Kraft to Fight Obesity by Reducing Package Sizes

It’s not about personal choice or weak fatties powering through a case of Ho-Hos. It’s about being lied to in regard to trans fats, the biggest culprit behind obesity today. Companies like Kraft – owned by the former Philip Morris company, big shocker there – routinely cram trans fats into products, yet keep the overall fat total down so they can put “Low Fat!” on the package. We’ve been ingesting these cheap poisons in ever-increasing numbers for decades now, all so the mega corporations can reap greater profits. The gravy train’s running out, though, as the obesity problem has become a major concern for everyone and the companies are just waiting for a major class-action suit like those that took billions out of the scumbag cigarette companies a few years back. Kraft doesn’t make this move now by choice, it’ll be making it by necessity a decade down the road. Or shutting the doors. People are finally starting to demand healthier, affordable food, too, so it makes good business sense even without the lawsuit threat.

Of course, now you can say that people should edumucate themselves, learn what’s really in the foods that they eat, and so on. Which is a pretty damn good idea, as I personally think any parent stupid and lazy enough to send their kids to school with fucking Lunchables should be drawn and quartered. But I think there’s also a big responsibility on behalf of these massive conglomerates to act properly as well, seeing as just a few companies dictate what’s on store shelves across North America. Even the few little guys that are left have to compete with the Krafts of the world on price point. Unless you want to go the hippie organic route and sell to the limited market that can afford to pay 300% more for their groceries.

An interesting point Brad. I wonder how many of the ones who want to sue Tobacco, Kraft, and McDonalds also want to legalize drugs though. My best guess is the largest legalize drug supporters are the Libertarians who I assume are perfectly happy letting the Tobacco industry, Kraft, and McDonalds do their thing. In contrast the ones who most want to sue Tobacco (and possibly Kraft and McDonalds) are the liberals who believe in a paternalistic government (and also probably the trial lawyers :? ). I would imagine the far left agrees with the Libertarians on legalizing drugs, but I’m not sure the moderate left does (although some of them might consider legalizing pot). Anyway, my conjecture is that the legalize drug people and the sue Kraft and McDonalds groups don’t have a lot of overlap.

I just don’t agree with you Brett. Is there anyone out there who ever thought that eating Cheeze Doodles is as healthy as eating carrots? That eating a whole box of Ding Dongs is not good for you, as opposed to eating a couple every once in a while? It is absolutely about people wanting to blame other people for their bad choices.

People are going to start demanding healthier food? Aw, c’mon - the grocery stores are filled with healthy food. Kraft making boxes of snack crackers smaller is just dumb - it doesn’t keep people who are going to gorge on the things from still doing that, and it is a pain for people who like to eat them in a reasonable way. What’s next? Rationing red meat? Taking bacon off the market? Restaurants doing like bars, who refuse to serve you if they judge you’ve had too much to drink - restaurants measuring your body fat when you come in and not serving you anything fattening if you exceed government recommended levels? Because you may not understand how fattening the chocolate mousee’ is, or that the prime rib may be bad for your cholesterol?

I agree with Gramps up above. Does that mean I am getting old and crotchety? We all remember when the “victim of society” defense started being used, in the 80s (?), but everyone just thought it was a joke, like temporary insanity. But oh, my friends, it is no joke. We now live in a country where you don’t need to be responsible for your own actions, just let corporate Amerika decide what you should buy and how you should think, and if we find out they were just trying to make money off of us, we will sue them.

We are so doomed.

I believe that would have its ideological basis the victimization theories that arose in the sixties, which actually suffered a backlash in the eighties with the “right realist” perspective becoming popular, harkening back to the classic rational actor tradition of behaviour.
Of course, the “intellectual idea” of victimization is vastly separate from the uses of similar arguments in litigation and the like.

Kraft isn’t owned by a tobacco company. The tobacco companies (2) are both owned by the same coporation (Altria, formerly Philip Morris) that owns Kraft. It’s the world’s largest tobacco company, and one of the biggest food distributors in the country.

I’m sure they are very keen about lawsuits, as they have the nastiest lawyers on the planet from three decades of tobacco lawsuits.

For the record, I find layers and real estate agents to be the worst of the worst when it comes to malignant cankers on the butt of humanity. Thge only difference is that lawyers at least have a noble calling-the preservation of law and property and (generally) freedom. It’s just a damned shame so many of them are willing to burn the world down to score a few bucks, as it were. Uh, no offense to Desslock.

Whatever. Food hasn’t changed all that much in the past 30 years. What’s changed is the lack of need for people to move. We now have more phones than people in this country. When I was a kid a 2-car house was a luxury. Now the house across the street from me (a townehouse no less) has 6 cars, and the other houses in the neighborhood average 3 cars and 2 people. More and more we telecommute, so don’t even have to walk to our cars. Hell, one friend of mine even gets her groceries delivered. If it weren’t for her once in a while needing to walk to the front door to pay the kid what cuts her grass, she might never move at all for what I can tell. No excercise + abundant rich food=Jabba the American. It’s not rocket science.

So far as accepting responsibility, I have noticed a real trend where people don’t quite know what to do if they can’t find an easy target to blame for things. It’s nobody’s fault America is getting fat; it’s just that our lives changed, we didn’t pay much attention to it, and then we became fat. We can fix it, just like we unconciously caused it. But we have to get past the petty “who’s to blame” portion before we can really accomplish it.

Regarding these lawsuits-they’ve always been around. We used to call these weasels ambulance chasers-you have an accident, they appear. It’s not all of them. I doubt it’s even anything like a big minority. They’re just such a LOUD minority…

People eat more and walk less. You do the math.

That cities with little in the way of cars tend to be healthier is a big flashing klaxon.

Shit. 3 for 3. You can’t catch me. I’m running.

Industry Dwarf

Can I sue Kraft now for making me the fatty that I am?