This post started out as a comment on the Blog of Pineta:

The Naturalistic Fallacy kills my mother:

She developed Type Ⅱ Diabetes. Her Dietician is into the Naturalistic Fallacy. She told Mom not to eat artificial sweeteners. She told her —— ¡despite all of the studies! —— that artificial sweeteners are less healthy than sugar. My Mom loves SodaPop (that is how she probably developed Type Ⅱ Diabetes). Because of the bad advice of the Dietician, Mom drank far too much sugar, despite her diagnosis of Type Ⅱ Diabetes. This destroyed her kidneys and liver. Now, her health fails. She is 68 years old. Her mother lived until 91. If she would not have wrecked her liver and kidneys because the dietician believed that sugar is better than artificial sweeteners, she would certainly live into her 80s (someteen or umpteen years in the future). As it is, she has almost certainly no chance of living another year.

This brings up the SodaPopTax. This tax is the Naturalistic Fallacy:

SinTaxes are controversial. That certainly is a discussion worth having. If one can write a skeptical post for this group exploring the issue, I shall welcome it. I might write such a post myself. The following is not about whether we should have a SinTax, but if we do, how it should be implemented:

¡It all bubbles and some of it has artificial sweeteners; so therefore now, it must be all evil!

Bubbling and artificial sweeteners are irrelevant. What matters is the sugar. It is better to drink a gallon (4 liters) of Diet Grape-Flavored SodaPop than a glass of Grape-Flavored FlavorAid. Besides, skeptics do not drink Grape-Flavored FlavorAid anyway. Taxing diet SodaPop could steer people drinking diet SodaPop into drinking sugary noncarbonated drinks —— ¡that is far worse! What would make far more sense is a tax on added sugar:

Imagine a tax of 1 cent per gram of added sugar —— ¡whether or not the drink is carbonated or not! That would be a useful tax.

Here in Mexico, were we are the #1 worldwide consumer for soft drinks per capita, we had a proposal for a sugar tax a few years ago.

1. The proposal didn't pass per se,
2. but it became law to display prominently the sodium and calorie content on all non-alcoholic, flavoured soft drinks; both as real calories and sodium and as of percentage of dietary sugar and sodium per day.
3. This led to an arms race among the soft drink industry, one that still hasn't settled down, where every company is still trying to come up with new and improved versions of their product lineup, coming up with normal, less calories and no calories versions of everything.
4. One thing that has mostly settled down in this arms race, though, is that the consumer didn't care for less calories versions, but rather less sweet versions. Today I walk into a store and rather than buy a sickly sweet Sprite, I can choose between a half dozen bottled lemonades, some with calories, some without.

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Informing consumers and getting the free market to help solve the problem. The Libertarians can get behind informing consumers and letting the free market solve the problem:

I mentioned that is a legitimate debate about whether we should have SinTaxes, but this is beyond the scope of this BlogPost. Libertarians oppose SinTaxes on principle, arguing that all products should be taxed the same way. Then we have Value-Added-Taxes, versus SalesTax. All of this is beyond the scope of this article, because if I would but this into the article, it would squeeze out the part about the Naturalistic Fallacy killing my mother:

Unfortunately, my mother is back in the hospital, but she might get to come back home as early as this weekend.

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Mother entered in-home hospice today. She will probably be dead in less than a fortnight.

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I hope she doesn't suffer.

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We have morphine.

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Here it is:

The image on the right represents the current state of Mexican law regarding the "sin tax" on industrialized foods and beverages. (Does not apply for "ingredients", "sauces" and the like, though. They have their nutrition facts table as normal.)
Those globes are now obligatory, and must face the front.
They are no longer labelled "portion size", but "this package contains", and then say "saturated fats", "other fats", "total sugars", "sodium", "total calorie count per package" and finally the only optional concept: "calories per portion" and, in fine print, how many suggested portions the package contains.
Because I have never, ever seen somebody drink 6 ounces of soda...

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¡Thanks! If I ever get around to writing about SinTaxes, I shall cite this. So far, my mother does okay:

Because of her damaged liver, My Mother suffers from high ammonia. Because of the kidney-damage, her electrolytes are out of whack.

Last time she went to the hospital, she snuck sugarly salty foods. and bucked herself up so badly that she had to go to the hospital. Now that the hospital told her that all that they can do is slow her death and she is now in hospice, she follows directions. Because of this, she does not yet suffer confusion. She will suffer from confusion in a few days, no matter how compliant to the treatment plan she is. After a few days of confusion, she will sink into a coma. About a week after entering the coma, she will die.

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I have an update about Mother:

Her Doctrix gave her an fortnight to live, that was a week ago. things have changed:

She kept on ending up in comas and going to the hospital. The hospital could do nothing more for her and transferred her to hospice. The reason she went into comas is because she destroyed her liver and kidneys by consuming sugar while diabetic. Everytime she went into a coma, hours before so, she would binge on sugar and salt. This overloaded her liver and kidneys. Since going into hspice scared her straight:

On reappraisal, the Doctrix has determined that her liver and kidney capacity cannot sustain her indefinitely, but she could keep living for months, if she does not fall off of the wagon and eat and drink garbage. if she would have been scared straight just a few months ago, she could live until heartfailure from smoking would kill her in a few years, but it is now —— ¡not a few months ago! Falling off the wagon is the biggest concern:

Because of her kidney damage, she can have only 1 liter of liquids daily. ThursdayNight, after I was asleep, she chugged a liter of sugar-free lemonade. She was v ery sick the next day. We feared that she would enter a coma. She is okay today. We tell her multiple times daily that she cannot, even once, eat sugary or salty food, drink sugary drinks, or drink to much liquid because the hospital cannot bring her out of a coma again. if she sneaks contraband past us, she is dead. Keeping her alive is such a chore because she wants bad thing which will kill her and the straightscaring wears off.

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I would want to tell you that "you can lead a horse to water but not make it drink", but there's a Mexican saying that fits better: "in the hands of pendejos (idiots/arseholes), even gunpowder fails to burn".
So probably, at this point, it would be better to let her seek her own euthanasia. I have a best friend here in Cancun, whose father was both rich and well educated, yet chose gout over veggies. Unfortunately, my friend is similarly hedonistic, choosing to live large whenever he can afford it; never mind that he is a highly specialized contractor that often goes months without a job.

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Thanks for the advice. Mother is sick again from over drinking. If she goes into a coma, she is done. I told her that she can live for months, but if she over does her liquids, or gets an hold of sweets, sugary drinks, or salty food, she will go into a coma and die. The trouble is that she slips back into her old ways; she just is not scared straight any more.

Hopefully, she will wake up tomorrow. If so, it will be another day of trying to keep her from guzzling liquids and keeping her away from contraband (sweets, sugary drinks, and salty food). I shall have to take this 1 day at a time.

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She is vegetative today. he might recover or slip into a coma. We shall she.

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She pulled through, but in her condition, just drinking too many liquids can kill her. As it is, her heart and kidneys cannot maintain her indefinitely, so she has a few months at best.

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Truth be told, I would tell you to talk to a thanatologist or grief counselor. No counselor in the First World would tell you, but here they would tell you to consider quality of life versus survival: in other words, letting her drag on and rot alive for the next few months, versus planning her a last meal with the family, letting her eat a pound of New York steak with lard fries and a gallon of milkshake, and then driving her comatose body to the hospital, were she would pass away within a day or two.
If you are Western minded, this may seem cold; but i believe in living well, then going with dignity.
You may even want to discuss this with her, if she's well awake and aware.

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The problem is conflicting wishes:

She wants to live as long as possible and gussle liquids, eat sweet and salty food. She cannot have it both ways, b ut her trying to hsave it both ways kills me because it is so hard to try to keep her alive, which is what she wants, when what she does could kill her.

She is better today. Her guzzling liquids through off her electrolytes. Over the course of over a day, her kidneys fixed that. During that day, she was bedridden, which meant that I had to change diapers —— ¡that is not fun! If she should cause an ammonia-spike, only the hospital can fix that and the hospital cannot fix that any more, so that would lead to coma and death.

¿Do you watch Black Mirror? In the episode MetalHead S04E05, some people die trying to get a teddy bear for a dying child. I thought that the premise is dumb. When her electrolytes are off, Mother regresses. She wanted Bixby, her teddy bear from when she was a little girl. It was somewhere in storage in the garage. I tore the garage apart until I found Bixby over many hours. Now, I see that S04E05 MetalHead is 1 of the most realistic episodes of Black Mirror.

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At work,management just pulled the Vending Machine for SodaPop in a push for healthy snacks and drinks.. The machine had 1 sugar-free option (Diet Pepsi). The replaced it with a machine which vends canned juices and coffee. These have at least the same amount of sugar as regular SodaPop —— ¡some with almost twice the sugar of regular SodaPop!

¡It is not the bubbles but the sugar!

On another note, my mother went into a coma yesterday. Today, she is semiconscious. She has been going back-and-forth from full consciousness to coma for the last few weeks. As she deteriorates, she will spend more and more time in a coma until she never regains consciousness. Then, she will dehydrate and fluid accumulates in her lungs and die.

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Mother died less than an hour ago.

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I know this can be hard at the moment, but don't be sad: consider that your mother has stopped suffering.
So have you and the rest of your family.
Try to be happy: she's at rest, at last.

By the way, as of October 1, 2019, the nutritional labelling law toughened up even further. Now, rather than following the percentage model, we'll be following the Chilean model, where rather than the frontal display of actual sodium, fat, sugar or calorie content, these are evaluated by a government health agency, then displayed forward as black warning levels if these levels are above safe parameters.

The law is currently being fine tuned, but it will have bad products looking something like this:

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Thanks for your kind words. Those labels look very helpful. Unfortunately, ideology killed my mother:

She always had a sweet tooth. About 2 decades ago, she came down with Type-2 Diabetes from eating all of the sugar. Because of her sweet tooth, not eating sweet tasting things was not an option for her. Her physician suffered from the naturalistic fallacy and told her that artificial sweeteners are worse than sugar. She kept on eating sweets until the high sugar-levels wrecked her liver and kidneys. Then, she died from liver/kidney-failure.

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We, the family, all agreed that we should bury mother with her Bixby, the aforementioned bear.

You have been very supportive these last months. I hereby promote you to Administrator.

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Just trying to help.

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¡You succeed!

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Diabetes-safe Amaranth, because a sugar skull for your mother wouldn't have been kosher:

¡Thanks!

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We had a Viewing today. Mother did not look like herself. With the crazy levels of ammonia, electrolytes, and sugar, mother was confused her last months. She kept Bixby with her her last months. Bixby was in the coffin with her. Tomorrow, we bury her.

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The funeral is over. I shall never see Mother again, not that she looked much like herself. We buried her with Bixby.

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The law just toughened its screws again. Now, prepackaged products that have a warning label must not display/contain cartoon characters, sports figures or celebrities, toys, raffles, giveaways, promotions, et al. This mostly attacks Frito Lay, the Marinela Brand of Bimbo Bakeries and the breakfast cereal industry.
So long, Tony Tiger. I always found you borderline inedible.

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That is an interesting approach. I wonder how it will work when it comes to reducing sugar, fat, and salt consumed.

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A couple years later, Bimbo fell in line and modified their bread recipes and even now sports several zero-zero products (no added fat or sugar), and their corporate mascot, the Osito Bimbo, is back on those particular products, as long as they aren't high brow and are some sort of sandwich bread. And while the mascots for breakfast cereals cannot be used on the cereal boxes, they remain alive and well in television and internet adds. Something nice, however, is that several completely new cereals have appeared on the shelves, based on traditional Mexican breadmaking rather than imported brands.
Here:
https://bimbo.com.mx/es/products?product_category=16817
https://bimbo.com.mx/es/products?product_category=16825&title=
https://www.instagram.com/p/CiBCpGtO_OY/?img_index=1
https://www.nestle-cereals.com/mx/cereales/abuelita-churros

It is nice that you have better cereals. Churros are popular here. In this country, we love Mexican food, especially Taco Bell. Glen bell was a Gringo. A lesson is there somewhere. In only a decade, all restaurants will be Taco Bell., according to Demolition Man. I wonder how many Gringos go to Mexico, do not like the authentic Mexican Food, and seekout Taco Bells. I have an anecdote about authentic Mexican food:

I was on a date. She knew this Mom-&-Pop Mexican restaurant. I bit into something muy picante. Luckily, I had the bachelorkit in my messengerbag (lubrication, condoms, comb, toothbrush, mouthwash, and toothpaste. Milk hardly helped; so now, I took the toothbrush, mouthwash, and toothpaste into the bathroom and did a rinse-lather-rinse (mouthwash, brush teeth and tongue, and mouthwash. That stopped the burning.