Forum Post: Complex problems, Simple Smart Solution?

Complex Problems, Simple Solution? We are facing a complex set of problems, but I think there may be a solution that could cut across all of them.
First, I want to tell you why I think it’s possible that it could work. In the early 1990’s a Cornell university study focused on fat content of salad dressings before and after nutrition labeling was rolled out. This study gives us a hint about the motivating power of informed consumer behavior. Some of us still remember that, not too long ago, companies didn’t have to give the consumer any nutritional information for their products. We just had to eat what they sold us. The Cornell study found that within 6 months of the first nutritional labeling, every supermarket salad dressing brand changed their formula, at least slightly altered the actual physical product they were making, in response to new customer behavior, which was based on the newly available nutritional information. People that had been buying the same blue cheese dressing for 20 years took a look at the new label and said “Holy smokes! A serving of this has 75% of your fat for the day? Hmm, maybe I’ll try this other blue cheese dressing that only has 35% .” We don’t need to destroy the profit motive, or change selfish human nature, or even smash capitalism. Maybe we can actually use the single-minded profit motive to shape industries in pro-social ways. In the case of labeling food, we didn’t need to pass laws banning high fat dressings or high sodium foods or even something patently unhealthy like transfats, we only had to pass laws that said that everything sold as food had to be nutrition labeled. The job wasn’t done then, the tasks remain of educating people, to read and understand the labels, to understand what’s actually going on in their bodies, of enforcing the laws against mislabeling, and of resisting industrial attempts to challenge or loosen labeling laws. Despite these and other health hurdles, anyone who can remember back before, in the old pre-labeling days, can see how awareness about nutrition and availability of healthier options has spread, and continues to spread. Things like fast food salads and vegetarian specialty foods were once unthinkable business moves; there was no market for it, therefore no money in it, now those healthier choices are becoming ubiquitous.