Does the gov. require the layout of nutritional info on foods?
If so, do you think without that requirement…we’d actually see the real amounts of ingredients (units of vitamins) instead of the stupid percents of gov. approved daily reccomendations?
Of course, noone trusts or thinks the gov. knows what they’re doing when it comes to setting the daily reccomendations…that’s why we always like to see super high percents…like 2000% vitamin c and d…
I think its anything processed or pre-packaged. So a bag of chicken yes, sammich meat from the deli no.
On some foods… like special dieting stuff. Its overstated how important nutrition facts are. Anyone who is watching what they eat knows the approximate macronutrient ratios of the staple foods, and some of us are even pretty reasonable at estimating the content of mystery food we eat at resturaunts :).
There’s no freaking point putting “40g of carbs” on the back of a coca cola can because no one knows how much that is anyway. And I can’t freaking tell them how much it is because I don’t know their activity level or diet plan. Nutrition just doesn’t matter if you want to be fat and live to age 70, which is the attitude of most poor people. They have very high time preferences with their paychecks, relationships, and nutrition. Can’t change it.
These numbers are all wrong, but! The RDV was established during 1968 when the FDA rounded up 100 healthy adults and asked them what they ate. Then the FDA took an average and said that must be pretty good and made it the RDA. No kidding.
Its overstated how important nutrition facts are.
Not if you will die if you eat a food with the wrong ingrediant.
“Not if you will die if you eat a food with the wrong ingrediant.”
Killing customers is a sure way to maximize profit. (sarcasm)
“Not if you will die if you eat a food with the wrong ingrediant.”
I’m not really talking about ingredients…I’m talking about the percent daily values of government approved vitamins and minerals…
also…in a free market…do you not think companies would list the ingredients on their own?
why in the world not? especially if their competitors did…
also…in a free market…do you not think companies would list the ingredients on their own?
why in the world not? especially if their competitors did…
I have no idea. But even if they did, that would not be good enough. They would also need to notify the customer that the product was produced in a plant or on equipment which uses ingredient X.
Eric, the idea is that companies don’t want to wait for consumers to die and stop buying their products… you inform people in advance to maximize your revenues. Get them to buy your non-peanut products.
Eric, the idea is that companies don’t want to wait for consumers to die and stop buying their products… you inform people in advance to maximize your revenues. Get them to buy your non-peanut products.
Many companies already only list product descriptions only when they are required to. When they are allowed to list things like “other spices,” they do. This is unfortunite for people who are allergic to sesame as it falls under such a category. I certainly don’t see what is wrong with requiring certain ingrediants to be listed. What do you have against it?
That it is a coerced transfer of costs from the peanut allergy sufferer to the producer. If the producer will not label what allergens his product has and doesn’t have, it’s the responsibility of the peanut allergy sufferer not to buy it. Why should someone pull out a gun and put the onus of that on the producer?
Why should people “pull out the guns” when I steal something? The “pull out the guns” argument is going to collapse on itself. I will let you know that ahead of time.
Also, with your peanut allergy example, what if the product was produced on equipment which is used to make peanuts, yet this is not specifically listed? In that case it does not matter how responsible the person with the allergy is.
This entire problem can be solved by requiring ingrediants to be listed. Nobody has yet offered any other solution. That fact that what you consider “aggression” is required is totally meaningless to me.
It is unfortunate for people who are allergic to sesame only if the people allergic to sesame don’t check the unlisted ingredients by calling the company, etc. They can do research on their own, like many fitness trainers do when researching certain kinds of protein supplements that may have more than just protein in them. Food companies don’t have some kind of responsibility to the masses of allergic people because they don’t HAVE to run their food company just like people don’t HAVE to buy their food. If it were a monopoly whereas no one else sold a specific and necessary food, it might be different.
It is unfortunate for people who are allergic to sesame only if the people allergic to sesame don’t check the unlisted ingredients by calling the company, etc. They can do research on their own, like many fitness trainers do when researching certain kinds of protein supplements that may have more than just protein in them. Food companies don’t have some kind of responsibility to the masses of allergic people because they don’t HAVE to run their food company just like people don’t HAVE to buy their food. If it were a monopoly whereas no one else sold a specific and necessary food, it might be different.
I was using this as an argument against the idea that companies would always list ingrediants on their own (which apparently you don’t believe they would?). I do not care about what you think people are and are not responsible for. That does not matter to me. I could say people are not responsible for respecting private property. My goal is a just society from a subjective Rawlsian persective.
You do realize that stealing something is quite a different action than cooking something made of my own materials, right? I have hurt no one by making a candy bar. If you have food sensitivities, and you don’t know what’s in it, then you shouldn’t eat it. Guess what - you’re no worse off than you would have been had I not made a candy bar. On the other hand, if I walk into a store and steal a candy bar, there is someone who is worse off.
And yes, it matters how responsible the person with the allergy is. If he has a serious peanut issue, he can choose to buy only products with a label that says “made in a peanut free factory.” Why would there be such a thing? Presumably, because there’s a market for such products, as evidenced by this poor guy who can’t eat the candy bar I produced.
I’m sorry to hear that you consider aggression to be totally meaningless. I presume you will continue to regard it as totally meaningless if your wallet is stolen next, or if you are enslaved next. You are proposing that I be shot if I offer a candy bar for sale without listing the ingredients. I suggest that this is a position acceptable only to a sociopath.
Yes, a just society where booted thugs menace food producers with machine guns to intimidate them into printing information on their labels. Nothing can go wrong with that plan.
You do realize that stealing something is quite a different action than cooking something made of my own materials, right?
A person who does not believe in the legitemacy of private property would not consider it stealing. Do you consider it wrongful theft if you steal food from a slave master in order to feed a slave? No, you don’t. Likewise, a person who does not believe in private property (or does not believe in the idea that private property trumps everything, such as me) does not consider such an act wrong.
If you have food sensitivities, and you don’t know what’s in it, then you shouldn’t eat it. Guess what - you’re no worse off than you would have been had I not made a candy bar. On the other hand, if I walk into a store and steal a candy bar, there is someone who is worse off.
What if they are gummy bears made in the same plant as peanuts? Your “personal responsibility” argument is completely meaningless to me when the entire problem could be easily solved by having certain requirements. If some kid goes and buys some candy and dies because there are peanut traces in it, your response would be “well the kid should have been more responsible.” Right? What about saving the “irresponsible” kids life?
And yes, it matters how responsible the person with the allergy is. If he has a serious peanut issue, he can choose to buy only products with a label that says “made in a peanut free factory.” Why would there be such a thing? Presumably, because there’s a market for such products, as evidenced by this poor guy who can’t eat the candy bar I produced.
What if there isn’t?
Anyways, I don’t think people with allergies should have to live under such degrading conditions when the problem could be solved so much easyer.
I’m sorry to hear that you consider aggression to be totally meaningless. I presume you will continue to regard it as totally meaningless if your wallet is stolen next, or if you are enslaved next. You are proposing that I be shot if I offer a candy bar for sale without listing the ingredients. I suggest that this is a position acceptable only to a sociopath.
You define aggression as “an act which violates one of the social construts which I abide by.” I do not always consider the violation of private property to be aggression. If a kid falls out of a tree on your lawn and I go in to save him against your will, I am not committing aggression in my view. You would be committing aggression by stopping me.
Yes, a just society where booted thugs menace food producers with machine guns to intimidate them into printing information on their labels. Nothing can go wrong with that plan.
The plan is enforced by the government, not thugs. Also, I don’t see how requiring labeling is equivalent to “menacing food producers with machine guns.”
That’s like saying, “There are termites crawling around your walls, not insects.” Government = thugs. The ‘machine gun’ equivalence is speaking in regards to the fact that, if I were to make lemonade with lemons, water, and sugar, I don’t have to tell anyone that there’s sugar in it unless they ask me. Just like if someone handed you a margarita. Usually, especially if you’re underage, you’d ask if it’s virgin or alcoholic. If the government says that you are responsible for killing someone by not informing them about the peanuts in your recipe, they’ll send you to jail. You can refuse to go to jail because it’s not your fault, at which point you’d be evading arrest and, at one point or another, probably ‘endangering police officers’ due to them chasing you, which they can eventually shoot you for if no one gives up. Hence the inevitable machine gun reference.
Well, let’s look at the stealing case, then. You don’t consider anything wrong with taking my stuff, since you don’t believe in private property. Fine. You also don’t believe there is anything wrong, as we know, with sticking guns in people’s faces, so why object when I defend my fictious property? If it helps, I’ll get some cardboard and aluminum foil and make myself a piece of costume jewelry to wear while defending my property.
We have a trade-off here. The situation can be ‘completely solved’ as you say, by shooting anyone who produces a candy bar without a label. I say it can also be ‘completely solved’ by you not eating a candy bar not labeled as safe for you. In one case, I get a gun in my face. In the other, you can’t eat a specific candy bar. On what basis do you favor one over the other? I’ll read on and see.
Ah, it is degrading to…what exactly? It’s already the case, no matter what, that the allergy sufferer cannot eat every candy bar available, and can only eat specific candy bars. I suggest that he refrain from eating bars not labeled as safe, and you suggest that, well, I suppose every candy bar wrapper has to list every ingredient, not just in the bar, but used in the factory, and you claim it is degrading to have to refrain from eating some candy bars that do not contain the allergen. At least, that’s the best I can do at reconstructing just what is degrading here. You apparently don’t think it is degrading to have people walking around threatening to shoot you if you don’t produce a wrapper up to their specifications, and don’t think such a situation could possibly lead to any fraudulent outcomes. After all, empowering a large agency to carry this out, with no market competition, cannot lead to some unscrupulous producers paying off inspectors, right, either to shut down their competition or let them get away with things. Ok, so suppose that is not at all degrading. So now this supposed degradation of having to look for peanut-safe candy bars justifies shooting candy bar producers why exactly?
Once again, suppose I didn’t make any candy bars. Then I wouldn’t incur your wrath here, but I also wouldn’t produce the very tasty morsel that you consider it degrading to not be able to eat. So it’s ok to deny to the entire world this tasty treat, but not to only you?
Now, what if there isn’t such a market? Then there was even less reason for you to be shooting me in the first place. The lack of a market for peanut-safe bars suggests that I’m certainly not going to go to any effort to have a peanut-safe factory in the first place, and you haven’t (yet) proposed forcing people to open such factories, so in that case, there just isn’t going to be a candy bar you can eat. Degrading, I know.
As for your irresponsible kid who eats a candy bar not labeled as safe, I have no reason to believe he’d do anything different if we required the manufacturer to list every item used in his factory. Why do I say that? Well, first, I used to work as a paramedic, then as an EMS chief. I worked a large number of calls where people with allergies ate items containing allergens, and it so happens that in our world, we follow your idea. Subway had a big sign listing the allergens in their low-carb wraps, yet I treated many patients who ate them anyway. Second - your scenario leads me to think it. You posited a world in which a food cannot be deemed safe for allergy sufferers unless it is so labeled. The kid you’re talking about picked up a bar not so labeled - i.e. one which he had been taught not to eat - and ate it. Why won’t he eat the labeled bar too?
As for your last paragraph, you’re talking in generalities, I’m talking about a specific case. Is it or is it not aggressive to shoot candy bar makers?
Ok, government thugs, then. As for your also - what will you do if I make candy bars that do not conform to your labeling requirements - which we’ve seen have to include not only listing the ingredients, but also everything in my factory. Now, if I claim to do so, but don’t, I’m lying, but let’s look at a lesser case - I’m just not labeling them at all, except to say “Candy Bar. May contain allergens, or may not.” What should be done about me?
“A person who does not believe in the legitemacy of private property would not consider it stealing.”
Would that same person then see it as ok for someone to steal the candy bar from him since he doesn’t accept the legitimacy of private property?
“Do you consider it wrongful theft if you steal food from a slave master in order to feed a slave? No, you don’t.”
Regardless of the intent, it’s still stealing and therefore wrong. First off I would say slavery is illegitimate since one human being cannot own another, so I’m not so sure this is the best example to use. However, the fact that the slave owner has aggressed against the slave by the nature of slavery does not make it legitimate for a 3rd party to aggress against the slave owner except arguably in relation to the slave owner’s illegitimate actions, meaning it would be ok for the a 3rd party to free the slave by whatever means necessary since slavery is aggression but not for a 3rd party to steal food from the slave owner. If you are beating up a kid for no reason, I can legitimately stop you by using force, but I can’t go to your house and steal food or a bandaid to give to the kid, especially if you continue to beat him up after I bandage or feed him. In your example, I understand that perhaps the slave is being malnourished or something, but giving him food doesn’t rectify the crime committed against him. He’s still a slave and thus a 3rd party stealing food from the slave owner to feed the slave in no way stops the slave owner from continuing to aggress against the slave by keeping him in slavery (sorry for so many uses of the word slave lol). I’m not saying I would personally feel bad for the slave owner if a 3rd party stole his food to feed his slaves, but it’s not a legitimate act.
I’d also say in most cases it’s in the slave owner’s interest to keep his slaves at least reasonably well fed so that they’re productive. It seems stealing food to feed them is simply redundant as they would have been fed anyway, and again, it doesn’t stop the slave from being aggressed against.
“If a kid falls out of a tree on your lawn and I go in to save him against your will, I am not committing aggression in my view. You would be committing aggression by stopping me.”
I don’t believe you would be aggressing against the homeowner if you rushed across his lawn to save a kid from falling out of a tree. You haven’t damaged his property. The homesteading theory of property as far as a I understand it doesn’t exclude people from walking on land as long as they don’t degrade or damage whatever the owner is making use of that land for (I may have worded that strangely, I’m not an expert on this stuff :P). So if I cross a field of corn and don’t damage the crop there’s nothing illegitimate about that.