.
Thanks for explaining what the lawsuits were about. I'm not sure how I feel about the actual case or even how effective I think black octagons will be. Apparently they were first done in Chile and had little to no long term effect [1]
My assumption that the suits were just was because the article obviously wants you to come away with a very specific conclusion, for example there is a sibling comment that seems to think these cases are about US companies. When reading clearly biased but polished, sources my default is to assume any facts they prominently leave out they did so on purpose.
People have to learn to recognize the patterns.
In this case, lighthouse reports is an international NGO which receives on the order of ~1MM in income per year (an extremely common pattern for these NGOs), which was directly given to them by (unspecified) government grants and (unnamed) private donors (can see all this in their openly published annual reports). In exchange for the funding (80.38% of which they paid out to themselves as wages/compensation), they put together and release "reports", "studies", etc., that push the messaging the NGO was created to push.
I think you are saying "an NGO probably has an agenda." Ok, sure, they are not robots with no opinions, and if you read even the first few sentences of that report you can see the opinion.
But if you are suggesting that this NGO is carrying water for some unspecified shadowy group that is pulling the strings, you'll need to provide some backing for that. Who has a nefarious motivation to oppose junk food?
Trial lawyers? Misguided do-gooders? Big Celery?
> motivation to oppose junk food.
On social media, making dubious claims about food science or food ingredients, then following up by selling some "clean, unprocessed, organic" product is big business. (I make no claims about this specific NGO).
Yes - the obvious state of dysfunction in food regulation and lack of enforcement in that area has led to an abundance of scam supplement hawkers[1] but I don't think the right conclusion to draw from that is that all criticisms of food regulation are in bad faith - I think it's very fair to say "We should have a serious discussion about our food quality and also we need to crack down on these BS supplements". I think we're all[2] pretty well aligned on the fact that the BS supplements need the crack down but we also should introspect on why so many people are motivated to seek things like that out.
1. I personally enjoy a can of hogwater every day and am happy to give you a referral code.
2. Except those who financially benefit from hawking snake oil, of course.
Unfortunately in the current political climate “NGO” is just a hop and a step away from saying “the deep state” for some people. They vaguely gesture to it and talk about it as if it’s a bogeyman.
Not saying they are specifically doing that, but I can’t confidently say they aren’t either
I don't get it, whats up with all the scare quotes when what you're describing is basically what a think tank or advocacy group does?
1MM in any currency doesn't sound like a lot, especially relative to who they're up against...
Sounds like enough to pay some people for some months or a year or two - a combination of experts, part-time specialists, cotractors, etc. - to do things like gather some data via their contacts, hack together a meta-study, put out a glossy report andsome press releases, etc.
I think the bigger point is that there's an overwhelming amount of money going to push the opposite narrative. A quick search revealed that Tyson alone spends well over a million annually on lobbying and I am sure the industry at large spends significantly more on this issue alone.
Just look at their About page, which conflicts with much of the parent comment:
> international NGO
What does 'international' mean here and why do you mention it? About page: "nonprofit organisation registered in the Netherlands with ANBI (Public Benefit Organisation) status"
> ~1MM in income per year
They have a staff of over 30. They must spend much more than $1 million/year.
> In exchange for the funding (80.38% of which they paid out to themselves as wages/compensation)
They list their top salaries on the About page, which ain't much: "The salaries of our five highest paid employees range from €69,000 to €108,000 per year." Fifth highest paid employee makes €69,000.
> directly given to them by (unspecified) government grants and (unnamed) private donors
The About page lists funders by name, as well as "Media partners".
> In exchange for the funding ... they put together and release "reports", "studies", etc., that push the messaging the NGO was created to push.
Could you provide a source for that? Here's what the About page says:
"Editorial Independence is essential to all aspects of the work we do. We work with donors who do not impose conditions that restrict our journalism."
And from another page:
"We offer a collaborative space where hyper-local outlets and freelance journalists can work alongside staff from globally-recognised media. We exist to foster experiments with new formats and we pay particular attention to fresh ways of framing complex issues that will capture public attention and challenge misconceptions."
https://www.lighthousereports.com/what-we-stand-for/
EDIT: How can people on HN care that much about the source, Lighthouse? Right now three users, not including the parent commenter, are motivated enough to promote the disinformation about Lighthouse that they downvoted a mostly factual, informative comment. (I don't care about the votes; they are just evidence.) Maybe there is something I don't know about Lighthouse?
Maybe Mexico got it’s shit together and started doing something about the obesity crisis and the food industry is desperately trying to keep the status quo ?
Or maybe, to paraphrase the famous tweet, this is actually a plucky band of Mexican fizzy drinks manufacturers who are determined to expose the lies of 97% of the worlds health scientists.
Mexico is serious about junk food.
The cereal boxes in the stores don't have cute cartoon characters on them, and I tried to send somebody a box of chocolates and it got seized by customs.
Candy is labeled like cigarettes.
"Senators don't have the luxury that a research scientist has of waiting for evidence." - 1977
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbFQc2kxm9c
FYI
obesity 1977 ~14% 2026 40%+
T2 Diabetes 1977 ~3% 2026 ~12%
McGovern is not someone to hold up, but that's not the quote.
It was: "I would only argue that senators don't have the luxury that a research scientist does awaiting until every last shred of evidence is in"
I would say the idea aged poorly in the USA. Older generation of politicians were more welcoming to experts in their fields.
Now they reject the experts. Either to a please their voter base or for personal profit. Big grocery has more money for political donations / legal bribery.
USA Supreme Court conservative judges have ruled that expertise has no value in a ruling against protecting the environment from toxic chemicals.
Are you talking about the June 2024 decision that scraps the Chevron defence?
US had a whole agency that worked with politicians to understand technology until the 90's and Newt got rid of it.
The measures related to lawsuits are misleading and terrible, because of the way class-action lawsuits have incentivized lawyers to pursue dubious cases against large companies.
Ahem this is about the companies suing the government to stop what the author thinks are regulations that would "save lives".
I'm not in love with the system, but it does seem like a last resort for imposing discipline on corporations. The dilemma is whether the tort system is preferable to an approach involving more regulation and enforcement.
I’m not saying that the lawsuits are necessarily wrong or bad (though there do seem to be many of dubious merit), just that they don’t accurately reflect the mix of safety and other problems between large and small producers.
The tort system is too expensive and favors parties with deep pockets. Regulations and laws are more efficient. Imagine there were no laws about theft so everybody who gets something stolen from them would have to go to court.
Don't they still need to win to get paid?
They're purchasing lottery tickets that are mostly paid for by tax payers who fund the court systems.
There should be publicly available data about how expensive class action lawsuits are to the court.
I would personally categorize it as as subsidized not paid for since the lawyers get nothing if they fail which is a meaningful cost.
None of this is to say I support the current system. Class action lawsuits are now designed to get settlements that save the company targeted millions or more compared to the actual damage agreed to.
And giving the lawyers millions when each litigant is lucky to get $20 is not reasonable.
The only direct costs to the taxpayers in these kinds of lawsuits are the judge's time (also the bailiff's, stenographer's, and a couple more), a slight extra load on the computer system to handle the filings, and miscellaneous wear and tear on the courtroom.
Tax payers strictly pay for the judges' and other court personnel's salaries. The vast, vast, vast majority of the cost of any civil suit is paid for by the parties to the suit.
- “Purchasing”: The attorneys that are taking these cases for $0 in the hopes that they’ll get n% of $SETTLEMENT
- “paid for by tax payers who fund the court systems”. The alternative would mean taking away the right of private citizens to sue.
I mean, I think you understand what I'm saying. They're externalizing the costs and internalizing the benefits. The same thing we complain about with numerous other industries.
The alternative would not be to take away the right of private citizens to sue. There is, surprisingly enough, quite a chasm between identifying that some parties are taking advantage of a system and completely shutting that system down.
It sounds like you’re proposing that individuals should have to pay court costs, in full so that the “taxpayer” doesn’t have to pay the bill
How do they externalize the cost? Who is paying them? The plaintiff class-action firm pays their own costs and hopes get reimbursed when the case is resolved.
No. The case can be settled out of court. This doesn't necessarily mean lawsuits are misleading or terrible as measures.
> incentivized lawyers to pursue dubious cases
I don't see it:
Class-action suits require the law firm owners (partners) to pay teams of attorneys, as well as experts, and others for years. I saw one firm rent an office and hire dozens of attorneys just to review the tens of millions of pages of documents, looking for evidence. The firm earns nothing unless and until a positive resolution. Some firms require financing to cover the cost.
Who is going to put all that on the line - not to mention their career and reputation - for a dubious case?
When the resolution comes - usually a settlement - they might not profit or not much for their years of investment and effort. If they pursue a 'dubious' case, they could lose everything - courts can even sanction them.
Targets of class action suits don't like them, of course, and try to denigrate the attorneys. What else will deter and get justice for some of the brazen fraud? The SEC? FTC? They don't have the resources or, depending on the administration, the mandate to enforce things across the entire country. Will you sue a corporation for even $10K? Try it.
"But behind closed doors, they have taken governments to court" -- uh, I guess courtrooms technically have doors??
Link to the list of court cases: https://search.openaleph.org/entities/52243ef9aea6719ce8a69e...
Support your local farmers and get a weekly CSA (community supported agriculture) box, delicious!
Fantastic infographics!
Came here to see if anyone was discussing the infographics, but oddly enough because I found them incredibly distracting and in that zone of "pretty to look at but taking too long to comprehend well, if at all". To each their own!
america has a monopoly problem
Indeed if we could solve one thing with our gov't, I'd want it to be antitrust enforcement. For an ostensibly free market society we seem awfully willing to accept it being anything but.
> For an ostensibly free market society we seem awfully willing to accept it being anything but.
We were, but it has devolved into crony capitalism. I don't think it's too late to revert, but I do doubt we'll ever get our shit together and fix it.
I'd like corporations (bodies) to be prosecuted like human bodies, where bad behavior was noted, you got a record, and punishment increased through fines, restrictions all the way to forms of incarceration, and even the death penalty.
Alright, this week it's the marketing departments turn in jail, see you guys back here next week when it's HRs turn!
On the bright side, an ironclad excuse to skip the team offsite /s
Maybe they could incascerate the plant and equipment.
This week half the photocopiers are in foster care (prison).
Next week, half the backup generators.
If you wanted to do the most to improve competitiveness possible, by far the most effective strategy would be free trade. Trade barriers prevent competition from overseas, making monopolies much easier to maintain.
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Depends on the barriers to entry as an example. An effective anti-monopoly strategy needs different tools at different times.
Free trade has little impact on monopolies. The biggest corporations in the US are international and the massive amount of free trade we've had from Reagan to Trump's second term has only resulted in these companies becoming even more consolidated.
What free trade enables is for monopolistic corporations to take control of foreign resources to circumvent and undermine US labor laws. They'll buy the rights to the same crops growing in Mexico or Candida for cheaper than the US to undercut US farmers. None of that changes the price they are selling goods in the US and in fact ultimately results in prices going up in both Mexico and Candida.
Free markets tend to produce monopolies. You know how economies of scale are a thing? That's another way of saying that small companies lose to large companies at scale. "Disruption" or "agility" is the only thing that small companies have going for them, but once the monopolist gets large enough they can just buy up any upstarts and keep the market all to themselves forever. This is why you require governments to periodically shake the snowglobe and restore markets to competitiveness... until the monopolist gets big enough that they just buy the government, anyway.
Exactly. If you ask anyone on the street, "is it easier for a fast food worker or a business-owning millionaire to make their next million dollars?", common sense will prevail.
Money begets money (and power). It doesn't require an economics degree to understand this positive feedback loop.
[flagged]
> Can you find true monopolies in the free market
Your definition of monopoly isn't what people are commonly talking about when they say "monopoly".
Granted, you have the correct definition, just not the colloquial one.
What people say "monopoly" what they are really talking about is industries captured by few big players. For example, grocery stores. There's not a true monopoly there but there is damage done by the fact that there's very little competition in that space. Both to consumers and product manufacturers. These big grocery chains use their leverage to get prices smaller chains can't compete with. Further, they have been trying to consolidate (see Kroger Albertsons merger) to further exert anti-trust behaviors.
A clear example of the damage done by this sort of hyper consolidation is what's happened to the memory market. Multiple times the 3 big players have been hit with anti-trust lawsuits because of the price fixing they've engaged in. It's true they are not true monopolies, but they exert exactly the problematic behavior of a true monopoly. It's very unlikely that the free market would ever fix this.
What you are describing sounds great in theory, but the real world doesn’t work like that.
In more and more areas the obstacle to enter a market is not regulations but money.
I believe this is the second best time to start a business in America. The first was colonial times.
In many European countries, the largest restaurant chain is American. Not great.
You seem to be assuming chains are good. I prefer the one location restaurant myself, but by definition they will never be the largest chain.
McDonald's might be the largest restaurant chain in Italy but that doesn't really mean much given how many small restaurants the country has with high quality food.
Also due to food standards a random McDonalds in a random village in Italy will have significantly better food than most restaurants in the US. The Italian McDonalds will use locally sourced fresh produce straight from the farm, cooked by high-end chefs to create a very good tasting meal that is super healthy and good for you.
There is a reason those Italians live so long. Their McDonalds is better than others. It is literally illegal to sell McDonalds foods the way Americans make it.
> It is literally illegal to sell McDonalds foods the way Americans make it.
You should see what they do in the UK. Looks tasty, but healthy it certainly is not.
“ cooked by high-end chefs”
They aren’t high end chefs. They are normal workers that aren’t squeezed by their company to produce food in the cheapest way
it's an extension of our crony capitalism problem, where the free market is just an illusion
True, we have way too many thematic versions of Monopoly. I'm still missing so many copies.
Is it REALLY that hard for so many people to just stop drinking sugar water? I just don't get it. I can drink a soda or whatever once a year and thats more than enough for me, I usually don't even finish it. Is there something wrong with me or everyone else?
Yes, it's really hard for people that already regularly drink sugar water to quit the sugar water, but it's not very hard for those that don't drink it regularly to abstain indefinitely. The reason is the gut microbome, which drives your cravings. If you regularly drink it, you have more of the types of gut bacteria that consume it, and they tell your brain to give them more. If you don't regularly drink it, you don't have enough of those types of bacteria to make a dent in your cravings. In other words, you really are what you eat (or more precisely you are what eats what you eat).
There's a large subsection of people that choose various vices. Gambling, drugs, alcohol (I repeat), soda and junk food. To folks that do not partake in these things, it's bizarre behavior. Literally none of those appeal to me, but there's clearly profit to be made supplying them.
Are you asking why people can't seem to stop? Or why you seem to possess that ability? Both are biologically mechanistic like all behavior. Probably similar to why some people will kill for heroine while many don't. Or maybe the same reason your gut bacteria can process certain foods others would die from (peanuts), it's environment plus biology in a complex set of local minima that cause repeated behaviors. Is it surprising a biological system optimized to gorge sugary food as late as 200 years ago struggles to stop now? You may have well starved if you ate just one helping while food was available, discipline around food would be a fools pursuit (like intentionally drinking less water than your fill at an oasis).
Sugar water and junk food taste good and people like myself crave that sweet flavor.
If I'm not careful, I can easily and comfortably guzzle liters of soda in a day.
It's less a hard thing and more a "I'm on autopilot right now, I'm thirsty, and there's a can of soda in the fridge" thing. A similar thing happens with junk food. If I'm hungry, on autopilot, and it's available. I'll probably grab junk food because it's fast, convenient, and tastes good.
You are abnormal for not being able to finish 1 can of soda in a year. Nothing is wrong with you for being like that, you are simply an outlier. There's a reason why Coke is one of the most wealthy businesses in the world.
Disclaimer: I'm highly biased.
I think sugar is an addictive substance just like coffee, and tobacco/alcohol. Sugar and coffee are easier to shake than tobacco or alcohol. If you manage to stay off of it for a few days, you're back to normal. But it's socially acceptable to have a sweet tooth so most people, like with coffee, just keep "using". Some people don't get addicted to things as easily as others. Perhaps you're just one of them?
Most of my information comes from this doctor, Robert Lustig. Here's the latest podcast he was on if you're interested: https://youtu.be/BhEsYJ6gEHY. At around the hour-mark, he starts talking about the addiction side of sugar. There are talks with him that go way back. Around 17 years IIRC.
He's a bit peculiar I suppose, and seems to be on some sort of a crusade against "big food" and "big sugar", but I really sympathize with the guy.
Different people have different susceptibilities to getting addicted. And once addicted different people have different amount of brainspace left in their life to quit addictions, also depending on how hard the rest of society makes it to quit.
So, there is neither something wrong with you, nor with everyone else.
It is, indeed, for some people. It's a core part of why GLP-1 drugs work wonders for some people. Shutting up the "little fat person constantly telling your brain it needs food" is liberating if you have those urges.
Free clean water isn’t available many places so would you rather spend your money on water or a sugar hit? I’m with you on water though it’s so delicious.
Is it really that hard for people to stop doom scrolling or to stop inhaling or drinking dangerous chemicals?
They aren't selling these foods and coincidentally they are addictive. They have chosen the most addictive foods to sell - that's what makes them the most money. It turns out prune juice doesn't sell as well as soda, so that guy got fired.