> Having just visited Japan, one thing that struck me is that Japanese consumers by and large refuse to buy low quality crap, so stores generally don't stock them (including groceries).

Would be interesting to look into the why and/or how come.

> Having really discriminating consumers is probably the one way to make sure stores stop selling unhealthy things. Regarding laws though -- consumers and voters are largely the same group of people. If they're not discriminating enough to care about not buying something, it's unlikely they'll vote on those preferences too.

It is difficult to change a habit for an individual, and the same is true for a society, but if we can change the habit of some individuals we can change enough momentum to change society for the better. Its not that nobody cares; consumer right movement does care, for example. My point is that we don't have to change the habit of every single individual. We need enough people who do care. At the very worst, we'd need 51% of the population, but likely much lower will do.

First we must understand the why and how come though. I think there are solid reasons for that being how it is though. They're kinda intertwined/related to each other.

1a) Brand loyalty. People don't like change, they like to stick to what they know. This creates easy brand loyalty. This also has the disadvantage that newcomers [in the food business] have a harder time to achieve market share.

1b) Abundance of choice. Choice is great, too much choice is not. Clear choices, with clear pros and cons are informational . This also affects #1, and once again means even less space for newcomers.

2) Contradicting information / lack of consensus. For one, we still haven't reached a consensus of how something like diabetes is developed, we still as a society fail to combat obesity.

3) Time constraints. You can' expect hard working people who spend their free time to construct a diet for them.

4a) Lack of stimulus for the industry. For a variety of reasons the industry gets away with serving & selling low quality food. While becoming ill from food is short-term, ill from diet is long term. The blame is shifted towards the lifestyle choice of the people. Some self responsibility is fair, but not all.

4b) Lack of direct feedback. As briefly explained in 4a the user does not receive direct feedback over the cause and effect of their lifestyle choices. Some food choices do give direct feedback, but the user has learned to ignore.

4c) Addiction. Adding to 1a and 4a/b, there is a clear benefit to having people becoming addicting to your food, so that they keep coming back. This also makes it difficult for newcomers, since people tend to get back to their product. Even if yours is better. Note, I'm a former cigarette addict, so I know how difficult it is to overcome an addiction.

How can we solve such a complex issue? Well not overnight, but for starters:

Re 1) These cannot be easily solved. Or at least, I don't see how. As long as these exist this gives us a disadvantage. However, globalisation has given us even more food choice, including some healthy ones, and something like drones allows us to order less common but healthy foods more easily (even though the local grocery store may not carry it).

Re 2, 4) This can be solved with legislation, but also with proof hunting. This phenomenon has some momentum due to the fake news debacle in US election. Computers can aid us here.

Re 3) Here, too, computers can aid us. I have some ideas on software which could aid us specifically with this aspect of the problem, see [1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13215767