Item — HN Reader

> We’re stuck in a dead-end debate over body positivity and dieting when real solutions to the problem exist.

Really ? IMO Here is the real fundamental dead-end debate we are stuck in -> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33765129

It is always the same debate those days : you cure the symptoms, not the disease because it is easier and makes more sense economically.

1 comments

"Value Add" for food is insidious.

That's an interesting statement. Can you expand? I'm genuinely curious.

Value Add for food means changing something cheap into something you can sell for a profit. Corn -> Corn Chips; Corn -> Corn Syrup -> (Candy Bar | Sugar Soda).

Value Add for food means making food more tasty (how could that be a bad thing?) and more tempting. It means advertising your food as a solution to a problem.

Value Add for food means making people eat more food.

It means advertising low-nutrition, high calorie food.

Value Add means that high calorie snacks are cheaper than "real food"

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I know that you can still get good food, but Value Add makes it harder to get good food, and easier to get bad food.

Ah I see. I agree too much of our food is processed into things that are not necessary or good for us.

Could you also argue that value add can preserve food in ways that reduce cost? Thus freeing up income and human capital for other sectors.

How can we find a balance of reducing the insidious forms of value add while also keeping food costs down and allowing people to work in non-agriculture?

> value add can preserve food in ways that reduce cost. Thus, freeing up income

I suppose the small income one is freeing will not buy him even a fraction of the meds he may need when all that junk will get to him.

> How can we find a balance

This is a false balance to start with. Healthy cheap food is simple. The problem is that it is not the most valuable form to corporations, so they will not push for it.