[arthurjj]

I'm about as hippie with my food as you can get, but this "article" is badly written propaganda that conceals more than it reveals. Half way down the article you learn that ~80% (193 out of 239) of the lawsuits are in Mexico and

> many of them were against the country’s labelling regulation. Quinto Elemento Lab reveals the companies’ arguments: that the laws were a violation of their constitutional rights

But the article doesn't say what those rights are, which makes me think the lawsuits were just

[thegrim33]

People have to learn to recognize the patterns.

In this case, lighthouse reports is an international NGO which receives on the order of ~1MM in income per year (an extremely common pattern for these NGOs), which was directly given to them by (unspecified) government grants and (unnamed) private donors (can see all this in their openly published annual reports). In exchange for the funding (80.38% of which they paid out to themselves as wages/compensation), they put together and release "reports", "studies", etc., that push the messaging the NGO was created to push.

[shermantanktop]

I think you are saying "an NGO probably has an agenda." Ok, sure, they are not robots with no opinions, and if you read even the first few sentences of that report you can see the opinion.

But if you are suggesting that this NGO is carrying water for some unspecified shadowy group that is pulling the strings, you'll need to provide some backing for that. Who has a nefarious motivation to oppose junk food?

Trial lawyers? Misguided do-gooders? Big Celery?

[Cpoll]

> motivation to oppose junk food.

On social media, making dubious claims about food science or food ingredients, then following up by selling some "clean, unprocessed, organic" product is big business. (I make no claims about this specific NGO).

[munk-a]

Yes - the obvious state of dysfunction in food regulation and lack of enforcement in that area has led to an abundance of scam supplement hawkers[1] but I don't think the right conclusion to draw from that is that all criticisms of food regulation are in bad faith - I think it's very fair to say "We should have a serious discussion about our food quality and also we need to crack down on these BS supplements". I think we're all[2] pretty well aligned on the fact that the BS supplements need the crack down but we also should introspect on why so many people are motivated to seek things like that out.

1. I personally enjoy a can of hogwater every day and am happy to give you a referral code.

2. Except those who financially benefit from hawking snake oil, of course.

[dylan604]

astroturfing works, and is only getting better/worse depending on your point of view. it used to require people to read forums and make posts manually. now, you can automate that with a bot and in multiple languages.

[DrewADesign]

It’s only bad if you value the pittance of social trust people occasionally still afford each other. That’s definitely not as cool as another vacation home and a shiny new gofast boat for some of the few thousand people in this country that actually benefit from this sort of large-scale manipulation.

[verisimi]

> astroturfing works, and is only getting better/worse

Perhaps one would say 'increasing' or 'decreasing'?

[mmooss]

What are you calling astroturfing? If anything, it would be the comment upthread.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49127343

[dylan604]

"On social media, making dubious claims about food science or food ingredients, then following up by selling some "

[shimman]

So you're upset about something that hasn't happened yet?

[overtone1000]

Up vote for Big Celery.

[verisimi]

If you think any human endeavour, especially those that relate to handling of money, is without an agenda, I think you'd be wrong. If you also throw in the fact that this money is not taxed, you increase nefarious incentives. And that money can be given without needing to show the names publicly, this doesn't increase comfort.

Finally, even if robots were to run these operations, someone would have to code them and own them, right?

[Forgeties79]

Unfortunately in the current political climate “NGO” is just a hop and a step away from saying “the deep state” for some people. They vaguely gesture to it and talk about it as if it’s a bogeyman.

Not saying they are specifically doing that, but I can’t confidently say they aren’t either

[throwawayffffas]

It's not they are not robots with no opinions. The agenda is the reason the organisation exists. NGOs exist to push agendas. If you are on the other side of an agenda it's always "outrageous" the government is funding them of course.

I do not know who is pushing but if you think there is not an entire industry of "healthy" alternatives for the companies in the article, you are very much mistaken.

Hell it might be the artificial sweetener industry, in the UK it's now practically impossible to buy a soda that is not full of artificial sweeteners, excluding regular coca cola, and regular red bull.

[mcmcmc]

Not all NGOs. Some are actually mission focused and spend their money and effort on direct action instead of policy or advocacy. Do you really think the purpose of Doctors Without Borders is to push an agenda? No. They provide care to those who would otherwise receive none, who would suffer and die from poverty as much as illness.

[AlotOfReading]

Unfortunately, there are actually people who believe that DWB's purpose is political. Here's an example from the Times of Israel [0].

[0] https://www.timesofisrael.com/doctors-without-borders-and-th...

[Pay08]

The article doesn't back up your comment.

[tbugrara]

Considering we have 0 visibility into how their decisions are made and by whom, I think it's naive to claim that an organization's publicly stated "mission" is the only incentive that organization acts on. I don't know anything about DWB, but what determines if an organization has an agenda is the leadership, not their marketing.

[mcmcmc]

This is just inaccurate. There is absolutely transparency and accountability. They generally have public tax filings and a lot of effort goes into to vetting non-profit finances and spending. Leadership are bound by non-profit tax filing requirements and their charters. They set strategy and execution, as do executives at every organization. But they don’t have free rein to do whatever they feel like.

See here for transparency, Charity Navigator is a great resource: https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/133433452#beacon-report

[autoexec]

It's weird that you're skeptical about this website's motivations while seemingly less interested in the motivations behind companies spending a ton of time and money going to court to keep people from being able to know what ingredients are in their food. The efforts spent against labeling/ingredient transparency seems unjustifiable

[N_Lens]

Sir this is HN where you will find paranoid rich people more aligned with Musk & for defunding USAID

[gruez]

I don't get it, whats up with all the scare quotes when what you're describing is basically what a think tank or advocacy group does?

[arjie]

People have loved this kind of content-slop for a while now. It’s a genre of entertainment writing that has replaced celebrity gossip but is no more meaningful. I suspect it’s because there are demographics where the word ‘study’ or ‘paper’ has some cachet.

It’s true that think-tanks and advocacy groups have used the fact that a certain style of writing signals legitimacy for their own ends for quite some time now. Perhaps the realization here should be that Marlboro-paid scientists also did so and that these kinds of science cuckoo articles are common even in science.

[aliasxneo]

I feel like it ends up being heavily emotion/perception driven. NGOS are "good" and "scientific reports" always tell you the truth. Combine the two and you have a recipe for serving information with reduced backlash. Compare that to "big bad corporations" and its not even a fair battle. People figured this out a long time ago and have been using it for awhile now. I feel like now more than ever a healthy dose of pessimism goes a long way towards understanding reality.

Note: I am not suggesting these labels are universally true. I'm simply commenting on what I think is the most common perception of these two groups.

[ElProlactin]

> People have to learn to recognize the patterns.

Indeed, including the pattern of your ridiculous comment.

> In this case, lighthouse reports is an international NGO which receives on the order of ~1MM in income per year (an extremely common pattern for these NGOs), which was directly given to them by (unspecified) government grants and (unnamed) private donors (can see all this in their openly published annual reports). In exchange for the funding (80.38% of which they paid out to themselves as wages/compensation), they put together and release "reports", "studies", etc., that push the messaging the NGO was created to push.

The 2025 report is here:

https://www.lighthousereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06...

Grant income was €2,499,181.

Compensation for the core team was €1,342,778. There are ~32 people listed as core team, so that works out to about €42,000/person. Salaries & wages (ostensibly for the management) was €291,661. It looks like 3 people and if that's correct, it works out to ~€97,000/person.

An additional €208,726 was paid to freelancers on projects, and it looks like they had over 10 different "projects" during the year.

Anyone with an iota of common sense can see: nobody is getting rich from this. The vast majority of people doing this type of work don't do it unless they have a non-monetary motivation/interest.

> ...they put together and release "reports", "studies", etc., that push the messaging the NGO was created to push.

Yes, "studies" like https://www.lighthousereports.com/investigation/syrias-stole..., which revealed that a major European NGO running children's orphanages was apparently knowingly taking in children who had been kidnapped by Bashar al-Assad in an effort to coerce their parents to cooperate with his regime.

But I'm sure you think there's a nefarious intent behind this type of reporting?

[dfxm12]

1MM in any currency doesn't sound like a lot, especially relative to who they're up against...

[mikem170]

Sounds like enough to pay some people for some months or a year or two - a combination of experts, part-time specialists, cotractors, etc. - to do things like gather some data via their contacts, hack together a meta-study, put out a glossy report andsome press releases, etc.

[munk-a]

I think the bigger point is that there's an overwhelming amount of money going to push the opposite narrative. A quick search revealed that Tyson alone spends well over a million annually on lobbying and I am sure the industry at large spends significantly more on this issue alone.

[mikem170]

Ah, I was more focused on the effectiveness as opposed to the quantity, i.e. if you have a million dollars, that could be decent way to spend it, given the world we live in.

I see what you are saying - that it's not enough compared to what the other side spends.

Money seems to decide too many of these things...

[mmooss]

Just look at their About page, which conflicts with much of the parent comment:

> international NGO

What does 'international' mean here and why do you mention it? About page: "nonprofit organisation registered in the Netherlands with ANBI (Public Benefit Organisation) status"

> ~1MM in income per year

They have a staff of over 30. They must spend much more than $1 million/year.

> In exchange for the funding (80.38% of which they paid out to themselves as wages/compensation)

They list their top salaries on the About page, which ain't much: "The salaries of our five highest paid employees range from €69,000 to €108,000 per year." Fifth highest paid employee makes €69,000.

> directly given to them by (unspecified) government grants and (unnamed) private donors

The About page lists funders by name, as well as "Media partners".

> In exchange for the funding ... they put together and release "reports", "studies", etc., that push the messaging the NGO was created to push.

Could you provide a source for that? Here's what the About page says:

"Editorial Independence is essential to all aspects of the work we do. We work with donors who do not impose conditions that restrict our journalism."

And from another page:

"We offer a collaborative space where hyper-local outlets and freelance journalists can work alongside staff from globally-recognised media. We exist to foster experiments with new formats and we pay particular attention to fresh ways of framing complex issues that will capture public attention and challenge misconceptions."

https://www.lighthousereports.com/what-we-stand-for/

EDIT: How can people on HN care that much about the source, Lighthouse? Right now three users, not including the parent commenter, are motivated enough to promote the disinformation about Lighthouse that they downvoted a mostly factual, informative comment. (I don't care about the votes; they are just evidence.) Maybe there is something I don't know about Lighthouse?

[randysalami]

In Europe though that can be a lot, or South America. And NGO people I know are mostly idealistic college kids who want to do good. Lots of creepy guys too

[mmooss]

69,000 EUR is a lot in the Netherlands? It's a very rich country. It's hardly extravagant.

> And NGO people I know are mostly idealistic college kids who want to do good. Lots of creepy guys too

This is just gossip about anecdotes.

[samueljohnson77]

yes learning pattern is the best

[titanomachy]

I don’t know that the lack of information should lead you to assume that the Mexico lawsuits are justified. From what I’ve read, they’re contesting (among other things) the mandated black octagon on the front of packaging that says “exceso calorías” or “exceso azucáres” (excessive calories and sugar) and also bans on advertising to children. The cases that have already been decided have overwhelmingly been in favor of the government.

I realize “just” is very subjective, but I think that mandatory “excessive sugar” markers is a proportional response to the obesity and diabetes epidemic. Ultimately society has to bear the externalities of this stuff. And I think advertising any products to kids is a bit of a moral hazard.

[MichaelDickens]

> I don’t know that the lack of information should lead you to assume that the Mexico lawsuits are justified.

Gricean implicature.[1] The article wants to make the food companies look like the bad guys. If the lawsuits were clearly unjustified, the article could've made the food companies look worse by explaining the details. Since it didn't explain them, that means the lawsuits were probably justified.

[1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/implicature/

[arthurjj]

Thanks for explaining what the lawsuits were about. I'm not sure how I feel about the actual case or even how effective I think black octagons will be. Apparently they were first done in Chile and had little to no long term effect [1]

My assumption that the suits were just was because the article obviously wants you to come away with a very specific conclusion, for example there is a sibling comment that seems to think these cases are about US companies. When reading clearly biased but polished, sources my default is to assume any facts they prominently leave out they did so on purpose.

[1] https://archive.is/UPdWg#selection-1493.0-1498.0

[scythe]

>nother popular argument is that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to know how effective Chile’s reforms were because there was no good comparison group. There’s no comparable data from a neighboring country, such as Argentina, and it may be that Chile’s children would have gained weight faster if the reforms hadn’t passed.

>It’s a valid concern, but the data show that Chile’s obesity rates weren’t rising in the years before the reform.

This last sentence is a real 'wat' moment. Practically every country has rising obesity rates. So I went looking for some data and found that over the whole population, obesity rates in Chile were rising rapidly prior to 2016. And also after 2016. If there has been any effect it's pretty small.

https://statbase.org/data/chl-prevalence-of-obesity-among-ad...

If you add in Argentina you see a bigger effect from the Argentine economic crisis at the turn of the century than you do from anything else.

[Taronar]

I have nothing of substance to add, but that term moral hazard is not being used as intended. it's a term used to describe when you spend someone else's money it actually doesnt have to do with morals.

[59percentmore]

It's used correctly here. Advertising to children is a moral hazard because the money used to buy the advertised product comes from the parents, not the children (mostly). The point of advertising is to inform and influence a consumer, but in this case, you're manipulating someone who likely doesn't understand the costs involved, who in turn is meant to influence the actual consumer/purchaser, who are themselves cut out of the loop and potentially buying something they don't understand.

[dec0dedab0de]

That is only within the context of economics. Outside of that it is fine to use the common literal meaning. Professions don't get to dictate that their jargon is used by the rest of us, even if they coin the phrase.

[tptacek]

I don't think that's the case; "moral hazard" doesn't have a conventional colloquial meaning. If you use the term outside it's technical meaning you're just going to confuse people.

[arjie]

This particular phrase has long gone the way of “begs the question” as far as online conversations are concerned.

[etdznots]

It does the same way that “green house” has a conventional colloquial meaning, i.e. a house that’s green. If underwater basket weavers start calling their thimbles “green houses” i will continue to put those two words and quite frankly any words i want in any order that conveys meaning to others without concern for what niches might stamp their feet about it

[titanomachy]

Thanks, I’ll make sure to use the phrase correctly in the future.

[throwawayffffas]

If they didn't sue they wouldn't be doing their jobs. Coca Cola for example has had 39grams of sugar per 12ounces since the 50s. Now almost 80 years later it's suddenly excessive?

[kelvinjps10]

They used to be advertising for cigarettes, cocaine used to be sold as medicine for headaches, etc. things change and there are things that are not healthy for a society that the society itself decided

[throwway120385]

In the 50's you'd buy it in an 8-oz can. The sizes we're getting out of vending machines are pretty absurdly large for something that basically started out as a dessert you'd buy to top off your small sandwich and cup of water for lunch.

[throwawayffffas]

8-oz was glass bottles I think. 12-oz cans were a thing in the 50s, we still have 12-oz cans, there are 8-oz cans out there and the vending machines typically carry 12-oz cans or at most 16-oz bottles where I live.

Everything bigger is clearly meant to be consumed over multiple sittings or by multiple people.

I will grant you that fast food restaurants especially and restaurants in general do offer ludicrous amounts of soda for a very low price.

But the retail packaging has not really gotten larger, in a very long time.

[swiftcoder]

> Everything bigger is clearly meant to be consumed over multiple sittings or by multiple people.

The same thing happened with crisps (potato chips). The small bags that were standard when I was a kid in the 90s can now only be found in the big multipacks, while the standard size is now the old "grab bag", which is 2+ servings. Of course, since you can't buy the old size as separates anymore, everyone eats the whole grab bag these days.

I don't think the whole "multiple sittings or multiple people" thing holds up in reality.

[erikerikson]

Right at the top of the article, after the first picture:

> 239 lawsuits were filed between 2010 and 2025 across Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, the US, the UK, and India against public health policies targeting food and beverages such as front of pack labelling, regulating advertising junk food to children, soda taxes, and taxes on ultra processed foods.

So the rights would be not to put health labeling on the front of their products, advertise unhealthy food to children, and be untaxed for the health externalities their products create.

Maybe the rest of the article when I read it will give me the same experience but starting to read it after reading your comment, this stuck out like a sore thumb.

[edit: nope, it's a straightforward report on cross border behaviors of food companies]

[arthurjj]

To be clear my issue is with the reporting, not the policies

Starting your article with "We expose Big Food’s 239 lawsuits against life-saving policies" especially when a quick google shows it doesn't appear to work [1], isn't good reporting

Similarly "such as" in the quoted sentence implies that they're leaving out a public policy, I have to assume it's in one of 1/5 cases the government hasn't won. But they don't talk about that

[1] https://archive.is/UPdWg#selection-1493.0-1498.0

[erikerikson]

> doesn't appear to work

I'd be sceptical of that claim. Public health interventions often have long time frames. For example the fairly successful campaign against tobacco.

> implies that they're leaving out

Maybe. Or they are just summarizing.

You seem to be working hard to find nefarious efforts in this public health messaging.

[carefulfungi]

Adversarial advocacy is core to most (western?) societies. Weird to call out the NGO here while ignoring the opposing industry groups on the other side. It's exhausting that _everything_ is litigated. But I still prefer it to authoritarianism.

[arthurjj]

> Adversarial advocacy is core to most (western?) societies... It's exhausting that _everything_ is litigated. But I still prefer it to authoritarianism.

This is definitely an great way to think about it. Us fighting about it (I hope) leads to a better outcome, even if it's frustrating at the time

Me calling out the NGO is this I hold them to a different standard industry groups. For context I give a few percentage points of my income to charity each year, including some fairly controversial ones (Sea Shepherd, Make Sunsets, Sue the Suburbs). If you're an NGO that reports things and your report is wildly biased, you're a political group that's just abusing the tax code for personal gain. Occasionally that happens but we should still call it out

[MathMonkeyMan]

Mexico is serious about junk food.

The cereal boxes in the stores don't have cute cartoon characters on them, and I tried to send somebody a box of chocolates and it got seized by customs.

Candy is labeled like cigarettes.

[worik]

Good on them. More civilised than their northern neighbors

[onedognight]

When the Mexican government signed up for NSO’s spyware, who did they target? A woman who was working to pass a sugar sweetened beverage tax. And her children.

[tptacek]

Wait, this is getting pretty twisty-turny here. The premise of the story is that the food conglomerates are adversaries of the Mexican government. That's why they're suing them!

[bazoom42]

Doesn’t sound very hippie to assume by default, without knowing anything about the issue, that the big corporations are in the right.

[danw1979]

Maybe Mexico got it’s shit together and started doing something about the obesity crisis and the food industry is desperately trying to keep the status quo ?

Or maybe, to paraphrase the famous tweet, this is actually a plucky band of Mexican fizzy drinks manufacturers who are determined to expose the lies of 97% of the worlds health scientists.

[diydsp]

Sorry but are you saying the article is somehow inadequate bc it's largely about Mexico? Is Big Food expected to be an a USA-only enemy?

I urge you to re-read. there are many more important ideas there.

it's an international story. one of the main points are how much resources are wasted by international governments managing the diseases caused by bad foods and fighting these hundreds of lawsuits.

[scythe]

>But the article doesn't say what those rights are, which makes me think the lawsuits were just

That they lost about 80% of their lawsuits throws doubt on that.

[_HMCB_]

So the lobbying is ok in your eyes because maybe, just maybe there’s something in it (although minuscule compared to the billions upon billions made by the other side) for side B? Gotcha.

[6177c40f]

This comment strikes me as being in bad faith: "Oh so you don't like A? You must be on the side of ¬A!"

I ask, humbly, that people please not do this. Nothing good has ever come of it.