[uoaei]

Surely this is a problem of supply and not demand.

If I go to Safeway and don't find something healthy, I will nevertheless buy something for the simple reason that I am hungry. Want healthier food in a society? Sell healthier food in a society.

It's not the job of consumers, nor is there any reasonable communication channel, to dictate what is put on shelves. They can only provide feedback based on what is already there. If they have a limited selection, you will receive a censored signal, and you cannot judge the outcome based on counterfactuals of what they would have bought if something else was in the pool of offered products.

Above describes the folly of "demand-based" economic thinking. If there was truly an infinite supply and infinite variety of products, it makes sense to consider demand-based perspectives as actually expressing consumer desires. But it doesn't do that -- it only expresses preferences among the finite selection available, and you can very quickly sink into a feedback loop that encourages unhealthy diets by conflating the two perspectives.

[landemva]

' It's not the job of consumers, nor is there any reasonable communication channel, to dictate what is put on shelves. '

In a free market the job of consumers is to use communication channel of purchases to signal what they want to have stocked on the shelves. Safeway stocks junk food because that is what people buy.

[uoaei]

It's like you didn't read a single word...

Where is the answer to the problem? Signals are carried in codes, and codes can be more or less efficient at conveying information. How does a sample from a biased population provide any information about the true mean? How would offering only Cheez-its and Gatorade tell you about consumer desires for eggplant?

Many accuse their fellow humans of degeneracy but that narrative only serves to obfuscate the primary role of corporations, for which we can make much stronger accusations of degeneracy.

Dear reader, observe the classically crypto-fascist rhetoric with its complete lack of self-reflection and deflection via essentially empty-headed, debate-bro tactics.