this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2025
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Don't get me wrong, I don't ~~Mexico to sell~~ mind Mexico selling chocolate but why are they thinking this is part of their job as government??
Citizen morale is probably the most important job of government but people like you want to make us forget that
It is. They've got you conditioned to accept that government is just there to hurt you, it's supposed to make society worth living in.
Well I do Mexico to sell chocolate.
Comedy aside, I think its to address the extraordinary obesity issues that Mexico has faced in the past 20 years. Mexico is in my top 2 of countries I'm moving to as the US collapses, but they have real issues with refined foods and especially added sugar.
What's your other top 2 country? If I go I think I'm going to switch continents. I would prefer there to be a whole ocean between me and this bullshit.
Brazil is in the conversations. Mainly for professional reasons and because they do still invest in the kinds of science that my partner and I do, and I have many colleagues there and some family near Rio.
The other is Tahiti, because I've got a pretty substantial Vanilla production operation going at this point, which was kind-of the entire point of why I moved to where I did. I also have access to EU citizenship through my mother, and I as far as a visa to live and work in the country, I think that part should be straight forwards since its basically France. My partner and I also have some connections to the university, University of French Polynesia. My partner has also previously worked for CNRS in Toulouse, although briefly. Buying land might be out of reach because its ridiculously expensive, but I can imagine various ways of making it happen.
We're seriously considering some option at this point, but its very tough because we moved to where we live because this is where we wanted to live. We've also got a wide range of "things" going on that are difficult, but not impossible, to disentangle ourselves from.
Big warning on moving to Brazil for science. Getting lab materials takes forever to get delivered and frequently just never arrives. I had a roommat do her last year of PhD research in the us because work was so much faster here due to how much better and more reliable logistics are.
I mean thats a great consideration. Luckily for me, I'm more on the pure computation/ analysis side of the house. I don't really do wet chemistry any more, although my partner does.
Good info. France and Norway are appealing, I have a friend with family over there who likes me. The Netherlands is on my list as well, I've been there a few times and they don't currently have any political drama that I'm aware of.
Oh boy, there is political drama here in the Netherlands right now.
The most right wing party in the coalition stepped out of the government because the other parties refused to sign its "strictest immigration policy ever", so we're heading towards elections again. Meanwhile parliament approved a law making being an illegal resident or helping one a crime. It needs to pass through the senate yet, but still. The minister of agriculture was found by a judge to abuse her power to obstruct freedom of information. There's still no plan to solve the nitrogen pollution crisis, leading to building projects being on hold throughout the country. Against their promise of not drilling for gas in the northern province of Groningen anymore they've allowed it again, leading to more earthquakes. A singer was accused of antisemitism by politicians because he refused to play at a gig that had posters promoting Zionism, which led to him having to flee the country with his family because of death threats. Don't speak out against Israel here either. There were border patrols done by a group of "activists" looking for illegals ("we found no brown people or anyone looking like that" they said), which were small and luckily stopped, but still. Then there are the government cuts in all social sectors, killing all services slowly over the years. Public transport, education, healthcare, municipal services, welfare, it's all going downhill. And while the government still has to pay back thousands of parents it had wrongly accused of daycare fraud, the next screw-up was discovered a few months ago and they now also have to pay thousands of people on welfare for being sick because they had underpaid them for years.
The election campaign is probably gonna be a bunch of screaming matches about immigrants and refugees and name calling again even though there are far more pressing issues going on. It's not as fascist here as it is in the US yet, but that's only because we have a more reasonable electoral system.
Yeah I can't do anything above 22 degrees or below -22 degrees. I mean its right there in the name.
If you come to europe i hope you didn't vote for one of the genociders.
We don't like your kind
Yes I know, and you shouldn't. I voted for everyone who was against Trump.
I might just stay here and start building guillotines.
You'll pay tarrifs for foreign parts but you can easily offset those because of the increasing demand
Mexico is 25th on this list with 36.1% of its population obese. The US is 13th at 42.9%.
Yeah well, Mexico is #1 on this list. I don't even see the US on the list.
Shit I hadn’t even considered that. Glad I know now
Try chocolate that wasn't made in America... Then imagine living a country with some of the best ingredients for chocolate making, and only seeing American chocolate on your store shelves... If capitalism is breaking stuff, the government is pretty much the only ones that can fix it. Though when the government is the thing that capitalism is breaking, I can see why you might not want them to do more than they currently do.
Government is supposed to be about pooling money so it can be more efficiently and effectively spent. Economies of scale. Even if the government only half does what you want and half does stuff you don't care about, you are still getting better bang for your buck than if you tried to use your own tiny amounts of money to buy the half you do want.
I'm actually very fond of the US but the chocolate is absolute filth, sorry lads. I was so excited to try Hershey's and holy moly was it an earth shattering disappointment.
Born and bred in America and won’t eat American chocolate - literally tastes like vomit. And I do mean literally - Hershey’s chocolate goes through a process called lipolysis that breaks down their milk some and introduces butyric acid, which gives Parmesan, sour cream and other pungent dairy foods (and vomit) their smells.
When they perfected the process so it didn't happen anymore, people stopped buying their chocolate as it 'tasted funny' now and they started adding it artificially
Literally stockholm syndromed into enjoying the flavor of vomit...
No wonder our country is fucked, it was founded by morons
Right.... Well that's some insight. Thank you . I heard a rumour that it was down to it being popular during a war where cocoa was in short supply but that makes sense too.
There's more American chocolate than just Hersey. This is like saying american burgers are filth because McDonalds exists.
There is. That's fair, and some of it was decent and that's not to say that all American chocolate is bad because that would be stupid of course, as you say. And I'm sure there's top notch American chocolate. Of course there is.
But, the dominant chocolate, the one that foreigners associate with the US, was shite IMO. That's all.
And tbh I do like an oul' mackers. I wouldn't call McDonald's the Hershey's of burgers.
This is all subjective and I'm not being a cunt. I just was expecting sparkles in my mouth and I got.... Hershey's.
Fair, fair. And I may not agree with your take on Micky Dees, but goddamn I respect it!
High five from the far side of the Atlantic at 1:36am and not entirely sober ✋
Cheers mate 🤚
Yeah, that's exactly what they're talking about, did you not read the rest of that post?
I only eat US made chocolate. Good stuff. Sometimes I'm tempted to buy some German garbage like Ritter Sport out of nostalgia from living there but then I slap myself and remember I don't have to eat out of a trash can.
Governments subsidize foods all the time. Yours probably does, too.
Mexico already has Welfare Stores, and this bar is being made in co-op with Food for Wellness.
https://www.informador.mx/mexico/Chocolate-del-Bienestar-en-ESTAS-tiendas-podras-comprarlo-20250710-0131.html
I’m barely old enough to remember government cheese.
Cacao is a national treasure, and America floods Mexico with Hershey's, Snickers, and other subpar "chocolate" and destroys local competition with cheap prices.
Fun fact:
The word "chocolate" is derived from the Nahuatl word Xocholatl (chikola-tl).
Mexico has been trying a lot to reduce obesity through various product labeling. This looks like a step in that direction; a snack that uses an indigenous ingredient (chocolate) in a manner that complies with federal guidelines.
You mean Mexico made certain Goods MORE Expensive but then Offered a Public alternative so people don't HAVE to pay the Increase in Price?
That's STUPID! They should just Slap a TARIFF on it WITHOUT Investment or Alternatives and let their Citizens deal with the Price increase!
They could be making their businesses “eat” the tariffs, but instead their people are eating good chocolate? That’s it, I’m heading down there, I’m sold.
I did notice that the Mexican coke that I occasionally buy as a treat (in the US) got new labels printed on the bottle instead of just a sticker.
For some reason it doesn't taste as good as it used to though. Feels like even more sugar than previously maybe? I should look it up.
I don't follow Mexican politics closely, but this could be part of an effort to curb obesity. I've heard they introduced taxes on sugary drinks for this, so this might be another avenue.
If people are wanting cheap snacks, and private companies are only making unhealthy ones, you can introduce regulations to micromanage what they can produce, or you can introduce a complex taxation process to disincentivize sugar snacks. Or you can introduce your own product that meets a perceived unmet demand in an underserved market.
Government is the things we choose to do together. If the people choose healthy chocolate, then that's the job.
Totally agree, didn't mean to apply i'm against it but it just felt random. Thought maybe they were inspired by the donalds merchandise ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If I had to guess, it's likely due to the obesity problem they were having
That might be one of the best bang par buck moves possible from their health care department.
Because they tried leaving it to the private sector and people got unhealthy from eating cheap refined carbs?
Providing healthy abordable food should be the first job of any governement.
Chocolate is candy, not food
Chocolate is food and is used in some Mexican sauces. It just happens to be that the most typical modern use is chocolate is in candy.