Downgrading the Ingredients in our Food Items: 'Skimpflation' Hits Grocery Stores in Canada
Downgrading the Ingredients in our Food Items: 'Skimpflation' Hits Grocery Stores in Canada
Sylvain Charlebois discusses the subtle alteration in the nutritional composition of some products as manufacturing costs soar in the industry.
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.
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.
It doesn't have to be. You are quite welcome to hire a professional to take over the task.
Likewise, you don't have to hire a professional to grow and prepare your meals for you. It is not that hard to do yourself.
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 to ensure it happens. 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.