If a line of products turns out to cause harm somehow, people will just stop buying it, and thats the way it works in our culture. Sometimes there is a fine, and rarely there might be jail time if a regulation was clearly broken and someone died or was harmed. We expect those responsible to take some blame and pay some price.
There is a lot of situations that are not so clear though.
The OBESITY epidemic, said to be killing more of us than smoking is now and certainly causing a lot more personal grief and lower quality of life for people much more than smoking does. So its a big deal, no pun intended.
It is difficult to know 'precisely' what the cause of anyone's obesity is as it occurs over a number of years and there are so many factors and many foods eaten in that time. But, for the known factors that are affecting most people, like too much carbohydrates and especially the processed carbs with sugar, there could at least be regulations.
Who should pay the fines? Who is responsible? - the ones who make the high-carb foods of course! And if they are STILL DOING IT, consumers need to be notified or the blame really gets big. Their way around responsibility is to put out a new lineup of product and hope we forget.
for eg., GENERAL MILLS is putting on a big advertising blitz about WHOLE GRAINS in their cereals. They say its healthier.
so what about all those years, and countless victims, of advertising and profitting on the former lineup of cereal products they had?
They didn't put warnings on the packages, because they believed that stuff was good or not harmfull, and certainly not fattening. Or at least thats what they had US believing... and they were dead wrong - processed cereals in a box turned out to be one of the major factors in the obesity epidemic. Now we know the effect of CARBS is that they turn to sugar right away after eating them, and make us FAT FAT FAT.
Atkins was saying that in 1985, but mass media and so on made sure that message didn't reach many people. To be sure, General Mills had lobbyists in government offices demanding that the fattening effect of processed grains was not known to the public.
A simple note on the box would have taken away any blame on General Mills ' part, but there was no note.
So now, should General Mills IS, as in "SHOULD BE", RESPONSIBLE.
Compensation, clinics and programs to reduce obesity, real changes in their products, and their support for better regulations for food and food testing are all ways that General Mills would be showing their responsibility.
Instead, what we have is a FALSE CHANGE in their products, as they are being promoted as healthy DESPITE THE FACT THAT SUGAR IS STILL THE SECOND MOST COMMON INGREDIENT in their new line-up of boxed cereals. Even the part about "whole grains are healthy" is not quite right - in a limited amount the whole grains can help, but more than a few spoons might be fattening for most people. And the General Mills "whole grains" are still processed and might have lost most of the natural benefits to health that "actual whole grains" have.
Karlin [thin man, no carbs]
There is a lot of situations that are not so clear though.
The OBESITY epidemic, said to be killing more of us than smoking is now and certainly causing a lot more personal grief and lower quality of life for people much more than smoking does. So its a big deal, no pun intended.
It is difficult to know 'precisely' what the cause of anyone's obesity is as it occurs over a number of years and there are so many factors and many foods eaten in that time. But, for the known factors that are affecting most people, like too much carbohydrates and especially the processed carbs with sugar, there could at least be regulations.
Who should pay the fines? Who is responsible? - the ones who make the high-carb foods of course! And if they are STILL DOING IT, consumers need to be notified or the blame really gets big. Their way around responsibility is to put out a new lineup of product and hope we forget.
for eg., GENERAL MILLS is putting on a big advertising blitz about WHOLE GRAINS in their cereals. They say its healthier.
so what about all those years, and countless victims, of advertising and profitting on the former lineup of cereal products they had?
They didn't put warnings on the packages, because they believed that stuff was good or not harmfull, and certainly not fattening. Or at least thats what they had US believing... and they were dead wrong - processed cereals in a box turned out to be one of the major factors in the obesity epidemic. Now we know the effect of CARBS is that they turn to sugar right away after eating them, and make us FAT FAT FAT.
Atkins was saying that in 1985, but mass media and so on made sure that message didn't reach many people. To be sure, General Mills had lobbyists in government offices demanding that the fattening effect of processed grains was not known to the public.
A simple note on the box would have taken away any blame on General Mills ' part, but there was no note.
So now, should General Mills IS, as in "SHOULD BE", RESPONSIBLE.
Compensation, clinics and programs to reduce obesity, real changes in their products, and their support for better regulations for food and food testing are all ways that General Mills would be showing their responsibility.
Instead, what we have is a FALSE CHANGE in their products, as they are being promoted as healthy DESPITE THE FACT THAT SUGAR IS STILL THE SECOND MOST COMMON INGREDIENT in their new line-up of boxed cereals. Even the part about "whole grains are healthy" is not quite right - in a limited amount the whole grains can help, but more than a few spoons might be fattening for most people. And the General Mills "whole grains" are still processed and might have lost most of the natural benefits to health that "actual whole grains" have.
Karlin [thin man, no carbs]