At the rate this administration is going, it may well be that the great tide of immigration will start flowing in the other direction, with U.S. citizens scaling the walls to get OUT of the U.S.!!
21
Canada and Mexico should go ahead and sign their own treaty leaving the bully US aside, just like the Paris agreement. Sure, things would be a bit difficult at the beginning, but would normalize in the long run, with other trade partners. The US needs to learn to "play well with others" instead of snatching the ball off of every country it deals with.
24
Is this how we export American values now?
22
It is absolutely amazing to what degree the Republican party has foisted its virulent ideology on Trump. I do not believe that any of these horrible initiatives spring from him. He is too disinterested in public policy, too uninformed, too self-involved, and too lacking such convictions. So it was a toss-up -if the the Republicans would take him over or he take them over, It is by now clearly evident that the former has happened.
9
'Mexico’s current labeling rules allow for — but do not require — the display of daily intake recommendations of salt, sugar and fat. But they are “indecipherable to consumers” and “totally useless to people,” Ms. Jones said.'
The Times should post examples of these labels.
7
Kleptocracy in a soda can.
6
Trump & this administration have proven overwhelmingly that their last concern is the welfare of the people they represent. The administration is owned by big business - be it the food industry, NRA, oil or pharmaceuticals - They look out for the money vs the people. It is shocking that the US is trying to hide the dangers of the food industry junk food! Where other countries are trying to keep their citizens informed and reduce health risks, we fight to prevent additional risk labels! - the benefit to the administration is clear - especially if you pair it with the reduction in the education budget. Poor diets, obesity mixed with a poorer education -- you have a generation much easier to influence and control. Disruption to this country is approaching a cataclysmic level. I won't even go into the harm they are doing to the environment and the years they have already set us back. Remember this when you vote in 2018 and 2020. Vote for someone who is looking out for the US as well as the global economy and environment we are all part of.
10
I’m Canadian. I don’t like rampant capitalism that allows people to kill with guns, I don’t like the US healthcare system that is unaffordable to many, I don’t like the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, I detest a capitalist .system that allows big money to control politicians, and I don’t want
big business and filthy rich people like the Koch brothers dictating what the rest of us in this world eat, and breath. So pull out of international treaties and tax imports to the hilt, but you will NOT impose your venal values on my country.
19
MAGA - get nutrition labels off junk food!
Making the world safe for refined carbohydrates, one trade deal at a time.
The American empire ends not with a whimper or a bang, but with the crunch sound from eating a potato chip.
8
Trump's well thought out policy is to be sure the corporations writing the laws and trade agreements allow for continued consumption of fat, sugar and salt, making the nation unhealthy and then limit or make healthcare totally unaffordable for the majority of the country.
He should be careful. Most of us elite liberals don't eat junk food and he'd be killing off his own constituents. A pretty sorry approach to making America great again but not an unusual tactic for Trump and his corporate donors that keep the complicit Republican congress empowered to destroy the nation.
Everything this guy touches turns toxic. And I mean EVERYTHING.
12
The new American leadership. Brought to you by lobbyists, bought politicians and freedom lovers.
The same people who want to cut off your affordable and preventive healthcare because...unhealthy people have clearly done it to themselves.
As it is most of the obesity in the world occurred with the spread of such fine American 'food' from KFC, MacDonalds, frito Lay etc. one of our proud exports.
7
None of this is a surprise at this point. There is literally nothing this entire administration has done to this point that you couldn't easily explain with "selling things are more important than [safety/life/family/education/progress/environment/health/etc]."
It's the most pathetic, short-sighted mismanagement I've ever seen at this high of a level. Then again, this is my first time living in a banana republic.
8
Disgraceful. But it is to be expected from someone who consumes 12 cans of Diet Coke daily. I want to make informed decisions about what I ingest, and that means full disclosure.
5
For public officials to set private corporate interests above the public health is clearly corruption as the Founders conceived it (see Teachout's Corruption in America). The Congress has been substantially privatized by a campaign finance system that resembles no other mature democracy; and what's worse, the contributors are increasingly monopolistic--as unchecked by effective competition as by a toothless Congress. Good points made by several previous commenters on the reality of health effects and incidence of diabetes, in U.S. and elsewhere, should not distract us from the fundamental corruption at work here. If the Grand Oligarchic Party truly believed in a market economy, they would support full information to consumers to enable a 'rational' decision. But their devotion to informed consumers is as false as their devotion to informed voters, or the rule of law itself.
6
It is very difficult for those of us outside the USA media-propaganda bubble to understand the desire for the US government to endanger its citizens, and now us Canadians too. We are clearly neighbors of a demented country.
13
Why would we want to poison our neighbors when we can continue to poison our own kids right here?
6
"Why would we want to poison our neighbors when we can continue to poison our own kids right here?"
Sugar, salt and fat are not "poisons". Why does the subject of food labeling generate so much hysteria?
This administration seems to hate science, except of course when they can use it to manipulate children’s eating habits, oh yeah and of course when they can use it to manipulate our votes.
7
At some point, people, YOU have to take responsibility for what you eat and your own nutrition know-how. It really is not difficult. Eat actual food, not chemicals from packages. Change the industry with your real-food-buying dollars. Are you up to the challenge? Will you give up your bags, boxes, cans, and shrink-wraps of pseudo food?
9
Any country with a universal health care system would be obligated fiscally, if not morally and ethically to minimize the cost to the tax payers who support it. Self abuse through uninformed, excessive consumption of anything is just plain dumb and costs everyone in the system down the road. Unless you're the ones selling dumb stuff.
5
Trump and his cronies are ruining everything that makes our country great in the name of corporate profits. Dig and drill in our national parks and off our pristine shores; take away life lines like Medicaid and food stamps; separate families; allow guns to proliferate; reduce Medicare; ban reproductive education; weaken organic rules and so much more. Now he wants to eliminate food labeling which takes away the right to make an informed choice. What is wrong with these people? We don't have lobbiests working for us or mega rich folks handing us money. All we have is our voice and our vote. Use it wisely come November to kick these horrible ugly-minded people out!!!
6
That's not trade, that's fraud!
6
This is just one more case of the "new" US selling its values for money. It's a parade of disgusting greed and irresponsibility.
3
Trump continues to bury the leadership of an informed, free, world.
1
They want to lower health care costs but then they censor the information needed to accomplish that goal.
Talk about the gang that couldn't shoot straight. OMG. These people are such fools and scoundrels I feel like I'm living in some novel by Evelyn Waugh.
4
Donald enjoys his Diet Cokes, Lays potato chips, pink and red Starbursts, Nutter Butters, Egg McMuffins, KFC, and 2 scoops of ice cream. Why take away his enjoyment? He appears not to read so it is unlikely that he would ever even access the label info but someone mean could read it to him. Or Hope Hicks could write it out on a cue card.
Donald wants to get rid of NAFTA and he doesn’t care how he does it. That’s what winning is all about, all hail Donald.
3
Count on the Trump Administration to be on the wrong side of every issue. In particular, could we expect anything else from a billionaire who binges on fast food? When those who support Trump become diabetic, they can blame it on Obama and Hillary. Make Americans Fat Again.
3
US corporations shameless death exports of cigarettes, junk food and soda (let’s not even mention weapons) is sinful. Greed knows no bounds.
3
Sugar salt cocaine heroin. Which white powder kills more people every year?
2
This Government is horrific and harmful. The Government is suppose to protect the People, not, exploit the People. I can’t wait for this administration to be out of office. I can’t imagine a worse situation for Americans than the current administration. Our voices don’t matter. Money matters. Big industry matters. Pathetic.
2
The United States is a nation of junk politics, right wing junk "new", junk science and junk religion. It is only fitting that it also be the king of junk food as well.
What a sad, pathetic joke the US is now revealed to be in front of the entire world.
3
The battle over cigarettes went on for decades with much the same reasoning from both sides as appears to now be underway with processed food and the various health effects empirically associated with them. The positive results of cessation of smoking are by now indelibly clear. Obesity is not a new issue, truth in advertising is not a new concept and obesity kills. The road to death is difficult for the victim and unnecessarily expensive for the victim, their family, employers and the taxpayers who underwrite the years of lost time and medical services required. Now that the likes of Coca Cola, Frito-Lay, etc. have received the Corporate Income Tax reductions they should be required to pay an Obesity Prevention Tax designed to cover the unnecessary costs that result from the overconsumption of their products. Something akin to a Carbon Tax for big polluters.
10
On so many fronts the United States is revealing itself to increasingly exert itself as a political bully, swayed solely by the bribes paid by corporate interests. Its level of commitment to its citizens is shown to be negligible, with an eroded sense of the value of its national health and safety. From food inspections, to water quality and environmental pollution, the US is becoming a pariah state calculated to serve a thin sliver of the wealthy and those connected to the reins of power. It is becoming a place to avoid.
9
If these foods are cheaper and more filling than the more nutritious foods people on budgets will continue to buy them. We see the same thing in restaurants, at athletic events, at school based events: the junk food is cheaper. When I walk into a cafeteria I don't see them offering all you can drink refills on juice or milk or anything remotely healthy. Fruit costs more than cookies. Highly processed "food" is much less expensive so why wouldn't people on a tight budget buy it?
3
The low road, a road now more travelled than ever...consistently and unerringly. On the other hand, maybe boat loads of complimentary, high calorie snacks could solve the North Korea issue.
4
We desperately need to make lobbying for pay illegal or we will continue to have nonsense like this in our policy making. It is more than obvious that the government We the People pay for is ruled by for profit lobbyists- many of whom previously were former civil servants or elected officials.
Take the money out of it and we might be able to gain control of our government again. A lifetime ban on lobbying by any former elected official or elected officeholding by any former lobbyist would be a good start.
4
The left now wants to compare Oreos to tobacco. Wow!
I just ate an Oreo. In fact, it was a double stuff Oreo. I only ate one. It was delicious! The package tells me that is 70 calories, 1 gram sat fat, 45 mg sodium, no protein and no fiber. I enjoyed my Oreo. I am 59 years old, have a BMI of 24, blood pressure of 120/70 and waist size of 32. To say that Oreos – or any other “junk food” – causes obesity is to belie the principles of causation. Speaking of causation, it would be of interest to see the data that shows – in the gold standard randomized, controlled trial -- that introducing the Chilean warnings (something that doesn't exist in the US) led to a decrease in obesity. Just show us the data – and then we can make a data driven decision. Banning Tony the Tiger will solve the obesity problem. Who knew?
San Francisco just outlawed the sale of fur. You can eat meat, sell leather – but can’t sell fur. Wow. What ever happened to our unalienable right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
3
On the contrary, we do know high fat, high sugar, high calorie, low fiber foods are linked causally to chronic illness like diabetes, high blood pressure, strokes and cancer. So, tell me, in a market economy where it is presumed each agent will make decision in their own best interest, what harm is done by letting people know at the point of purchase that the contents of a particular food item can have harmful health consequences?
8
You probably have good genes, are educated and have a healthy diet. Certainly this is not about total abstination but more about informing consumers of the ingredients. Inofrmation that could help a person live a healthier life should not be blocked by our government. Let's not return to buyer beware.
7
Hopeful Libertarian, It is interesting to try a Canadian Oreo cookie compared to its American brethren. The southern relative is less flavorful, but with far more sugar - 25% more, by my recall. In so many processed foods the ingredients that most contribute to obesity and diabetes are found to contain higher amounts of salt, fats and sugar in the US varieties. When I travel through the US I see the degree to which the food servings are monstrously large and adorned with fats and sugar. The result is visible in the sizes of the people - your own good luck notwithstanding - with thick necked young families with rolled bellies and quaking thighs. Despite your professed love of liberty, the food landscape across most of the country most resemble a feed lot.
5
Instead of labelling, is it not easier and cheaper to simply follow the Trump Method of fighting obesity. Have your doctor report you are taller than you actually are so that you do not fall into the obesity range? Than like Trump you can enjoy all the Diet Coke and McDonalds burgers you want without guilt or the stigmatization of being labelled obese.
8
With apologies to my country, may I respectfully suggest that the countries of North America, and you too South America, go ahead and create a free trade agreement that includes all of your countries but excludes the disgrace that is the United States of America? We are no longer leaders and have nothing good to offer you. I know a lot of you have your own problems that need to be dealt with, but hitching a ride with this administration and Republican controlled legislature can do you no good.
11
everything wrong with the usa in one example.
6
Ok, so if 44 gallons of sugar per year isn’t a health concern, why do you only drink DIET Coke, Mr. President?
4
They’re certainly serious about there greed!
Gutting affordable health care Zero timely, updated, & clearly understood reminders & warnings on obesity-causing/cancer-linked foods & their packaging (why be against this when tobacco & alcohol also has warnings too anyway?) Substandard, Understaffed K-12 Education on Nutrition & Physical Education Addictive Junk Being Served as School Lunches Making Sugar & Salt-Laden, Toxic BPA-Packaged Processed Foods & Drinks Cheaply Available to Increasingly Underemployed/Indebted Masses = Soaring, yet tragically preventable, debilitating illnesses & deaths, plus lesser available healthy recruits for necessary, national security-sensitive STEM/law enforcement/military posts across North America!!!
Why are we setting ourselves up to systematically poison potentially productive & critically thinking lower-income & middle class humans, just to replace them w/ robots that can't vote, can't strike/boycott, can't demand affordable housing, schools, long-term elder care, sick/parental leave time, health care & pensions, etc? . . .
The self-proclaimed elites apparently want to be the only humans left to be served by presumably compliant, algorithm-based robots & self-driving, self-flying, etc. human labor-free machines - that is, until these automatons malfunction often enough to kill more humans by crashing into pedestrians, despite human override/supervision feature . . .
Be Careful of What You Short-Sightedly Lobby For, Greedy & Impulsive Earthlings!
3
The US unchecked corporation market capitalism proved to be detrimental to social cohesiveness, consumers, and the environment.
Attempts to keep such unsustainable system going will only hurt Americans while positioning the US on the wrong track of history.
7
Any Trump supporter who reads this and does not come away with the conclusion that Trump is out to help big business and not them is delusional. Instead of make America great again Trump wants to keep America fat which means more diseases from obesity and more health care expenses. There is such a disconnect when I hear or read what his supporters say in his defense.
3
Another example of capitalism's amoral practice of placing profits before people. It is also another example of Trump's total disregard for the welfare of people against the exploitive nature of the capitalist system. Capitalism may be a good way to make money but it needs the attention and regulatory powers of a govenment that puts people over profits.
Trump merely needs to go - the sooner the better!
3
British children's doctors are also sounding the alarm about food labeling warnings being weakened in potential trade deals with the United States which they say has worse outcomes in children's health. Just another way our national reputation declines under the America First president. We are becoming a pariah.
5
The healthcare costs to states such as Mississippi and Alabama for treating diabetes are becoming staggering. Why not try to prevent the kind of consumption that leads to this disease? We need to put the lives of our citizens ahead of corporate greed. Apparently, that's not going to happen in a Trump Administration. Wrong - as usual.
2
My government disgusts me. Will it ever legislate for the people, or just the corporations?
5
The American electorate, including his supporters need to seriously ask: Who do Republicans represent? Not women, not children, not even their own children.
1
It is shameful how financial interests come before human health and even worse seeing the lobbies' effects on governments. First, it was the tobacco industry, now it is the sugar industry. Keep selling it to all, to children... Diabetes in a bottle... You can then figure out how to pay the medicare bills when every third person is diabetic and obese with lifelong need for medical care.
2
Potentially, this could reduce Trump’s enthusiastic base of supporters....and his base thinks it’s great! And can’t see that.
Why does the Trump administration need to be on the wrong side of history for literally everything?
Do they not realize that they were voted in by the people of America, not corporations? Yes, yes, “corporations are people,” but still...
3
Thisis is typical of the Trump administration. Every step it takes is aimed at diminishing the rights and benefits accorded to the general population while enriching those who are at the top of the economic pyramid. You can see that in the lopsided tax cut legislation they passed, the attempts at cutting health insurance benefits, the war on the consumer protections of Dodd-Frank and their repeal of the fiduciary requirements for wealth advisors. It is a disgraceful posture for an administration that proclaims itself to be a friend of the forgotten worker.
28
With the forced withdrawal initiated by Canada of the long fought for Country of Origin Labeling Law, consumers will no longer have needed tools to protect himself from the heath danger of toilet water aquaculture raised Pisces products from Asian Countries. With the Trump Administration initiated threat to the Bristol Bay fishery, the loss of wild caught nutritionally superior salmon will be lost. Only with tools needed for consumers to protect himself in the era of grossly underfunded inspection systems can his health be protected!
Pro-junkfood label guidelines in Nafta have exactly as much to do with free trade as anti-internet copyright guidelines in the vile TPP.
Neither has a place in a true trade treaty, and I hope the international community continues to treat both corporate-lobbyist demands as the intolerable jokes they are.
4
Yes has that voluntary self regulation been working so far?
3
The trump administration is trying to cover up the fact that we have a junk president, so I guess we shouldn't be surprised that they are trying to cover up the fact that we are exporting junk food.
1
You've got a president who leads by example. His taste for saturated fats, salt and carbs is legendary, his name-calling on Twitter is infantile, his support of autocrats is fawning and forget about junk food when he can gloat about US arms sales, those beautiful weapons of destruction. A president for our times indeed.
3
Smart shoppers abroad will see the US brands and warn their children away from them. American food producers who comply with these countries, will find that these will be the brands to be selected, again, by smart shoppers. And these are the brands which will be recommended by anti-obesity educators. Not your mass market, but watch for the big producers to buy out these brands if that happens.
3
Soft-drink and packaged-foods manufacturers, the NRA, oil and gas industries, Facebook, political action committees/PACs, etc - all evidence that money and profit have more value than personal safety and integrity.
Money is considered a form of free speech in this country (thanks to the Supremely short sighted court) and it speaks much louder than it should.
Capitalism has gone rogue.
We all know this is true and we all know change is overdue and complicated.
21
How much does the American taxpayer subsidize the sugar industry?
1
When Marx said "Religion is the opium of the people" he was not denigrating religion. He appreciated opiates from time to time for pain relief and was just making an observation. Our biological foundation, due to evolution, gives us preferences, cravings if you will, that are self-destructive. Reason, disciplined effort and the ability to delay gratification are not common for people. How can they be made common?
Why do we rely on others to inform us of what is available knowledge about nutrition? The information is out there and individuals should take responsibility for knowing the facts and the sometimes reformed advice about nutrition.
Come on! Know what calories are, know about proteins and carbohydrates. Read food labels to know about levels of sugar, salt, and fats (and which kinds of fats). Take responsibility for your own eating choices.
Nutrition education used to be part of grade school curriculum.
1
Learning about good nutrition is still a part of elementary education, but regrettably, the fact that so many food products are highly processed, with a plethora of chemical additives, complicates things tremendously - even for the parents of those 3rd and 4th graders. Your simplistic approach may work for you, but you, I, and everyone else in America will still have to foot the bill for our OBESITY CRISIS. You don’t seem to understand that this is a societal issue, intimately connected to our exploding health care costs, not merely a frivolity about personal choice, like hair styles.
3
Yeah! And we should get rid of all of those pesky yellow warning signs on the road. I mean, c'mon, people should just learn to drive already, take responsibility for researching their route every day... Sheesh.
1
And unless you wrote your reply on a computer running Windows 7 (like me) or a flip phone, YOU are contributing to global warming, and pollution, and you, I, and everyone else in America will have to foot the bill. The ability of people to complain that everyone else's failures are killing them, or the planet, in some way or another, while ignoring or denying their own foibles, never ceases to amaze me.
1
How about a simple "Slow" sign. Consume in moderation. Encourage folks to eat 2, instead of 3 or 4 bags of Doritos. Capitalism needs to be counterbalanced, for the good of us all.
I think U.S. industry groups are more worried about the prospect of removing these foods from purchase under the supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP), also called food stamps. If there is a warning label on them, how can they possibly be considered "supplemental nutrition".
7
Good point.
OBESITY. This is THE MAJOR driver of health issues in our country costing US billions of health care dollars. There is no way to have a healthier population than to reduce the incidence of this scourge. This issue demands a LOT more public scrutiny and discourse. Our leaders had great courage to deal with TOBACCO in the past, but it seems that the lobbyists and the dollars win the day with our current batch of paid for politicians. Not only should we have proper food product labeling, but also coupled with a major public health campaign to make people aware of the issue of obesity and how to counter it.
11
The joke is that, even when there are labels of contents on the packages, people either don't read them or don't understand them. I've had a friend hand me a large bag of "light" potato chips and say "You can eat as many as you want - they're light." When I told her that the list of ingredients indicated the contrary, she blew up, stating that she knew what was true and what was not as she had meditated about it......
1
Canada has recently proposed such a warning label scheme and is consulting on different symbols: https://www.healthyeatingconsultations.ca/front-of-package . The symbols are less aggressive than those in Chile, even though the government had proposed a stop sign earlier. Makes you wonder why hmmmm. I find it quite disturbing that the US is trying to prevent my country and other countries from taking strong and needed public health measures like this one. Here in Canada we have a universal healthcare system, where everybody pays for everybody’s healthcare, so if my government wants to make take action that will help alleviate the growing burden of obesity and all the other health problems that come with it, then I want my government to do so without any pressure from the US and food industry lobbyists. I will make sure I write to Justin Trudeau and his minister of health to let them know that they shouldn’t allow such interference.
26
Mr. Darling: I'm an American and I agree with you. If the food industry wishes to sell products that are harmful to consumers a system that explicitly warns them that the product may be harmful to their health should appear in bold lettering or symbols, on the product's packaging. More importantly, why on earth can't the food industry find alternatives for sugar, salt and any harmful ingredients they use? The best consumer is a healthy and educated consumer.
16
As a frequent visitor to Canada, I have seen how the education of children on environmental issues has percolated up to their parents. Over a few years, the number of shoppers bringing their own bags to the super market has increased impressively, even when the stores offer throwaway bags without charge. The power of educators cannot be underestimated -- this can happen with nutrition education, also.
7
Good luck with that. We can't even get the metric system adopted here. It's a much simpler system to use. Nutrition is a bit more complex then some of the foods, like the good nuts with fats, tend to be more expensive then say peanuts. so cashews, walnuts, macadamias are a lot more expensive. So even if people are educated about nutrition chances are if they don't have the money to buy quality foods they will end up with cheap fattening foods loaded with calories and hydrogenated fats risking a rise in the LDL or bad cholesterol.
3
To the Trump administration, its Porky President who's as big as a beached whale in his black circus tent suits, and its sugar and salt filled lobbyists with diabetes, who eat money, sugar and trans fat instead of nutritious food: You will be rich, but you will drop dead before the rest of us!!!
PS: It's ironic that some of our food industry's ads on TV, insinuate that they make a variety of food and drinks, and that some are nutritious, or are less dilatory to our health than some of their other products!
Make sure that those ads go on television in Chile if you want them to believe it!!! These are not your father's colonial, third world people any more...obviously, they are ahead of America, which Trump is backsliding us into the past!!!
25
Response to Quandry: you are right my friend. Substitutes for sugar and salt exist. There are flavored waters with no calories. Certainly, they are preferable to the junk the food industry is trying to push out the door of their factories. When I go shopping and look at fat individuals wearing their spandex clothes, buying twinkies and sodas, I can't believe my eyes. They don't exercise, eat junk that never should be allowed in the stores and society winds up paying for their medical bills. If they must be sold, at a minimum, large warnings should be printed on the packaging of any food item that may be harmful to a consumers' health. In addition, schools in every country should teach children how to eat a balanced diet. I'd break out in a big smile if I saw a child put down a Twinkie and pick up a piece of fruit in its place.
5
Our government would enjoy having all the citizens of other countries to be as unhealthy and overweight as we are.
12
Wow. It's clear we can't get rid of this administration soon enough, along with tow-the-line Republicans who vote in lock step with the President's horrific agenda.
18
Do people REALLY need to be told that junk food is bad for them?
5
Unfortunately, yes. It is obvious that a Coke is sweet. IT is not obvious just how much sugar is in it, and teeny-tiny numbers on the back don't help. A nice big red sign saying SUGAR! will.
23
It’s not simply a matter of understanding that “junk food” is bad for you. It’s also a matter of understanding just how much “junk” is in some foods.
Have you ever seen a demonstration of how much sugar is in a serving of Mountain Dew? When you see crystallized sugar filling about 2/3 of a 12-ounce glass, it will give you a new perspective. The demonstration I saw certainly changed my attitude immediately about soft drinks.
Without this requirement to tell the truth about their ptoducts, the food industry will tell us that all their food is wonderful for all and very nutritious. So you need to think why the labeling is really necessary.
How embarrassing. Our great leader, working to make the world safe for junk food and obesity.
30
Food. Basic human need. Are we really that dumb that we don’t know what a healthy food is? And that naive that we don’t know that anything a corporation tells us to eat or what we ‘need’ is the opposite of what we should do? Ugh. They say common sense is really not that common.
2
Obviously we are really that dumb! Obviously we are really that naive.
3
everything is always for sale - this is the real world -
1
Reagan who didn't smoke advertised cigarettes after they were known carcinogens. This is the GOP this is America. It will cost our economy big time here in Canada but the USA belongs with Russia not the Western Democracies.
13
Government is not our babysitter. People are, in short, ignorant. We are wasting energy and worse, our tax dollars on this menial battle over labels. It isn't our government's responsibility to coerce companies to do this or that. It is ours. Companies make what sells. They will fabricate "studies" to show fat is bad for you; so why should we trust any "studies?" Trust yourself. If you can't understand the ingredients, don't buy it. Go to farmers markets. Shop the perimeter of grocery stores. Buy organic. And don't boo-hoo about "it's too expensive." Guaranteed you'll spend more on your diabetic supplies in a few years.
4
It is government's responsibility to encourage a healthy citizenship. It is government's responsibility to protect its citizens from the exploitive and damaging practices of giant corporations who consistantly place profits over people.
3
Was there ever an American administration like Trump's that actively invests in the value of deceit and ignorance? Enough already.
21
Of course....if it's pointless, destructive, revenge or greed based then the Trump administration is all for it. I wouldn't even count on their being testing or monitoring of our food/drug/water supply in the future. You can bet Trumps greedy corrupt swamp dwellers are gleefully cutting any regulation that protects the public for some industry kick back for themselves or Trump.
6
Sorry folks, but you have lost again.
Corporations have been playing offense for some time now, and it will only get worse. They know they can get away with this, but more importantly, it sets themselves up for the future, when anyone dares RELABEL this junk as what it is, then they will cry bloody murder about how liberals want to regulate everything.
It is YOUR move. But the corporations are winning.
9
Trump cares less about Children's health...He is turning the US into a third world country.
8
What does the USA have to worry about? Put all the details you want on the labels. No one is going to read them, except a bunch of liberals who already know what is in the food products.
The food companies just have to convince FOX TV to run a piece on how all the info is bunk.
No problem! The red states will never believe what their eyes see and read. Only what FOX tells them to believe.
8
Read the article again Buttons. The whole idea is to put a STOP sign on the front of product. You're right, eople don't read the labels (even that bunch of liberals) but they will see the STOP sign and think twice.
Let's put this together: Trump-Pence-GOP are reducing significantly funds for medical care. They are lying to their base about jobs, remediating opiod abuse, and tax benefits. Is it beyond reason to believe that removing warnings about obesity will help in their quest to silence their base by their base's early death?
1
Our president Loves junk food. The obesity and diabetes and overall health problems are costing us billions. However, the protection of the junk food industry is more important then all of these considerations. One Big Mac with cheese and fries about 600 calories and 1000 mgm salt . One big coke about 23 teaspoons of sugar. Actually, folks who do this could care less about the labels. Over 30% of our population is obese and so we are seeing medical costs increase a lot.
2
600 calories? that's actually very moderate for a filling lunch or dinner.
What do you consider a NORMAL sized meal? The average person consumes about 2000 calories per day, so 600 for one meal is not unreasonable at all.
(Is it the healthiest or best choice? Probably not, but as an occasional treat...it's fine. BTW: most of the calories in a Big Mac come from the "secret sauce".)
Salt is not harmful to healthy people with normal blood pressure.
A can of regular Coke (sugared) is about 140 calories. Yes, it is a treat, but not that outrageous a treat.
People can become obese on any kind of food -- even home cooking -- even vegetarian or vegan foods.
Everything comes back to the money. And sadly it's no surprise. So many rich to curry favor with. Additives , and all things processed tend to not feed the body. My daughters' generation is getting better at their diets. We eat gf , fresh vegetables, fruit, organic meats and poultry. Nuts, seeds, very limited sugar. Limited dairy. Regretfully I don't know how big families could do this , very expensive. Off most meds and feel much better. So back to topic, it is necessary to have these labels. Once more this administration is hurting our country.
6
See who Trump and friends serve. Guess the tax breaks weren't enough. Pepsi and Coke need government help to peddle their sugar highs.
3
Kudos to the nations who are pushing for effective labels, and shame, again (oh no, again?) to my own country, the United States. I apologize.
10
No wonder we have an opioid crisis. The opioid manufacturers association and big pharma have enlisted our government to help them keep consumers from being misinformed.
5
"Some experts have likened the fight over food labeling to that over tobacco — and the fierce if ultimately unsuccessful opposition and lobbying that industry waged to prevent the imposition of health warnings on packaging."
it is an apt comparison, but there are at least four key differences:
1) nicotine is highly addictive and creates a physical dependence. i believe that sugar, fat, salt and other foods do not fit the medical definition of addiction or physical dependency (which i forgot at the moment).
2) tobacco smoke is harmful to cells in the human body at any level of exposure. human bodies need minimal levels of sugar, fat and salt, and excess levels do not immediately cause obesity or other bodily harm.
3) much of the regulation of tobacco controls _second hand_ smoke (harmful to others). obesity is not directly harmful to others, although there are (social) insurance costs of treating obesity-related diseases.
4) there are a limited number of tobacco products, so regulation and enforcement of them are feasible, even if still difficult. "junk food" has no precise definition, and there would be tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of food products that could qualify as junk food, many of which have substitutes, and not all junk food is created equally. regulation and enforcement of junk food labeling would therefore be a nightmare, especially internationally. requiring accurate lists of ingredients is already difficult enough.
3
This list of (it seems) objections by thomas bishop is nonsensical for the following reasons:
1) The question of dependency is irrelevant to the public health question.
2) The issue is excessive levels of taste stimulants like fats, sugar, and salt. Harmfulness at any level is irrelevant.
3) Harm to others is irrelevant in deciding whether warning labels are justified.
4) This is a complete red herring. Few problems in real life have clear-cut boundaries. The law is constantly having to define boundaries for legal purposes and there are often court challenges. That is what the law does. Junk food is no exception. And there is no question here of international labeling; the producers would simply have to meet the regulatory standards of the country they market in. That is not hard; for instance, they've been able to produce packages with labels in English, French, and Spanish to simultaneously satisfy requirements in three different countries.
8
If you’ve ever lived with or had a diabetic in your family you would understand the implications of sugar and carbs on the body. Saying this is not a public health crisis is ridiculous. Diabetes costs this country billions of dollars a year treating complications of high blood sugar. Diabetes ravages the body - neuropathy, blindness, limb loss, kidney failure. Don’t just assume it won’t or can’t happen to you or anyone you know. It will, and when it does you’ll understand first hand how ‘junk food’ is one of the most serious health issues our world faces.
3
It's very amazing what other so called "third world countries" are doing to try to combat the growing obesity problem... They are actually trying to inform-educate their people.
For America "First world" they try to keep you ignorant. The nutritional labels (which a lot of people don't even know how to read them) are not accurate, but no body bothers in say something because they don't even know how important it is.
It will be nice if one day something like that could be done here in the US. Even though it will be hard to try to fight against those big food corporations. They make their money out of all those people who consume their products. Just because they taste good doesn't mean they are good for you, and people aren't much for quitting eating. Although when disease come, their is always regret: I should've done this, I could've eaten better.
We should have a culture to prevent all diseases. It can be done by educating!
16
What kind of antique bubble do Trump and all of his cronies live in? No one should eat foods with ingredients we cannot pronounce. Bread doesn’t have to have thirty ingredients. It can have three. I remember my grade school science project of pouring a can of coke over a raw egg. The egg disappeared. Factory farms with animals that never see daylight are in-humane. Yogurt does not have to have 27grams of sugar. My shopping today at our always packed Trader Joe’s certainly tells me what American’s want to eat in 2018. Soon our local tailgate markets will offer fantastic organic, non GMO produce. It is embarrassing and wrong for our United States of America to have Trump once again try to tell the rest of the “woke world” what to do. They already know.
11
Outrageous.
Obesity and diabetes have already killed millions more Americans than Islamic terrorists ever will, and huge quantities of added sugar in processed foods and soft drinks are a major part of the problem. Not only are our government’s spending priorities warped, but its policies in the area of public health are a global embarrassment. As an American physician I apologize to my colleagues in Canada and Mexico.
24
The core problem is a large segment of our modern economy is structured to generate profits, shareholder dividends and wealth by interlinking the creation and treatment of illness.
The food industry and the healthcare industry - pharmaceuticals, medical devices, hospitals, physician groups and insurance companies - are tightly coupled together.
Essentially, a perverse incentive exists to generate profits by harming population health. Private investments, pension funds and tax collections are dependent on the resulting dividends from both food and health sectors.
Meanwhile, taxpayers are left with the bill for public healthcare costs of the elderly and disabled - which increasing consists of treatment of diseases resulting from poor diets.
The accounting trick involves calculating the maximum allowable amount of nutrition-related harm while maximizing health sector profitability.
Risk is transferred to the public sector - which can print money to cover debts for future generations to deal with.
This type of economic model fails for obvious reasons. Poor early childhood nutrition creates lifelong harms such as cognitive impairment that severely impacts educational attainment and economic productivity of the entire workforce.
But thankfully now we can use robots to mask this problem as well - yet another compensatory mechanism for deliberately self-inflicted harms.
These are known as structural macroeconomic risks - and will have to be dealt with sooner or later.
15
And it almost goes without saying... the reason we have junk food is because modern agriculture has evolved to mass produce high-yield low-quality crops that are heavily dependent on petrochemicals. Remove these inputs and crop yields will plummet drastically.
The oil and gas industry provides the petrochemicals that drive both agriculture as well as the plastics industry that produces packaging for processed foods.
Not to mention the heavily oil dependent shipping and transportation industry that carries all that packaged junk food to your corner grocery store.
That basically accounts for the structure of our globalized economy - and the basic reason why it has turned into a runaway freight train. All locked in place with decades-long contracts and financial derivatives.
So, any proposed deep decarbonization pathway to a more sustainable future will have to tackle this complex tangle of interlinkages while somehow automagically making us all rich and healthy and happy.
Perhaps it would be simpler in the long run just to give it a hard whack and see what happens after the dust settles?
11
Big Food/Big Pharma: exactly.
60% of Americans on prescription drugs, many to combat the harm done by toxic foods and beverages.
1/4 of Americans over 45 on a statin; almost half over 75 on a statin (efforts now being made to determine if there is any benefit at all for the latter).
Adverse effects, of course.
StatinVictims.com
7
My father, nee 1903, often told us kids that "Money is the root of all evil".. We did not have a clue what it meant. Re: this article, it clearly means that people put money above health of others. I am a very healthy woman in her early 70's..thanks to a 40yr. diet of no meat or chicken and occasional fish (every few months), a few processed foods like pasta, fresh mostly organic veggies and fruits. Last few yrs., no sugar or dairy and since last yr. making my own flatbreads several times a week (00 flour from Naples, Italy) Never been on meds and don't even have an aspirin in my house. I use a lot of garlic, olive oil, fresh herbs, pepper flakes and condiments from around the world. So healthy food does not need to be bland. My heart goes out to these people who are addicted to unhealthy foods and so the least that can be done is to label foods to show their harmful ingredients. Although I make my own bread these days, I felt like having a sesame bagel. I was shocked to see that my local Stop and Shop supermarket had a calorie label for it ...320 calories! I debated...so even I can use the help of a label...I did opt not to buy it ...thanks to the label. Praise to Chile for caring for the health of its people.
10
Rose: even the foods you make at home -- like your homemade flatbreads -- have calories, probably a LOT MORE than you realize. You simply have no way to measure those calories. That does not mean they do not exist.
Tell them sure, when Malboro removes the warning on cigarettes. Sounds ridiculous when you put it that way, no? Or is this the next step that dreadful person takes?
2
"Sounds ridiculous when you put it that way, no?"
Warnings on cigarette packages ARE ridiculous.
This is the most corrupt administration this country has ever seen. This story is just unbelievable.
19
Yea sure We dont need no one to tell us what is bad and what is junk. Everyone can make that decision themselves. no?
"Everyone can make that decision themselves. no?"
I can't tell whether you are trying to be funny or not, but the nutrition and ingredient labels on most US food packages do indeed provide enough information for people to make informed decisions about what they are buying.
7
My husband is on a sodium free diet. And I have also chosen to follow . So yes these labels are a blessing. And you would not believe the sugar in products not thought of to have.
4
I purchased a food scale a number of years ago and it is shocking just how deceptive food labeling is. Per the label, serving portion size is generally about ½ of what most Americans eat. During the Obama administration there were new regulations imposed that would have required food manufacturers to label serving sizes more honestly. Pretty sure under Frumpy he signed some order putting it back to 1950.
My first thought was that POTUS was annoyed by the labeling on his junk food. This horrible man strives for new lows, and reaches them with proposals like this, marketing salt and sugar rather than nutrition.
11
Big Sugar and Big Agro (particularly Big "Carbo") have seen very well what happened to Big Tobacco when education and regulation tightened the noose.
The lessons learned were there for all to see. Lately, we have all seen how ruthless and virtually sociopath the NRA becomes when gun control legislation raises its head. Big Sugar and Big Carbo are significantly larger industries and lobbies. When education and regulation attempt to successfully do the same to Big Sugar, their monetary and legal pushback will be such that they will make the NRA blanche and look like Snow White.
8
The conservatives routinely justify their unwillingness to extend healthcare on the ground that healthy people shouldn't have to share the cost of providing health care to people who make poor choices. But this is just more of the same from them; take away the ability to make informed choice, then villify people who make uninformed choices.
15
Pretty soon there won’t be an healthy people left in this country. And our fearless leaders will just turn their backs and look away at the burgeoning health crisis made by their own hands.
Corporations First - People Last! The Trump Way.
8
Corporations are people! Hurray! ...and humans are 2nd class citizens.
1
The U.S of $....it's not enough to just poison us when there's a whole world out there.
9
Not surprising given Trump's own taste for junk food...
6
I would not expect anything else from this willfully ignorant and morally corrupt administration. Would you?
13
Oh, yes, that's right it's all about free trade. Wait...! No, it isn't?! Really?!
7
Ruining America day by day.
12
And seeking to ruin the world, but America first.
2
Business uber alles is the real God in the U.S. Above everything, including common sense or any semblance of human decency. Sad but true.
8
The most dishonest food companies want consumers to read only the front label, which is usually designed to convey a product's idealized image without showing the mundane and probably unhealthful actual ingredients. In nearly all cases, a food product's ingredient label is in very tiny print and located in an area of the label which the marketer intends to be inconspicuous and difficult to read. The Nutrition Facts panel is on food product labels only because the government requires it, and the food companies want to eliminate the regulation that requires it. The product's image, and the brand name, is what the dumbed-down consumer is supposed to be concerned about.
7
Ah the benefits of free trade agreements...completely
evident to all, though perhaps there now should be easily
understandable colored symbols or logos at the
beginning of each section of such agreements that indicate how much
a given industry or trade group paid in lobbying fees
to push an industry friendly proposal. E.g. the number of red dollar signs
would tell the journalist covering the subject for domestic
consumption how much an American industry/business group paid to lobby
for a particular restriction on giving consumers clear information
on packages. More red dollar signs would encode "beware! this
item may not be in your best interests to purchase"....though not
in so many words of course.
The fact that truth in advertising is strongly opposed by agribusiness and
packaged food companies is just one of those unfortunate facts of life that all
consumer organizations accept as part of the intrinsic struggle required to
protect their populations from any number of dangers imposed by peddlers of
convenience and poor nutrition. Hopefully their domestic governments
can use this latest renegotiation opportunity to deny American convenience and fast food marketers the chance to do to their populations what has
already been done in this country.
One can only hope that enough pressure emerges to neutralize these types of toxic bombs both inside this country and outside it. Truth and clarity
in packaging is always a good, no concession, principle to emphasize.
7
U.S. dealers importing their deadly, addictive refined white powder into Mexico, intimidating their government and ours.
9
"U.S. dealers importing their deadly, addictive refined white powder into Mexico, ..."
You have that backwards. The US imports cocaine FROM Mexico, and that doesn't help the trade deficit.
Another day, another obscenity.
15
If you don’t know the ‘food’ that makes you obese, you’re an idiot. Labels won’t help. Processed foods, ladened with glucose/fructose (sugar) causes high insulin, insulin resistence, and fat accumulation. Low carb & intermittent fasting works.
4
Actually, Chile's labels have been shown to help improve people's eating, in actual studies. So I am sorry that the government we chose is trying to suppress that style of label in other nations.
5
To anyone reading this that loves their children and grandchildren, how do you still support this President? Do you want to fatten up those kids, destroy their streams, flood their cities, and make their world a more dangerous place to live in? Family Values are suppose to be of the upmost importance to conservatives. Do you truly believe that Donald Trump supports family values?
19
Donald Trump doesn’t support any values except getting him and his family richer by the day. And family values? That’s just laughable (see Stormy Daniels et all).
Nothing like US food technology leading the way....to poor health outcomes. And trying to hide such from consumers. Yea.
7
Trump and his administration now have a new slogan: Make America More Obese!
9
MAGA now means Make Arteriosclerosis Global Again!
Our negotiating position does not make one proud to be an American.
9
A Trump innovation?
Sad, so sad.
Who is pulling the strings on the puppet?
Who will save our Republic? what
5
The news is "according to confidential documents." Yes, this is embarrassing, maybe even for the Trump administration.
5
How about if we compromise: No warning labels per se on unhealthy food. Instead, those unhealthy foods will feature a recent picture of President Trump with the words, "I'm President Donald Trump and I approve of this food product." Trump will get the kind of massive publicity he craves, and the rest of us will know what foods we should not buy.
11
For more insight into the Trump administration’s plan to eliminate public Good from public government, I suggest watching the part of It’s a Wonderful Life, in which George Bailey finds himself in a world in which he never lived and Bedford Falls is Pottersville. It could be a documentary, it’s that uncannily analogous.
6
Profit over Health. But what to expect of that administration? always ready to support destructive policies. The dark side is winning.
13
General Rule: If it is wrapped in plastic it is not healthy.
Period.
7
Unfortunately, even many organic foods are wrapped in plastic. I often shop in Whole Foods and local markets because most of their produce is sold loose. Again unfortunately, everyone does not have access to loose produce or can afford the extra cost.
3
"If it is wrapped in plastic it is not healthy."
So you want to buy fresh meat in paper dripping with blood and bacteria?
1
Why should American companies be required to tell/label the junk they are pushing on Canadians or the Mexicans? That is bad for business. We are not forcing you to buy our poison, you can always import it from another country.
This Administration is full of TV personalities and they are making policies, just as they did for infomercials they produced. Secretary of Education has no idea about schools where our children go to learn, but yes she donated a large chunk to Trump election process and now she is secretary of education
5
At the risk of being accused of lofty idealism, I thought the reason we characterize democratically elected officials as being "public servants" was because they are actually expected to "serve the public"---to, in essence, protect the common good from abuse and exploitation at the hands of, in this instance, unchecked and unregulated capitalist interests.
What we now have are democratically elected officials who are determined to serve those capitalist interests by protecting them from any checks or regulations, thereby allowing them to ignore the common good and continue to abuse and exploit "the public."
Instead of protecting democracy from the excesses of unregulated capitalism, these "public servants" are protecting capitalism from, uh, too much democracy.
9
"I thought the reason we characterize democratically elected officials as being "public servants" was because they are actually expected to "serve the public""
What a quaint idea!
1
The US must do better to protect our children and not profits. I will look at the companies lobbying for this and ban all their products from my home.
7
Does not mention Canada.Even though we are weak ithink Canada would not be bullied when it comes to labeling.
4
Someone from the Trump administration talking about science-based facts and the truth. The hypocrisy is staggering. Their goal is to protect these companies and nothing more.
8
Maybe the rest of the world should get into trade talks and exclude the US until it comes to its senses.
7
The GOP continues to reward bad intentions by sweeping safeguards under the rug. The EPA, Wall Street, climate change, gun control all affect public safety. The GOP has low regard for all of them.
6
It is beyond cruel to limit sugar warnings from products exported to NAFTA countries,Diabetes is a huge public health problem in our country and consumers are insisting on better labeling.Our allies often do not have the availability of health care to treat diabetic children and adults.By not alerting consumers to sugar content in food, those who are poor and have few food choices don't even have a chance at a healthy life.
6
"Diabetes is a huge public health problem in our country and consumers are insisting on better labeling."
Diabetics should already know how to read the nutrition and ingredient labels that are on most US food packages.
2
It is really heart breaking to see what American junk food has done to the diet of lower income Mexicans. And the notion that 'should already know how to read the nutrition' applies to these folks is myopic at best. With a weak educational system and the need for young family members to work at the expense of whatever education they are getting, it is condescending to even imply that everyone just knows better or is not doing the clearly laid-out homework.
I’m not sure how labeling ingredients or providing nutritional information could have a negative effect on profits but.... The choice is between the general populace right to know and corporation’s profit. It’s a question of values.
2
More and more individuals are choosing to educate themselves about the ingredients - and the source of those ingredients - in their food. We are already choosing to move away from processed food; the more processed, the further and faster we are moving. The United States of Corporations does not want to have an informed public. Informed consumers mean fewer profits. Knowledge is power. This is the government flat out refusing to impower individual consumers. Vote them out in November.
9
If the People controlled the US, rather than corporations and their lobbyists, would the idea of putting warning labels on foods that contribute to disease be something the government would oppose?
38
Just stop buying it and directly funding these reprehensible corporations. Seriously.
14
Americans are cutting down on sugar- packed foods. that's why companies are pushing their addictive processed foods outside the country. Obesity and diabetes directly track the rising foreign sales.
4
Easy for well-educated people who read the NYT daily to say. Not do easy for those with meager education and means.
1
Incredibly disturbing. The US is not only bullying Mexico at any opportunity, but now is also imposing grotesque demands that dangerous food should not be labeled as such so that their poor population can continue enriching US interests in spite of their health?
What's next? Require Mexico to force it's population to buy guns? Or watch Fox news?
A new low in the worse that capitalism offers the developing world, and the type of "shared prosperity" that the US now peddles.
40
You gotta love that American style capitalism, nothing, not even life itself, is more important than profits.
85
With obesity and all its' side effects (diabetes etc.) reaching record levels in the US and contributing to rising health cares costs, what better response than to remove information labels on junk food? This argument is similiar to the one being waged by cigarette companies against efforts by foreign nations to including warning labels or impose generic labels on the products. Public health, either in the US or abroad, must give way to corporate profits or so says our Bully in Chief.
10
Actually obesity rates tapered off about 15 years ago -- they plateaued -- and among children in the USA, they have actually fallen.
This did not require scary black labels or bans or restrictions -- just public education about nutrition and legitimate concerns about overweight kids and what they were consuming (things like sugary juice boxes).
Given good public information....we reduced smoking rates from 77% of adults in the 50s to 23% of adults today in 2018 and falling. And it was NOT due to warnings on packages that literally nobody reads.
Count on the GOP to oppose anything that might dent Corporate America's profits which would also dent political contributions from such groups as the American Dairy Council which touts cow's milk as indispensable to good health which is true, but only for baby cows.
9
Cows milk is not indispensable -- you can drink all kinds of dairy and non-dairy beverages -- but it IS delicious and highly nutritious.
I have never read anything from the American Dairy Council that said you MUST drink milk or that it is "indispensable" -- only that it is healthy and nutritious, which is true.
Don't like milk? don't drink it.
Democrats, Wake up !! Dont just relish on a Russian bomb (election interference) which will never be conclusive. There are more critical issues at stake for the common man:
1) Trump supporting Grocery Manufacturers and eliminate warning signs, to the detriment of our economically deprived citizens and our kids !
2) Trumps ZERO funding to the Consumer Protection Bureau, which gives more power to banks and credit card agencies to exploit poor consumers
3) Removing Consumer protections for Student Loans
4) Republicans chorus to shutdown Education Department, cut down Medicaid...
5) How tax cuts benefits disproportionately the top 1%..
and so on the list grows...
Democrats, PLEASE list the Top 10 arrogant acts by Republican President, House & Senate...
These are the common issues which will get independents like me to the polling booth and not just the Russian Meddling, and protecting Ms.Pelosi !
18
The Grocery Manufacturers Association is the same group that threw millions of dollars into the California ballot item on whether GM food should be labelled. They won by convincing just enough people that their food bills will go up. Goes to show, once again, that the business of America is business.
10
This move raises a broader issue about the extent of regulatory harmonization to be expected under the umbrella of an international trade agreement. This is by no means a new issue in principle. It was at the center of much controversy during the negotiation of the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement that preceded NAFTA - but in that case not so much over food, rather Chapter 9 - the energy trade provisions. It ended up that most regulation of flows of energy were scrapped.
In principle, no country wants to relinquish its sovereignty to sustain or implement regulations that are deemed to be in the public interest, and a trade agreement should respect this. The main concern of a trade agreement should be limited to whether the regulations are discriminatory. For example, if one of the countries were to pass a regulation targeting the same items coming from its trading partners that it exempts on its domestic produce, that would be discriminatory and should be disallowed. However regulations that apply in the same way to the same items regardless of origin should be untouchable in a renegotiated trade agreement.
One would hope that these negotiations are being based on solid principles of what a free trade agreement should or should not do, rather than just the narrow self-centered interests of various industrial lobbies.
3
Lets look at some simple facts. Many, if not most, of these bad "things" that people are calling out have been around for years. Even decades. While we can't be certain it's likely many of the recipes have changed little.
So the smart thing is look at what has changed. Number one on the list is man made chemicals that we come in contact with. It's rather interesting that in the chart below growth rate in overweight adults correlates very strongly with growth rate of chemical production
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/0*FcrH2u02C9ekoH4V.png
From - https://medium.com/@MyersDetox/how-to-lose-tons-of-weight-fast-using-an-...
Politicians like to make it sound that they can "fix" things by passing laws but rarely do what really needs to be done.
1
Portion sizes have changed drastically. They've gotten significantly bigger over time. Also the availability of food has changed. YOu can now get a cheeseburger any time day or night. The addition of high fructose corn syrup is relatively new and has had terrible health impacts. Places that allow American style fast food business to open (like KFCs) see obesity rates go up relatively quickly.
14
Unfortunately many statistics don't bear out your claims. To begin with race, which in turn means genetics, plays a huge part. Next American style fast food. Many countries with plenty of those outlets do not have high rates of obesity. Japan is a great example. And many countries with high rates of obesity do not have those outlets.
https://renewbariatrics.com/obesity-rank-by-countries/
High fructose corn syrup? Classic example of fake news. That correlation has been debunked by many reputable studies over the years.
https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/88/6/1716S/4617107
Portion sizes? That does have some impact yet it does not come close to explaining the sharp increases we have seen in the last 20 years. In fact the caloric intake in the US has actually dropped since it peaked in 2000 or so.
https://www.yourweightmatters.org/portion-sizes-changed-time/
Availability of food is a valid argument. But again it does not bear out in measurable terms.
Next time you go to a grocery store to shop look around. Not only at the products being offered but what is in people's shopping carts. Factory food is everywhere. Look at the labels and you'll see lots of chemicals. And make sure to pay attention to the people pushing those carts.
1
Non-nutritious 'food' items should be labeled, "Bad for you, but edible" or "This won't kill you right away" or "slow-acting poison." Because some stuff out there has zero nutrition and a whole lotta salt, fat, and sugar which, over time, can lead to serious, life-threatening health issues.
18
"Non-nutritious 'food' items should be labeled ..."
That's an oxymoron. Salt, fat, and sugar are as "nutritious" as vitamins.
2
Anne: there actually is no such food as you describe that is legally sold in the US -- "slow acting poison".
Foods vary dramatically in nutrition and content, but no one food is going to hurt you and no one food is going to save you.
This is really sad news. How can we stop them from limiting the warning labels? I want to do something for the health of all, not just blaming. The public needs to be aware of this news. Would phone calls to our representativesite help? They should, if enough people make the phone calls.
14
Bill and Melinda Gates charitable foundation is the largest institutional holder in Coca-Cola Femsa ( i.e. Mexico ) .
As their mission is to save the health of the world , this seems a tad hypocritical.
16
That is indeed true. But it's true because Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world, is giving away his wealth to charitable organizations and his wealth comes in the form of shareholdings. The Gates Foundation can and should sell these shares and invest the money in improving health, but they're not something they've actively sought out.
4
Nothing surprising in that revelation.
1
Is there nothing that this destructive administration will not gleefully undo if it helps ordinary people but might mildly cut into the profits of a big business entity whose product is harmful to not only people, but the environment?
They've done all they can to destroy the ACA, while at the same time allowing the sale of junk health policies, Pruitt is busy dismantling the EPA and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Zinke is allowing the privatization of public land, DeVos is redirecting taxpayer $$ to private schools while starving public schools, Mnuchin & Pruitt are rolling back Frank Dodd, and on it goes.
What's next, lead back in paint and gasoline?
And what's trump doing? Everything he can to destroy democracy, the rule of law, the free press, our reputation and standing in the world, along with anything good, decent and honorable that we have come to depend on as the foundation for our way of life.
Every stinking one of these people needs to not only be voted out of office, but publicly ostracized, investigated and prosecuted if evidence warrants. They are openly plundering the country. Right now it's the big stuff - next it will be us individually. Who's going to stop them - Jeff Sessions?
44
How about a warning on all foods that says: "if you consume more calories than you expend, you will get fat."
On a more serious note, we should start by excluding soda, potato chips and similar snacks, ice cream, cookies, and cakes from eligibility for SNAP benefits. At a minimum, the government shouldn't be subsidizing obesity.
7
Maybe the sugar industry can pay for the healthcare of folks with diabetes, heart conditions, dementia, etc.
7
Connect corporate America with the consequences of their actions? Never happen.
11
Foods with high amounts of sugar are not healthful, because they are nutrient-poor, but sugar is not the poison it is made out to be. Sugar does not cause diabetes, heart disease, or dementia. Eating too many calories leads to excess body fat, which is a significant risk factor for diabetes, heart disease, and other illnesses. Highly-processed foods are calorie-dense, because they contain significant amounts of fat and/or sugar, but little or no water or fiber.
2
childofsol: thank god at least ONE PERSON is informed and knows the truth.
The problem is not that sugar is some kind of magical "poison" but that junk food is empty calories with little nutrition. It displaces good food that is nutritious by filling up kids (and adults) with empty calories.
Soda pop displaces the drinking of water -- but in the third world, people often do not have access to really good clean water anyways. They are often drinking too much soda because they cannot get clean water. By simply demonizing soda, we are not SOLVING their problem.
So...what is the path to changing this? EDUCATION. There should be plenty of good public education -- not finger wagging, or demonizing -- about what IS good nutrition -- balanced meals -- fresh, homecooked foods.
The most I learned about nutrition -- plain scientific facts -- was in Home Economics in 7th and 8th grade. This was taught to every GIRL back in the pre-1980s. Everything I learned is absolutely still true -- the science has NOT changed a bit.
And who got RID OF Home Economics? LIBERALS! they decided it was "wrong" to educate girls to become "housewives" -- so they got rid of the classes, and trashed the school kitchens. Now NOBODY learns these essential facts and our nation is poorer as a result.
I guess that President Trump can lie and get away with it. America has ;Constitutional free speech except for foreign private businesses who are trying to provide claims about important health messages to the American public. Trump is trying to be Big Brother from 1984 and use the American government to censor public thought. No wonder the obesity crisis in America and rising health care costs are out of control. It's all about money, greed, profit for the food industry.
7
I stand amazed that an administration that continues to place the individual citizen at the bottom of the corporate-business-industrial totem pole of society continues to enjoy the support of so many. Ignorance, self-loathing and self-hatred appear to have no limits regarding the extent to which the governed allow themselves to be trodden upon by the political and corporate ‘elite’. And for what? Shameless maneuvering to hoard even more money and more power for the powers that be. How little society as a whole has evolved over the millennia.
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Since when does the food industry get a seat at the negotiating table concerning foreign trade? Since a "businessman" was "elected" president.
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With friends like the United States, who needs enemies?
13
It is not surprising to me that Trump, an notorious junk food addict , would be willing to go along with corporate interests over the health and welfare of US citizens when it comes to food labeling. Hopefully, Mexican and Canadian leaders will push back against the US proposal to forego health warnings on food packaging. Trump ,like the Marlboro man , is fighting on the wrong side of the issue. Consumers will be the losers otherwise.
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Is there anything the Trump administration won't do to make life worse for people who want to lead healthy and productive lives?
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This is shameful. Not only does this harm people - it also uses the precept of a trade agreement to attack the sovereignty of foreign nations. In no way should trade agreements bar countries from passing legislation or policies that they believe will help citizens. This is one of the reasons TPP was so unpopular and Trump railed against that.
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Not surprising considering that Trump reputedly prefers fast food hamburgers and junk food over healthy choices.
5
restricting the health regulations of another country is not going to fly.
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As is the case with education generally, Republicans hate informing consumers about the risks of anything, including food. It is clear that there is a link between education level and voting for Democrats, which is the reason for all the Republican efforts to undercut school funding at all levels. This bias in favor of ignorance has now spread to food risks. I can't wait to see where they will turn next. Perhaps prescription and OTC drugs? Wouldn't we all be better off if we did not know the risks of what we are ingesting? Perhaps the spineless entity formerly known as Congress will agree and enact legislation creating total tort immunity for all manufacturers of all products. Sounds like something the Republicans would like to do to work on repaying their debts to those who put them into power.
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"Mexicans drink on average 167 liters — more than 44 gallons — of soda a year per person, eclipsing what are considered high consumption rates in the United States." Except of course down here in the South.
Perhaps this is an indirect way to cut costs on the "wall" that Trump is proposing to build between U.S. and Mexico: fatter people are undoubtedly less able to climb a tall wall thus we can build a shorter wall and still keep out illegal immigrants.
What's next? Forcing Canada and Mexico to take off warning labels from tobacco products?!
5
It is ridiculous and shamelful that those warning signs should not be included.
Sugar is the leading cause of obesity, tooth decay, diabetes and many other ailments.
I concur with some other commenters that many ignore these warning labels and buy them anyway but that is no justification for removing the labels.
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Of course! It's obvious that what's called for is support for more corporate profits. Ordinary people's health? Who cares, as long as they buy lots of junk food? Got to make America great again, after all. Is this a great country, or what?
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Trump works for the rich as do those Trump put in a position of power. This is a good example.
6
Let's see, dumping poisons in the water, global warming, polluted air, gas guzzlers, "clean coal," destroying the Affordable Care Act, and now the Make Americans Fatter and Diabetic Act. If this were a horror movie, the studios would turn it down as too evil to be believable.
What's next? Keep Tobacco Alive?
10
Just goes to show how low Trump is willing to stoop.
6
As a person who's spent quite a lot of time in Mexico (including during the tenure of former Coca-Cola Mexico chief and then President Vicente Fox) I can attest to the growing wave of obesity in that complicated, interesting and beautiful country. Mexico needs all the help it can get from people and corporations who are interested in humankind before their interest in profit. This means that fighting regulations is contrary to the best interests of the Mexican people. Shame on those who promote corporate greed.
7
Why is every policy from this administration from food to the environment to housing focused on endangering the general public's health at the expense of protecting corporations? So unethical and quite frankly so short-sighted from an economic standpoint. Infuriating and upsetting.
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But very profitable in the short run.
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Don't forget about screwing your Neighbours. I could care less what you United Statesians shove down your pie holes. I could care less about what food labels you are required to put on your junk food. To try to sell food in my country, you should probably meet the labeling regulations of my country. For example if it does not have French and English in equil representation it is against the law to sell it in Canada. A lot of products from far away places such as India or Vietnam often just have an additional sticker with the ingredients and healthy eating data in both French and English.
Editor’s note: This comment has been anonymized in accordance with applicable law(s).
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"In some remote areas of the country, soda is more readily available than clean drinking water." - privatize a public good (cash spent on clean water becomes cash spent on soda). Then use your money and political power to keep it that way. So are the rules of the game. Wonder when we will have to start paying for bottled air.
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Eating is somewhat freedom, sure educate people, have labels as we have on everything. No to a nanny state, at least according to me.
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People have the freedom to eat what they want, but poor or misleading labeling doesn't help individuals who want to eat healthier. For example, sugary beverages or chips that come in small, individual sized bags or bottles, often label for 2 portions, knowing full well most eat the entire quantity in one sitting. Consumers take a quick glance at the calories, not realizing the number must be doubled because they made "assumptions". These labels are both dangerous because the products are unhealthy, as well as knowingly deceptive. And these practices should be changed. Nanny state? Maybe not so much.
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In the constitution, the government is suppose to be working for the general welfare of the people. This Trump policy is doing the opposite, working against our welfare. Why shouldn't the government protect us from corporations that lie and deceive us.
The founders view of corporations as evil and destructive. They sought to limit the corps power. All the warnings do is to prevent corporations from lying to us.
5
If the administration was serious about the cost of medical care (esp Medicare and Medicaid), it would not back down with respect to the Big Food. Obesity and the wide number of diseases it is linked to is costly to all of us! But once again money flows from the taxpayer to the corporations, not to mention our health
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Everyone with half a brain knows that sugar, salt, and fat in large quantities isn't good for a healthy lifestyle. Children have been schooled about this in Minnesota, since my children were 5. Now they are 40 years older than that. Believe that adults are capable of knowing what to eat, and if they don't, it is because they don't care, period!
9
People may know certain foods are 'bad' but they may not know 'how bad.' Why are people against providing this information to consumers? I'm intelligent and educated and was about to buy a muffin the other day (knowing it was not good for me) but then I saw a label of the fat and calorie content and forewent said muffin. I was reminded the degree to which it wasn't worth it.
8
All of society pays the price, you don't live in a vacuum. Or would you rather people keep on with this addiction to sugar which is hard to break, and get diabetes, heart disease, and other killers because your stocks in these corporations go up? Who pays the medical bills? Let them die? It's either that or we all pay. These "foods" are marketed relentlessly to children and their parents and also are cheap which appeals to those with little money.
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Even with accurate ingredient labels, you can't be 100% sure of what you are getting.
Take saturated fats for example. An item can say it has 0% saturated fat per portion and still contain a small amount. Small amounts from different foods over the day add up.
2
Another day, and my country's on the bad side of yet another issue. Everything's backwards with this joke of an administration.
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I love how we like 'evidence based' labeling but are fighting against putting that evidence on a label. Legal battles had to be waged just to FORCE the corporations with recent label changes to not have misleading sample sizes and to try and get more honesty in labeling. Did you know the FDA doesn't really have a definition for 'natural'? It is a misleading marketing ploy.
Yes corporations have a right to make a profit. Yes people have a right to choose what they want to eat. However, there is a limit to a corporations right to profit and it ends at the line of obscuring information to the point of lying and trying to sell things that are harmful willy nilly.
THIS is the government role that classic Democrats most fundamentally believe in- the need for government to place checks on corporate greed so as to protect and enhance the greater public good.
Republicans should at least note that this wouldn't hamper competition given the labeling would be ubiquitous across companies and geography so the free market can carry on. Also, it would decrease the costs of social safety net care by improving overall health.
Plus, you know, better living and longevity for everyone.
WIN. WIN.
14
Instead of not saying how much sugar is in a product, they could say beside the word sugar, "not telling".
1
Good. Neither chips nor soda are "dangerous," they're unhealthy only if consumed continuously and in large quantities. We need less government meddling in the intensely personal choice of personal food consumption because it never stops at "warnings." Next come age restrictions and then higher taxes and on and on and on. Food is a necessity for life, it's not a luxury people can do without out and the choices they make on what to eat are theirs and theirs alone.
8
So should we take the cancer warnings off of cigarette boxes?
19
No, the latest research (and actually, not-so-latest research) clearly shows that they're unhealthy, period--not just in in great quanitities, all of it, all the time. Big Sugar and Ag have taken a page out of Big Tobacco's playbook to obfuscate the science and muddy the discourse on this, but 'a calorie IS NOT a calorie'. Sugar is metabolized differently from other calories and even other carbs, and causes metabolic disease. Many people don't know this--which is why there is an epidemic of infants with fatty liver disease and insulin resistance. Where is those infants 'choice'? Many infant formulas have as much sugar per serving as Coke.
14
Not food!!! And today who actually needs such?
1
Brought to you by an administration in which the president lies about his height and weight..................
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....because no other person on earth has ever fibbed about their height or weight, even on their driver's licenses!
As though eviscerating the Affordable Health Care Act wasn't enough, now the Trump administration is seeking to limit the very information that allows Americans to make an informed decision about what they consume -- And all this at a time when childhood and adult obesity with the multitude of health problems connected to it is off the charts.
This is not making America great again -- indeed, just the opposite.
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The US - particularly under Trump - is more often than not on the wrong side of an issue, and this is a textbook case. I look forward to 2020 when we may have a chance to truly make America Great Again by having our trade policy reflect ethical behavior.
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Don't wait till 2020.
Send the message in the 2018 elections.
1
It is unfortunate that the people who want to defund Medicare are the same people who support the agribusinesses ( allowing misleading food labeling, limited funding for healthy eating programs, etc.) that have helped to put so many people on the Medicare roles.
45
Who wants to defund Medicare????
1
The republicans and Trump. The republicans for decades have been trying to defund medicare.
5
@Chris Jones: It makes sense. If you support the kind of food that puts people in need of Medicare and Medicaid, you have to take steps to reduce the cost to governments by cutting the availability of Medicare and Medicaid. Especially if you also want to cut the taxes of the corporations that make and advertise that kind of food.
2
Grand Old Poison: GOP 2018
"Drop dead, America !"
"Drop dead, world !"
Greed Over People 2018
Don't let your children grow up to be Republicans.
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More evidence of a (US) government captured by corporate interests and trying to leverage trade agreements to restrict people's rights to regulate in the best interests of society.
I increasingly feel that Canada is better off letting NAFTA die. True, there will be great disruption in losing NAFTA, but there are no good choices for Canada when protectionism dominates political discourse in the US. US protectionism in the 20's spilled over into Canada as the Depression.
I am very concerned about a generational shift in the US towards "money politics" where the legal bribery of US campaign donations buy US policy. Money influence has been growing since at least Citizens United, and I see no reason for this trend to change. Favoured corporate interests win while everybody else loses, and since US politics is a game only for Americans, there is no up side for Canada or Canadians to play on an increasingly corrupt US field.
For Canada, NAFTA was a nit: the big deal was the 1989 Canada-US FTA, which caused massive disruptions to Canadian manufacturing through plants/jobs moving to the US, and contributed to the worst recession (1990-1991) that Canada has seen since the 1930's. I know losing NAFTA may be even more painful, but with CETA (Europe) and CPTPP (Asia) trade deals in place, I'd rather Canada have the freedom to leverage the best deal(s) and not be bound by a regressive, US-centric NAFTA 2.0.
I mean, really, would you buy anything that Donny the tweeter sells?
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The Canada-US FTA back in 89 saved Canada from being disfavored in a threateningly protective US market. Things would have been much worse for Canada without it. It's important not to confuse the impacts of technological change and corporate restructuring with the impacts of trade liberalization, as tariffs were already very, very low at the time. The FTA helped preserve the Auto Pact which has been a backbone agreement for the Ontario auto industry.
When I traveled through rural Mexico in 1975, many of the villages' markets were open air affairs, without electricity for refrigeration but with a community well. It was the first time I saw fresh tortillas being made and cooked on an open fire, and my first time coming face-to-face with a dead pig head on a table, presumably to display the quality and origin of the pork. Farm-to-Table newbies take note!
Of the many tales I shared upon my return, one stood out as appalling to me: The price of soda was a quarter the price of bottled water. As this article indicates in its concluding line, not much has changed in over forty years. Profits vs. rotted teeth and obesity? Good for Chilean leaders to rattle the norms and reestablish what is in the best interest of public health policy.
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The Trump administration’s position on food labeling reflects the desires of a broad coalition of CORPORATE soft-drink and packaged-foods manufacturers in the United States.
The Grocery Manufacturers Association, a food industry corporate trade group that sits on the advisory board to the trade talks ...is fighting to keep Chile’s progressive model from being adopted more widely.
Roger Lowe, the group's public relations denier of truth — whose board members include executives from Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Mondelez International, which owns brands like Oreos, Chips Ahoy and Ritz crackers — said it was concerned about the “evidence and impact” of Chile’s laws.
Trump and America's corporate food poison processors DO NOT want humans to know they are selling you food poison.
Another Republican Death Panel strikes again; they come in all different forms and shapes, but they all kill human beings for profit.
Vote on November 6 2018.
Chile is way ahead of America, and America is getting worse with every new evil act this Administration executes.
141
Gee, I wonder why? Hmm....
6
It's refreshing that other countries actually value the health of their citizens and are willing to take steps to improve the health of their citizens.
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"In most cases, trade law allows governments to retain the right to make rules in the interest of public health, experts say, but the proposal by the United States appears to be aimed at curbing that."
What, are you trying to tell me that Trump lied again--this is not at all about his simple minded surplus/deficit approach to international trade? Is really about FREEDOM--the freedom of corporations to profit from destroying public health.
2
Tell me again, what's the difference between this policy and the British Empire forcing China to buy its opium?
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The world has evolved in 200 years.
Seriously?
15
"Emily Davis, a spokeswoman for the United States Trade Representative, said...“the United States supports science-based labeling that is truthful and not misleading.”"
"The Grocery Manufacturers Association, a food industry trade group that sits on the advisory board to the trade talks, says it favors voluntary labeling programs. The group says it “supports a modernized Nafta that will ensure standards are based on science, minimize unnecessary trade barriers, and benefit consumers in all three countries.”
The science shows that excessive consumption of highly processed, fat- and sugar-laden foods is unhealthy, and leads to high rates of obesity and obesity-related disease.
So, to be "truthful and not misleading" and a "benefit to consumers," sounds like we need to put a big, black stop-sign warning on the front of the packaging.
Like they do in Chile.
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In order to be "a benefit to consumers," perhaps we also should put a big, black stop-sign warning on the president.
1
Chile is not such a successful, modern, brilliantly run nation that I feel the need to emulate their policies (which are wrongheaded and counter productive).
TRUTHFUL labeling like our current American food labeling -- that gives information but not moralizing -- is far better than "black stop signs" that demonize some foods but leave others unscathed.
You can overeat almost any food, and you can get very fat overeating organic health foods. (Granola, for example, is absurdly high in calories and fat.)
Liberals need to worry a lot more about getting re-elected and a lot less about pearl clutching and nanny-stating over every little thing.
Seriously, does Donald Trump just hate the human race? Freedom of Choice is also one of our most cherished values. Being allowed to consider what you put in your body, rather than have someone try to sneak it in, should be one of our most basic freedoms.
253
Donald Trump likes the money from food manufacturers. He is also trying to roll back other food safety laws that reduce food poisoning.
6
Yeah, but it's bad for business if no one wants to use it because they finally found out it's toxic.
Like FaceBook, or Trump University.
The schemers are winning right now because unbridled capitalism is the new norm.
We need to get money out of politics so we can start making laws that protect us -- people, the environment -- instead of big business.
4
Hey, Trump is fat from eating junk food. Why not everyone else?
144
What is wrong with these Trump and his cronies? He's got quite a weight issue himself from gorging on McDonalds. More, not less, transparency for what goes into processed food is a no-brainer. But I guess that's who we're dealing with... a no-brainer.
78
Sounds good to me. It’s a clear win win. Sell the poor slobs junk food and then sell ‘em diabetes drugs. While we’re at it why don’t we scrap the surgeon generals warning on cigarette packs.
140
If Trump and his kind stay around long enough, cigarettes will be declared very fine for us.
9
What a great idea! And rebate the tobacco companies all that money they paid due to fake facts that smoking causes cancer.
4
New World - "Sell the poor slobs junk food and then sell 'em diabetes drugs"....this is exactly what happens here in the U.S. For some reason, at least cigarette labels got a warning, but that win was a long time ago.
5
Chile is absolutely correct to protect public health. The evident U.S. Government position is overbearing—and dead wrong.
87
Add a mirror to the packaging.
24
Or instant blood pressure or cholesterol levels.
6
will segen: to my sorrow as a grandma, my grandkids pretty much live on junk food. I've seen their mother give them popsicles for breakfast. They use allowances to buy big bags of candy and eat them instead of meals. They consume chips, doritos, french fries and sweets all day long. They absolutely hate vegetables and as youngsters, would cry if you served it to them.
They are also extremely thin. Not simply average -- skinny.
It is a false assumption that everyone who eats junk is fat and everyone who eats organic health food is slender. I know vegetarians and vegans who are obese. My junk-eating teenage grandkids are skinny. (So is their junk-eating mom, who is 36!)
Note that the family in the photograph, shopping for soda, are all normal weight.
There are OTHER reasons to eat healthy food than simply the manipulation of one's weight.
Aah yes - the last thing Trump and his cronies would ever want is an informed public, here or abroad. In fact, let's just call the health problems associated with high fat and sugar diets "fake news." This is truly disgusting. All consumers have a right to know what is in their food so they can make informed decisions. IF people still want chips and soda sometimes - that is their informed choice. Aren't the GOP the ones who are so big on let the market determine what companies/products live or die? Well - if your Fanta and chips aren't selling - maybe you need to rethink your products! Not trick people into eating them.
47
“the United States supports science-based labeling that is truthful and not misleading.” Is that a joke? This Administration has proven again and again that it does not care about the truth or science-based facts. Once again, the Trump Administration's proposal is contrary to facts and science - and protecting Americans.
178
Why? How is this in citizens' best interests? What is the trump admin's goal? To make us obese, like POTUS?
25
More like this is a bone to the food industry, but also is a bone to the heart of Trump nation that are the fattest places in the US. Take a look at the fattest places in the US, they are consistently down south and the midwest, people who when they say "make America Great Again" mean people's waistlines..
3
The greed of these people has no bounds.
bill d: it has long been established that in modern times (vs. long ago), the fattest places are the poorest places. Why? because when you are poor, you are forced to eat the cheapest, starchiest foods and low quality meats (cheap hot dogs, etc.) to get by.
On top of that, in the USA, the poorest people are often minorities with a provable genetic predisposition to obesity, Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure -- sometimes as a group called "metabolic syndrome". So they are more susceptible to weight gain from starchy foods in the first place -- and starchy foods are all they can afford to eat.
To say this has anything to do with Trump, is to make the ridiculous assumption that obesity started in January 2017.
You've got to love how the GOP and the Trump Organization -- er, Administration -- are happy to decide who gets to ruin the nation's health and who doesn't. They're finally waking up to the opioid crisis and making threatening gestures toward both legal (Big Pharma) and illegal drug dealers, while making sure guns stay in schools, sabotaging the healthcare system, killing any regulations they can and undermining the mission of every public health-related function of government. It's almost as though they're aware that the people who put them there will reliably vote against their own interests as long as Trump keeps them entertained with rallies and liberal trolling. And in this case, Coke and Cheetos.
59