Downgrading the Ingredients in our Food Items: 'Skimpflation' Hits Grocery Stores in Canada [Op-Ed]
Downgrading the Ingredients in our Food Items: 'Skimpflation' Hits Grocery Stores in Canada [Op-Ed]
Sylvain Charlebois discusses the subtle alteration in the nutritional composition of some products as manufacturing costs soar in the industry.
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Why does it always have to be the consumer’s job to watch out for this crap? It’s exhausting going through everything looking for allergens, imagine doing so just to make sure the product you’ve been buying for years hasn’t changed to lower quality without warning.
Better solution - require that products have a front label stating their recipe has changed, and including a list of changes to it on the back. Quicker reference, easy as hell to tell when something changed.
Consumer protection really needs to be more robust. We shouldn’t let these companies have all the power to mess with our bodies on a whim without warning.
Especially when they have the money and ability to perfectly read the limits of public attention, or necessary severity of distress before drastic reaction. The general public are too focused on surviving and living to compete with companies who focus entire groups and technologies into finding people's blind spots and weaknesses.
It's a battle of minds and margins, where only one side has resources and power to affect change. Where the fuck are our representatives?
Yeah, that’s why we have government regulations in the first place. Because we don’t have the same level of resources or power to do anything about it that companies do.
We just need way better regulations. And really strong enforcement. Oh and fines that actually matter, like 10% of yearly profits for each infraction, no upper limit. If they can’t be pro-social, fine them into bankruptcy.
Have you already written a proposal ready for submission to your clerical government employee you hired a few years ago exactly to have someone to submit such things to in order get things in motion?
Or is this need like when someone says they need a private jet, but then quickly scurry away because they don't want to put in the work it takes to actually acquire one?
Yeah you’re right, totally entirely my job to do literally all of it, and talking to people to raise awareness of something that would currently be a non-starter does absolutely nothing.
Thanks for the help! -.-
and talking to people to raise awareness of something
People are most commonly found outside.
And yet you choose a venue that, if other people are involved at all, goes to great lengths to hide that fact. And if there are indeed other people listening in, there is little reason to believe they are located in the same jurisdiction, making your movement rather pointless. Furthermore, if what you have to say really does start to grain traction with people who live near you, a good first step is to start to take note of who is in support. But since it is not even clear if you are communicating with other people at all, and if they are people they have chosen to be anonymous... This is not a well considered plan.
But we get it. You're really looking to entertain yourself while you have some free time to kill.
You know they will find a loophole like creating a new product and discontinuing the old one.
That’s fine, because it’s not sneaky changes to an existing product you’ve already vetted. It’s very obvious that it changed if it’s a whole new product.
That still works for me. It's usually allergens I'm looking for so if the product changes I know I have to confirm the new product it's not going to try to kill me like I do with any new product.
Why does it always have to be the consumer’s job to watch out for this crap?
It doesn't have to be. You are quite free to hire a professional to take over the task.
We shouldn’t let these companies have all the power to mess with our bodies on a whim without warning.
Likewise, you don't have to hire someone else to prepare your meals for you. It is not that hard to do yourself.
Consumer protection really needs to be more robust.
Fair enough, but one thing you cannot hire away is democracy. If you really want this you need to put your boots to the ground. It won't magically happen.
If I’m welcome to do all those things, that still makes it my responsibility as a consumer. So…
And the rest of what you wrote is just unnecessary. Of course shit takes work. Part of that work is talking to people to raise awareness, and gosh golly it’s almost like I’m already doing that.
If I’m welcome to do all those things, that still makes it my responsibility as a consumer.
If you want to hold that view then there is no escaping the responsibility. Government too is just a collection of employees you hired to help you out with certain things. There is no removing you from being the man in charge.
Well, maybe if you move to North Korea. It might be happy to take responsibility off your hands. But I mean in Canada. Here, you have accepted the role as the leader. As the top boss, everything is your responsibility.
Part of that work is talking to people to raise awareness
If you hired a paid lobbyist, to save your own efforts, would you be happy if they spent their day chatting on anonymous internet forums?
Having it done as an automatic thing due to government regulation is hardly the same as needing to seek out a specific service, entirely on my own, to have the thing done.
I don’t care if it “still needs to be done by a person”, that was never even a question. This straw man is boring.
Nothing about government is automatic. It is just people. People you literally hired, typically on a four year contract, to work for you.
And even then, those people filing your demands as regulation requires enforcement, else regulation means nothing. And so your direct reports have to hire even more people to do that, and you have to keep on top of them to make sure they are doing their job.
Or you could just hire someone else to do it directly – or work with your own food you produced yourself. It's all the same at the end of the day. It's just people, no matter how you slice it.
This magic you seem to be envisioning certainly isn't as boring, but no more than passive entertainment and of no relevance to reality.
Your straw man argument is boring.
I’m not saying any of what you are arguing against, so I’m done interacting with you. You clearly aren’t conversing in good faith.
Have a nice day.
I’m done interacting with you.
An interesting contradiction. If you were done interacting with me you would not be in a position to tell me.
Is your intent here simply to say silly things so that we can laugh at them? If so, I apologize for assuming you were attempt to speak rationally, in good faith, and not as a comedy performer.