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0 pointsndriscoll2y ago0 comments

You keep including the (not me of course) parenthetical, but at least my experience was that I grew up on sugar cereal. I vaguely remember schools having things like apple jacks on offer in individual packs. I and other kids brought their boxtops to school. Best I could tell, it was normal. It's still in the aisles and the companies haven't gone out of business, so best I can tell it still is.

We bought it in the same stores where we bought real food back then. We buy food in the same stores that have breakfast cereal now.

I haven't watched TV or movies for like the last 10 years, and I've blocked ads on my computers for ~20, so I've at least minimized the most blatant exposure, but I don't think myself immune. That's why I've done what I can to remove them from my life. But I'm naive too; like I didn't realize until recently that radio "callers" are just iheartmedia employees, or that you can just buy an "interest" piece on the news or Ellen or an "opinion" or "lifestyle" piece in the newspaper or whatever. It makes sense in retrospect, but the extent to which literally all media around us are just ads is hard to wrap one's head around, and a little unexpected IMO. I don't think it's intuitive or that you have to be dumb to be tricked. You just have to be honest enough that it wouldn't occur to you that everything around you is lying and that these people will relentlessly work to construct some Hell version of Plato's cave in order to sell you things and that it's basically legal to do so.

Maybe I'm just one of the dumb ones, but IMO ads like this[0] masquerading as national news should maybe require extremely clear labeling and disclaimers, or just be illegal. Maybe when shills on youtube say "this is sponsored, but this is my real opinion", the second half of that sentence should be illegal. Maybe they should have to say "this video is an advertisement for X, and I am not presenting my opinions on it".

The food desert idea is plausible, but the literal definition is useless (poor people can't walk 0.5 miles?), so I'm forced to be skeptical of any claims around it.

To me the plausible explanation for breakfast cereals is that people underestimate how evil these companies can be, and probably figure it must be illegal to sell candy advertised as food or something, so it can't be that bad if it's so common and if it's allowed to be advertised on TV. Surely they couldn't or wouldn't say it's "part of a complete breakfast" if it weren't at least mostly true. Surely if it's on the news, the reporter would mention if it's actually extremely horrible for you and surely the "report" isn't literally written by the advertiser.

[0] https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/oreo-os-cereal-returning-...

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JAlexoid2y ago

You realize that it wasn't the ads that convinced people to consume sugary cereals, right? Ads are there to promote a brand, not a food group. Your local store or General Mills will sell you what you want, at a price that you are comfortable with. They literally don't care and have no interest in pushing any specific recipe. I bet that their low sugar alternatives are their most profitable products.

Sugary products are cheap to manufacture, specifically because US government subsidizes corn production for HFCS. It's not because General Mills is evil corporation that wants to hook you on sugar.

As an example from the other side - Cheap dairy products in Europe exist because the governments there subsidize the crap out of dairy industry. And will not stop, no matter how bad production of those are for the environment. They will point the finger at air travel, though...

> The food desert idea is plausible, but the literal definition is useless (poor people can't walk 0.5 miles?),

How sheltered are you? No you can't walk 0.5 miles, when there's an interstate separating you from a grocery store that can financially afford to stock fresh produce. Or maybe you should walk an extra 30-60 minutes after you come back from your second shift of the day?

ndriscollOP2y ago

Something convinced people that sugary cereals aren't just something you can use to survive in a pinch, but actually contain acceptable nutrition. People think Special K is healthy. Or Slimfast advertising 10g protein (with milk teehee) when it's actually got 2 g protein and 11 g sugar. People think this is "diet" food. Chocolate milk powder. They really buy it. How sheltered are you? And then it causes real harm to people when they think "dieting" just doesn't work for some people.

This isn't just "lol dumb people got tricked". It's fraud. Plenty of apparently reasonable people take the intended (false) meanings from advertisements. These are intentional misrepresentations. And it's not one or two egregious actors. The entire industry is about deceiving to the maximum extent allowed by law, which is a lot.

Like I said the (colloquial) idea of a food desert is plausible, but there is no information on it. The stats are not looking at how many people have a highway blocking the way and you have to go uphill both ways in a wheelchair after working 3 jobs, so actually that 0.5 miles is burdensome. They tell us nothing (well, they tell us how many people don't even have to walk 10 minutes to reach a fully stocked supermarket). If you think that's the scenario being discussed when people talk about food deserts, it's coming from your imagination. Maybe it exists. It's not what the term means. It's almost like the term was chosen to be evocative and paint a certain picture of reality.

JAlexoid2y ago

> Something convinced people that sugary cereals aren't just something you can use to survive in a pinch, but actually contain acceptable nutrition

People's pockets did that. And they definitely are perfectly fine for breakfast. They're not the best, but they're not "the cause of the obesity epidemic".

> People think Special K is healthy.

What is specifically unhealthy in Special K?

> Slimfast advertising 10g protein (with milk teehee) when it's actually got 2 g protein and 11 g sugar

What does factually misleading advertising have to do with this? They're literally advertising the opposite of what we're talking about. Neither is 11g of sugar is going to cause you to gain weight.

> If you think that's the scenario being discussed when people talk about food deserts, it's coming from your imagination.

It's coming from me literally having been to a few such areas in Camden NJ, Bronx and in Baltimore. But hey! I must have imagined all of those places...

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0 pointsndriscoll2y ago0 comments

We bought it in the same stores where we bought real food back then. We buy food in the same stores that have breakfast cereal now.

The food desert idea is plausible, but the literal definition is useless (poor people can't walk 0.5 miles?), so I'm forced to be skeptical of any claims around it.

[0] https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/oreo-os-cereal-returning-...

0 comments

JAlexoid2y ago

Sugary products are cheap to manufacture, specifically because US government subsidizes corn production for HFCS. It's not because General Mills is evil corporation that wants to hook you on sugar.

> The food desert idea is plausible, but the literal definition is useless (poor people can't walk 0.5 miles?),

ndriscollOP2y ago

JAlexoid2y ago

> Something convinced people that sugary cereals aren't just something you can use to survive in a pinch, but actually contain acceptable nutrition

People's pockets did that. And they definitely are perfectly fine for breakfast. They're not the best, but they're not "the cause of the obesity epidemic".

> People think Special K is healthy.

What is specifically unhealthy in Special K?

> Slimfast advertising 10g protein (with milk teehee) when it's actually got 2 g protein and 11 g sugar

What does factually misleading advertising have to do with this? They're literally advertising the opposite of what we're talking about. Neither is 11g of sugar is going to cause you to gain weight.

> If you think that's the scenario being discussed when people talk about food deserts, it's coming from your imagination.

It's coming from me literally having been to a few such areas in Camden NJ, Bronx and in Baltimore. But hey! I must have imagined all of those places...

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse