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Are Junk Food Companies the New Tobacco Companies?
Marketing to children might have crossed a line.
Most of America’s favorite junk food wasn’t dreamed-up in a kitchen. It wasn’t based on grandma’s old recipe or carefully honed over thousands of family dinners.
In fact, most junk foods were created in a laboratory by scientists, marketers, and food engineers who know our weaknesses only too well.
Junk food companies know we like a chip that breaks at a, “Weibull modulus of about 4 and a characteristic strength of about 1.5 MPa” and they know the precise cocktail of additives and chemicals to make junk food addictive.
In the future, purveyors junk food responsible for America’s ever-skyrocketing rates of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes may face a Tobacco industry-level reckoning.
When that day comes, the most damning bit of evidence will be the same as it was for big tobacco companies: The unmistakable lengths to which these companies went to market their unhealthy and chemically-addictive products to kids.
Ronald McDonald, Tony the Tiger, and Cap’n Crunch may someday face a jury and be ordered to pay restitution. Popeye the Sailor Man might be acquitted; he was telling the truth about spinach.