Money is not the root of all evil...We know this because money DIDN'T, in fact, exist for most of human history. Are we seriously supposed to believe that people didn't do evil things before money came around?

People are the root of all evil. If money didn't exist, evil still would.

Also, manufacturers of products (should, in an actually free world) have no obligation to make things "safe". People who use things have an obligation to not hurt other people with those things, or just in general for that matter.

The biggest difference there is that cars, as a technology, are inherently dangerous, and the car manufacturers have spent millions, if not billions, of dollars on research and development to make it safer (seat belts, air bags, backup cameras, and so on and so forth). Now, is that necessarily based out of altruism? No, not really. It's kind of bad for the business of high-dollar products to sell one that's unnecessarily dangerous.

The difference lies in the fact that food should be inherently safe. The problem with the food companies is that they lose sight of this in their effort to make more money, to the point that they introduce questionable ingredients and implement questionable practices in an effort to get people to buy more and/or cut costs, in order to make more money. While it's fine to find ways to make the food cost less or implement more efficient ways to produce it, the food ingredients should be more thoroughly tested to ensure their safety, and the farming methods should prove to be sustainable.

In a true free market, consumers would also have the correct information to be able to make an informed decisions, and there would be enough competition for people to actually vote with their wallets and it impact the company in question.

While I don't think the people coming up with the chemicals and combinations and whatnot for the processed foods are thinking "hey, what can we do to cause health problems in people?" Rather, I think they think more about whether it achieves the desired flavor, the addiction effect that drives a person to crave more, and the "disappearing calories" texture that also drives people to eat more (think cheese puffs - start out big and fluffy, dissolve away into nothingness, and leave you without feeling full and satisfied, despite eating a ton of calories).

Combine that, though, with the typical pressures from marketing, accounting, and the other powers-that-be to make more money, sell more, cut more costs, etc., though, and you end up with a bunch of "good enough" data from studies that are too narrowly-focused to really provide the answer to "Is it safe?" (see also: trans fats and partially hydrogenated oils)

Are the food companies in bed with pharmaceutical companies? I'm not sure, though I know there's a large number of executives in various food industry companies who are also key players in the government groups that make the rules for said safety standards, which handles both food and pharmaceuticals. It wouldn't surprise me if there's some crossover. That's not to say that "everyone in the food industry is evil," but that executive and political roles do attract a certain type of person (at least in the US) that is known to not really care about the well-being of others (see also: the Dark Triad). In such authoritative positions, it only takes a couple of people who lack scruples to cause harm in the entire chain.

And it's not like there's not precedent. The tobacco industry actively hid the fact that they knew their product caused cancer and a whole host of other issues, even though they publicly denied it for years until they were finally sued into telling the truth. All the while, they were advertising their product as "the cool thing." So, while I agree that a company can't be wholly responsible for something detrimental happening, I don't think they're wholly blameless, either, particularly when they know that what they're doing will harm their consumers.

tl:dr version - While I don't agree with the "everyone is evil and out to get the poor consumer," neither do I think it's tin foil hattish to think that food companies are that naive to not think that the products they sell are in some way detrimental to the consumers.

Then your hypocrisy detector needs repair. The person who sold you the item, presumably, gave it to you under voluntary exchange. He never forced you to use it in any given way. Obviously, if he sells you a vitamin supplement, you take it and it turns out to be cyanide, then he defrauded you, which is just another form of force. But if he sells you a gun, and you shoot a paper target, he is not responsible for the damage you caused to the paper. Nor is he responsible if you blow your own head off - or someone else's - with it, instead. You bought a product, and you chose to use it, one way or the other. The fact that someone else owned that product prior to you, is irrelevant.

"Should be inherently safe"? Who are you to decide that for me? What if a food is insanely delicious, but also insanely bad for a persons health to eat? Maybe they value the flavor over their health. That is their business to decide.

Further, what if I don't give a damn how thoroughly, or not, a food ingredient is tested? Again, you making all these decisions for others (that is, implying someone - most likely a government - should allow or disallow the products availability) is tantamount to shoving a gun in someones face and threatening to the pull the trigger if they don't comply. If they don't want to buy the product because they don't know what's in it, then they won't. If they don't give a damn, then it's not within your rights to force them not to. End of story.

You're missing the point. It doesn't matter which companies are "in bed" with each other. People are (or should be, absent a government preventing them) allowed to transact on a voluntary basis. If you question the motives and values of a person, group, or business, then you can choose not to associate with them. They have not (in a free society) put a gun to your head and made you buy anything. It is government and government alone (which may indeed be bought by any given organization at any given time), that uses force or the threat of force to get what it wants. It is different only in scale from the organized gangs and mafias of the world.

So yeah, we all have ideals about how others should behave. But in the end, you only have a right to your life and to your property. Not to others lives or their property.

And..... the above discussion sums up why corporations aren't held accountable for harming health or misleading customers. Because we don't think they should be held accountable (speaking for some of us). Anything goes when it's to earn a buck. The right to earn profits trumps the responsibility of providing safe products, that are adequately labelled and do what it's supposed to do.

I'm very much Libertarian minded. I don't think it's the job of government to protect us and micromanage our lives. BUT corporations that harm people or misrepresent their products should also not be protected by the governments that WE ELECT and support with our tax dollars.

Remember the melamine poisoning of infant formula in China and how China dealt with the people responsible? Well, that's what should happen over here too. Instead you and me are expendible and corporate profits are protected.

Personal accountability is all well and good, but how about when government limits our choices to what we see as healthy? I'm thinking of all who have to buy raw milk illegally, not to mention the state with a ridiculous law that would make it illegal for a cow owner to drink raw milk from his own cow?

In this case it's Big Dairy colluding with government to limit choice and "risk" and, as a by-product, drive the small, organic farmers out of business.

Our family can't digest pasteurized milk -- pasteurization destroys the enzyme in the milk that allows us to digest the milk protein. I finally gave up on raw milk because it's just too hard to get.

So Big Dairy didn't gain us as a customer... they just drove us to making our own nut and coconut milk.

It's my understanding that Big Dairy' s lobbying efforts ($$$) were a big part of it.

And..... the above discussion sums up why corporations aren't held accountable for harming health or misleading customers. Because we don't think they should be held accountable (speaking for some of us). Anything goes when it's to earn a buck. The right to earn profits trumps the responsibility of providing safe products, that are adequately labelled and do what it's supposed to do.

I'm very much Libertarian minded. I don't think it's the job of government to protect us and micromanage our lives. BUT corporations that harm people or misrepresent their products should also not be protected by the governments that WE ELECT and support with our tax dollars.

Remember the melamine poisoning of infant formula in China and how China dealt with the people responsible? Well, that's what should happen over here too. Instead you and me are expendible and corporate profits are protected.

You misunderstand me. I think it's a damn shame that people don't pay attention. But they only don't pay attention because they assume that government is getting their back. Well, government does not, has not, and will not ever, get anyones back except their own (and their benefactors). In a free society, that is to say one where there was no FDA, independent companies would exist to keep an eye out on things. Think Consumer Reports for food manufacturers. And people wouldn't just assume that since something is on the shelf then it must be ok. Now if something is on the shelf, people think it must be ok otherwise government would have straight up outlawed it. Rarely is that the case.

As for governments regulating corporations... Well, that's a ridiculous notion. As I pointed out earlier, there are 12,000 lobbyists in Washington. You can bet that the politicians know where their bread is buttered.