Sugar Is The Most Dangerous Food, And Other Facts

Welcome to What We Learned This Week, a digest of the most curiously important facts from the past few days. This week: Money doesn't buy happiness, Dick's takes on the gun lobby and the most dangerous foods.

Sugar Is The Most Dangerous Food

Look, I know sugar isn't really a "food," but it's in plenty of foods and Gizmodo's Daniel Kolitz spoke to a bunch of scientists and academics and a majority of them think that sugar is the most dangerous food.

It's not dangerous in the sense that eating the wrong kind of mushroom you find out in the forest is dangerous, but dangerous in the sense that drinking every night and smoking a pack of cigarettes per day is dangerous. The boring kind of dangerous.

Ah well, happy holidays!

[Gizmodo]

Buying Good Things ​Does Not Make You A Good Person

Here's the gist of direct-to-consumer brands: They make and sell only one thing. And because they make only one thing it's implied, and sometimes stated, that all of that company's time, energy and money goes right into making that one thing, thus making it the best.

But the direct-to-consumer movement is suggesting something far more pernicious than "we make the best thing because we only focus on that thing." If all of these companies making one thing are out here, then it follows that for you to be the best person all you have to do is buy these brands. And what happens when "best" is defined by the products you own?

Well, The Goods' Rebecca Jennings spent a week using nothing but the "best" direct-to-consumer products, and found that the products were great, but they didn't change her life. It sounds obvious, of course, but who doesn't see those Casper ads and think, "You know, if I just got a nicer bed, maybe that'd make things a little better?"

It's nice to have nice things, but, if what you really want is a better version of yourself, I guess you're just going to have to put in the time, energy and money into yourself and not into nice sheets and bathrobes.

[Vox]

Corporate Activism Is Still Corporate

There's nothing in this world that plays on people's emotions, I think, like big business. This week for Outside Magazine, Craig Fehrman uses Dick's Sporting Goods' decision to stop selling assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines in direct response to the Parkland shooting as an example of a company acknowledging political events in order to move the needle on share price.

As Fehrman lays out, Dick's choosing to "pick a side" in the gun control debate, is one example of a new trend of big retail chains sticking out a wet finger into the political winds and seeing which way they should blow. And while it's nice to see companies, which are run by people, finally acknowledge that there's really no such thing as being politically neutral, it's not clear that this is finally CEOs recognizing they should just do the right thing.

Buried in Fehrman's piece is a single line from Dick's CEO Edward Stack that might give you pause. In response to shareholder anxiety, Stack reassured them that his decision to change the sporting goods store's gun sales policy might actually attract gun-control advocates.

With this in mind, it's pretty clear why Dick's, and other "activist" retailers, declined to talk to Fehrman. Activism requires you to speak out more than once.

[Outside]