<snip>
Basically to stay at a reasonable weight most people eventually have to prepare most of their own food most of the time.
To some extent or other, yeah, but it can vary. Actually a lot of grocery stores have meals or parts of them they make and sell fresh - I'm not a fan, but my point is you could really minimize how much effort you put into making meals and still eat pretty healthy, though it would cost more.
It's hard to know how much sugar, salt and fat those foods actually have. Everyone loves those three things, it's almost a guaranteed way to make sure that most consumers will like the food -- so often a business will add a lot of those ingredients in. If they were to add a large amount of a different ingredient like say cumin or cardamom or really any other ingredient it would be more of a hit or miss proposition because other ingredients are not as universally well-liked.
I remember going to a community fair/fund raiser with some friends and being so proud of myself for getting a strawberry smoothie instead of ice cream. Then I happened to see the guy making the next batch of smoothies -- the amount of sugar he added was truly mind boggling. The ice cream probably would have been a healthier choice. That is just one example.
So ... unless I have reason to know exactly what is in the food ready to eat -- I usually don't buy it. I can't -- I end up having a weight problem. There have been studies and books written explaining how in particular salt and sugar trigger our appetites and some types of sugar prevent the hormones that suppress our appetite from kicking in. I know it's an issue for me which is why I have to make most of the food that I eat. I resent this, it's so time consuming -- but it's really the only way I can keep the weight off.
One could argue that the food manufacturers aren't living up to their side of an assumed social contract.
That'd be a weak argument IMO. Food manufacturers, like most any other business, are looking for profits, period. If they can do well selling crappy unhealthy food that people are stupid/lazy enough to buy in great quantities, they have no obligation of any kind to wet-nurse them.
You could make that argument in almost any area -- building codes for example. If someone is stupid enough to be willing to buy substandard buildng materials, why is the govt under any obligation to wet-nurse them? And if someone is willing to enter a building without making themselves aware of the quality of the materials used and how the building was constructed? Well, their tough luck if they fall through the floor -- why should they be mollycoddled?
It's probably in all of our interests for most of the members in our communities to be healthy vs not healthy.
It would not be a big stretch for govt to slightly expand their current food regulations and to decide to start handling sugar differently. The govt could decide to handle sugar like alcohol and require all foods with added sugar to be sold in stores designated for that purpose much like most alcohol is legally required to be sold in liquor stores and not allowed to be sold in other stores such as grocery stores. Or they may start requiring manufacturers to explicitly state how much of the sugar in food is added or only allow them to add up to a certain amount per serving in a processed food.
Fast-food corporations and soft-drink manufacturers are huge and wield a lot of political power, but so did the cigarette companies. Eventually, if the majority of society including govt and other large corporations decide that its in their interest to limit sugar -- sugar will be limited. I would bet on that -- I'm just not sure how long it will take.
Bloomberg is just the first politician trying to take on this issue. He won't be the last.
Hopefully the approach taken in the future will be more logical though.
ETA: Ideas of what is OK to sell to the public changes over time. Coca-cola use to have cocaine in it. The UK, and I think the US and France fought China partially over the right to be able to sell opium to China (The Opium Wars). Just a few examples.
And I dislike gov't intervention as much as the next guy, but quite frankly we as a people are often incredibly dumb/lazy and only getting worse, so we need it.
