this is almost certainly wrong. (That nothing can be blamed.) I can't eat much sugar for medical reasons, so that means that entire aisles are basically unavailable to me. things like cereals, cookies, cakes, lots of delicious stuff. But there is something or someone (or some process or some state of affairs) to blame here.

Because check it out: stevia is delicious, and with splenda and all sorts of other zero-calorie artificial sweetener choices (going back to saccharine) it would be trivial to make almost all of those food choices in varieties that are artificially sweetened. what do you want to bet that the high fructose corn syrup or sugar industry has a say in directing the conversation that leads to these foods simply not existing? They literally don't exist in supermarkets: you make them at home.

why the fuck would an expensive premium food like this - https://www.specialk.com/en_US/products/protein-cereal.html have 20% by weight in sugar! Generally speaking what I've just linked is a great food, and it's premium and expensive and for those who are very health-conscious. It hardly has any calories, converting by multiplying the suggested serving by 3, it has only 360 calories in 100 grams, which contains 30g of protein (so that if you further multiply by three to get to your daily intake, you get to 90g of protein, enough for just about anyone, reaching only 1080 calories - so it seems great to me. you could literally consider this diet food.)

But it has 21 grams of sugar in those 100 grams. (I happened to find someone weighing 100 grams of cereal, though a denser one - here is what that looks like: http://blog.belm.com/wp-content/uploads/cerealpannacotta1.jp... -- * EDIT: also found someone who happened to weigh 20 grams of sugar, this is what that looks like: http://alcademics.typepad.com/.a/6a00e553b3da20883401a3fb659... (that's about 5 cubes of sugar.)).

Why does it have 21% by weight sugar! Why not use an artificial sweetener? Like, it's not even an option.

You can't really find stevia alternatives. The third ingredient in what I just linked was Sugar. Here is someone asking them to include stevia: https://community.kelloggs.com/kelloggs/topics/special-k-pro...

Like, what gives?

I realize that stevia might be expensive compared with sugar, but some people would likely pay for that. You can't get foods made that way though, unless you make it yourself.

why is that? There is someone to blame here. It's a dichotomy: you eat the 21 grams of sugar, or you don't eat the 100 grams of Special K Protein. It's not about overconsumption: it's about a lack of choice. Why doesn't the artificial-sweetener version exist, at all? There is something, or someone (or an abstract economic process, or something) to blame here. While "blaming" an economic process (or a lack of FDA mandate, or ... whatever) might sound bitter due to the phrasing, we can still ask what leads to this state of affairs. I don't usually like to play the "blame game" or put things in those terms, but in this case, I'm missing out on a lot of foods, so yes, I'll do it. If Coca Cola can do it, and get it everywhere, why can't dessert "foods" like oreos or breakfast cereal, do it? They simply don't exist in artificially sweetened versions. Why not?