The Checkup with Doctor Mike - The Corrupt World Of Food Politics | Marion Nestle

Episode Date: July 21, 2024

Marion Nestle is a pioneer of food science and nutritional philosophy. She bucked the trend of going to college to find a husband and instead devoted herself to better understanding food and the deep corruption within America's agricultural industry. She's published several books on the subject and as taught for decades at some of the finest universities in the United States. Follow Marion Nestle here: https://x.com/marionnestle Executive Producer and Host: Doctor Mike Varshavski Produced by Dan Owens and Sam Bowers Art by Caroline Weigum Contact: [e-mail]

Okay, flights on Air Canada. Oh, wow. Mayorka, that's new. Oh, nice. But Vienna is a classic Mozart, palaces and schnitzel. Mm-hmm, now you're cooking. If you're hungry, deli brings the heat. Heat.

Cartagena's got sun and the sea to cool off. So does Martinique. Mmm, and that French cuisine? Book it. Yes, chef. Wait, what about Lyon? Choose from our world of destinations if you can. Air Canada.

Nice travels. This episode is brought to by Tron Aries. For the first time the captivating world of Tron breaks out of the grid. Aries, a highly advanced program, journeys into our world on a dangerous mission, marking humankind's first encounter with AI beings. Featuring an electrifying original soundtrack by 9-inch nails. Tron Aries is a must-see movie event, filmed for IMAX and made for the big screen. Experience it only in theaters, October 10.

Get tickets now. Ontario, the weight is over. The gold standard of online casinos has arrived. Golden Nugget Online Casino is live, bringing Vegas-style excitement and a world-class gaming experience right to your fingertips. Whether you're a seasoned player or just starting, signing up is fast and simple. And in just a few clicks, you can have access to our exclusive library of the best slots and top-tier table games. Make the most of your downtime with unbeatable promotions and jackpots that can turn any mundane moment into a golden, Opportunity at Golden Nugget Online Casino.

Take a spin on the slots, challenge yourself at the tables, or join a live dealer game to feel the thrill of real-time action, all from the comfort of your own devices. Why settle for less when you can go for the gold at Golden Nugget Online Casino. Gambling Problem Call Connects Ontario 1866531-260. 19 and over, physically present in Ontario. Eligibility restrictions apply. See Golden Nuggett Casino.com for details. Please play responsibly.

I'm Chris Hadfield, astronaut and citizen of planet Earth. Join me on a journey into the systems that power the world. No politics, just real conversations with real people shaping the future of energy. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Wait, was that the group chat? Ah, sent a text to the group that definitely wasn't for everyone. You're good. Enjoy some goldfish cheddar crackers.

Goldfish have short memories. Be like goldfish. Eating less is terrible for business. That's why they're frantic. These companies are frantic about the new obesity drugs. Nestle is coming out with a line of products aimed at people who are taking the obesity drugs. You read in the paper every day about how worried they are. The people are going to eat less. This is not going to be good for business. Today we're joined by Dr. Marion Nessel, a world-renowned nutritionist, public health advocate,

and author of numerous titles, including Food Politics, What to Eat, and Unsavery Truth. She has dedicated her career to examining the links between food, health, and politics. With decades of experience, Dr. Nessel has been a leading voice in critiquing the food industry, and throughout this conversation, we expose how the food industry influences our food choices, whether we see it or not. Let's get started with a checkup podcast. Being a primary care doctor, whenever I chat with my patients about nutrition, about the foods that they're eating, I talk about it and approach it from an individual perspective. What can I do in helping them maybe learn something, maybe take action in

their lives to lower their weight, decrease caloric intake, maybe even caloric burning through exercise and moving more? But you frequently talk about throughout your books, your speeches, how there is potentially an invisible hand that is also playing a role in what we're eating. Is that a correct way of putting that? It's an interesting way of putting it. I mean, I think it's great that you're asking your patients, those questions that's astonishing to me, given what's going on in our health care system. But I'm a public health person, and that's about populations. and so what I'm interested in is looking at the big picture of why I'm very interested in why and why people eat the way they do and when I look at that and let's say I go online and say

why do people eat the way they do I'm fascinated that the kinds of reasons that are given all have to do with personal choice what I like what my family is eating what I grew up eating and so forth, never in any of those sort of lists, is anything about the food industry, as if the food industry didn't exist for the purpose of selling more food, not less. And so I'm interested in how the food industry influences what people eat, because I think it's an enormous, powerful, and largely, as you put, an invisible influence. And one that people are completely unaware of. because they look at the food industry as a benign force,

somebody, or an industry that supplies things we just love to eat. Why is it that the food industry focuses on profits, not from healthier foods, plants, fruits, vegetables, things that would be important to sell and push, but instead puts a focus on selling the junk food of it all? Well, in food industry, as I like to say, They're not social service agencies, food companies, and they're not public health agencies, they're businesses. They have stockholders to please.

And starting in the 1980s, the American stockholders, whatever, decided that profits had to be the absolute first and in a sense the only priority of a company. and that its purpose and its only goal was to make stockholders get richer. And so other considerations, which used to be, you know, there used to be something called blue-chip stocks in which companies gave long, slow returns on investment. But starting in the early 1980s, there was something called the shareholder value movement, which was very powerful, and people bought it. and it says stockholders first, profits above all. So what are the most profitable products?

Unfortunately, they're not fruits, vegetables, whole grains, raw meat, raw chicken, real foods. They're processed foods because you can buy the ingredients for processed foods when the ingredients don't cost much. You can put them on the shelf forever and they last forever. and you can deliberately formulate them to be irresistibly delicious so that people can't stop eating them once they start. And if you're a food company, that's what you want. You want people who are, in a sense, addicted.

I'm going to put it in air quotes because I'm not sure that's the right word for it. But you want people who love these foods so much that they buy them over and over and over and over again. and you want mass volume of people buying those foods. And why do you think that the general public is unaware of this influence from food industry? Well, because they don't want you to know it. So it's much easier for the food industry to use the tobacco industry playbook. And again, food is not tobacco.

Tobacco, one product, one message, don't smoke. Food is much more complicated. We have to eat to live. so it's eat this not that or eat more of my product in general and that's where the problem comes in so you don't see that because the food industry like the tobacco industry the chemical industry the oil industry and everybody else blames everything on personal responsibility if you're fat or sick from what you're eating it's your fault you know why don't you exercise your personal responsibility and make wiser choices. We're not holding a gun up to your head

forcing you to eat our products. They're there. It's your choice whether to choose them or not. Never mind that we put hundreds of millions of dollars into marketing them to you in ways that you don't notice because you're not supposed to. The typical advertising campaign from a soda company, from a fast food company, is very clear in how they're trying to exert influence. Are there other ways behind the scenes that these food companies are also exerting influence? I don't think it's so clear that advertising is supposed to exert influence. I think advertising is designed to look entertaining. You know, it's very carefully worked out. I mean, enormous research goes into how advertising and marketing is done. And as was explained to me

once by an advertising executive, if it's done well, it slips below the radar of critical thinking. You're not supposed to look at some famous athlete or musician singing or performing on a commercial and think, they're trying to get me to buy their product. You're supposed to look at that and think, oh, I want to be just like them. So I think, so I think, I think, so I think, I I think, you know, just to start with that. But also, I would say that advertising is only the most visible of the ways in which food companies exert influence. And what you're really asking about is the less visible ways,

which is the lobbying, the donation to election campaigns, the dozens of people that companies hire and pay very, very nicely, to go to Congress and talk to congressional representatives, about not voting for something that's likely to reduce profits and voting for things that are likely to make it easier for them to market their products. And you don't see the amount of money that food companies are spending on research to get responses to that research that they can use in advertising to convince you that their products are healthy whether or not they are.

Yeah, like it reminds me of the low-fat movement. Ah, yes. Where they started labeling things low fat by making it taste better by throwing a ton of sugar into it. Right. Is that like an example of that? Well, that's a different kind of thing. That's taking advantage of regulatory way of the way that, because we, excuse me, we have a regulatory system for food labels that is nutrient-based.

It's not food-based. It's about nutrients. How is that different? Well, let's take school food, for example, which is an easier example. You could organize a school food program and say that every day children must have a certain number of servings of fruits and vegetables, a certain number of servings of grains, a certain number of servings of some protein-rich food like beans or meat or dairy or whatever, fish or whatever. but instead the school food rules are about salt, sugar, and fat. So food companies love this because if you say you cannot have more than six grams of sugar, of added sugar to flavored milk, the food companies can reduce the amount of sugar

so that they're allowed to have flavored milk in schools. They're very good at that. Or they can change the ingredients so it's not added sugar, it's just a naturally occurring sugar. Oh, you're good at this. Well, with the whole nitrates not being added, but then celery root powder being thrown in is like the classic example of that. There are many examples just like that. And they make sense if you think the purpose of a food company is to sell more food, not less. Now, as an eater in that situation, you're fighting an entire food system on your own if you're trying to eat healthfully.

that's a lot to put on one individual. No wonder people have so much trouble with it. From the legislative lobbying efforts, is there a specific example that we can better wrap our minds around how they influence our food choices? Has there ever been one that stands out to you? Well, there isn't anything where they don't. I would say dietary guidelines are a good starting position.

Dietary guidelines are, you know, they started out in 19, 1980 with seven very short recommendations, eat less sugar, eat less saturated fat, eat less salt, eat less. And then there was an attempt to get them to say eat less meat. But you can't do that because the meat industry lobbies against it. So they substituted saturated fat, which is a euphemism for meat. But you're supposed to know that that's what that means. And it doesn't. And now dietary guidelines are 150. pages. Many, many, many, many, many, many, many computer screens. Nobody can read them. Nobody can understand them. The guidelines have gotten longer and longer and longer and more complicated. Is this one of these examples where they can't outright lie to you, but they can confuse you by giving you more information? Well, I think that's a perfect example. I mean, if I were going to write dietary guidelines, I'm fond of quoting Michael Pollan, if that's all right. You know, The dietary guidelines are so simple that he could do it in seven words.

Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. You know, it's really not any more complicated than that. You have to break it down a little bit. By food, he means relatively unprocessed foods, but not totally unprocessed, but relatively unprocessed. So whole foods. Eating plants is pretty simple. Fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, and so forth.

And not too much means balance. in calories. I mean, it's not any more complicated than that. And if you follow that advice, that leaves you enormous amounts of room. With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot trackside. So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Pre-sale tickets for future events subject to availability and varied by race. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at MX.ca.com. is an eight-episode Hulu original limited series that blends gripping pacing with emotional complexity, offering a dramatized look as it revisits the wrongful conviction of Amanda Knox for the tragic murder of Meredith Kircher and the relentless media storm that followed.

The twisted tale of Amanda Knox is now streaming only on Disney Plus. Did you lock the front door? Check. Close the garage door? Installed window sensors, smoke sensors, and HD cameras with night vision? No. And you set up credit card transaction alerts, a secure VPN for a private connection, and continuous monitoring for our personal info on the dark web. Uh, I'm looking into it.

Stress less about security. Choose security solutions from TELUS for peace of mind at home and online. Visit tellus.com slash total security to learn more. Conditions apply. Calling all book lovers. The Toronto International Festival of Authors brings you a world of world. stories all in one place. Discover five days of readings, talks, workshops and more with over 100 authors from around the world, including Rachel Maddow, Ketourou Isaku, and Kieran Desai.

The Toronto International Festival of Authors, October 29th to November 2nd. Details and tickets at festivalofauthors.ca. This episode is brought to you by Square. You're not just running a restaurant, you're building something big and Square's there for all of it, giving your customers more ways to order, whether that's in person with Square kiosk or online, instant access to your sales, plus the funding you need to go even bigger, and real-time insights so you know what's working, what's not, and what's next. Because when you're doing big things, your tools should to. Visit square.ca. To create delicious meals, food is one of life's greatest pleasures. I never

want to forget that. You know, I get to do it several times a day. It's great. And it's perfectly possible to eat deliciously and healthfully and follow those guidelines, but they don't make any money for food companies. Right. How does one understand what the word processed versus ultra process mean, if you could break that down to the general listener? Ultra process is a new concept in nutrition, and it's a very important one, I think. One of the most important, it's the most important nutrition concept to come along since vitamins, in my view. It was something that was dreamed up by a public health professor at the University of San Paolo in Brazil, and he divided what he did that was so clever was to divide foods into four categories based on the level of processing.

So there's unprocessed foods. Those would be an apple pulled off a tree or corn on the cob, that kind of thing. Then there are processed culinary ingredients. That's category two. And that includes things like salad oil, sugar, salt, added fats, butter, that sort of thing. Flavorings? Well, it's more than flavorings. It's things that you cook with. And then there's the third category, which are processed foods. And most of the foods we eat. or processed in some way. They're cut up, they're chopped, they're frozen, they're canned. Right. And then, so those are foods. And then there's the fourth category, which is ultra-processed. This is the one you're concerned about, because these are usually unprocessed or processed foods to which processed culinary ingredients are added along with color, flavor, and texture additives. and the easiest way to explain it is to look at corn. Corn on the cob is unprocessed, frozen corn or canned corn is processed, and Dorito chips are ultra-processed.

And as an operating definition, ultra-processed foods are food you can't make in your home kitchen because you don't have the machinery because they're industrially produced. You can't make them. They're industrially produced. they have ingredients that you don't have available to you in supermarkets. They're professional ingredients. And they're designed specifically to be absolutely irresistible. So that once you start eating them, you can't stop.

There was that old Bert Lard commercial holding up Frito Lay potato chips saying, you can't eat just one. That's what they're trying to do. and maybe 60% of the foods in American diets are considered to be ultra-processed and some enormous percentage of foods in the center aisles of supermarkets and you care about them because of the absolutely breathtaking amount of research that's come out just in the last few years demonstrating that people whose diets have a lot of ultra-processed foods

generally have poorer health. They have more chronic disease. They're more obese, more type 2 diabetes, more coronary heart disease. Worse outcome from COVID-19, worse overall mortality. Those are all from what are called correlational studies where they associate ultra-processed foods with these bad outcomes. And they're observational studies. So they prove association, but they cannot prove causation. But in this particular case, we have one study, oh, but it's a very good one, that was very carefully controlled done in a locked metabolic ward where nobody could lie or cheat.

That shows that when people are fed ultra-processed diets as opposed to processed or minimally processed diets, they eat an astonishingly more calories a day, 500 calories a day more. on average, and don't realize it. Right. Absolutely don't realize it. And this study, which I think is one of the most important nutrition studies ever done, because it was done so carefully, and because the investigator absolutely did not think this would happen. The investigator set out to prove that the idea that food processing makes any difference is completely ridiculous. That was his purpose.

and to his enormous surprise, shock, his study subjects ate 500 calories a day more. 500 calories a day is huge. Yeah, in a week, that's a pound. That's a pound a week, and his subjects gained a pound a week. Yeah, we actually talked about that research on this channel, and what I find interesting about ultra-processed foods is in the social media sphere with food influencers, food bloggers, they're quick to point out particular nutrients within ultra-processed foods as being problematic or dangerous, when to me, as a primary care physician,

the reality is because they're so tasty, because they're so non-filling, because they lack actual nutritious value, you end up consuming a lot of extra calories without a lot of valuable nutrition. That's why they're harmful. Looking for those specific ingredients that are actually causing the problem is almost superfluous in this situation. Do you agree with that? Oh, absolutely, because the issue is they make you eat more. And that accounts for a lot of the problems that occur. And the investigators, who are very good investigators, are trying to figure out why.

Is it because these foods are hyper-palatable? Is it because they're predigested? And so they go down really quickly, and they raise your insulin levels and cause all kinds of problems like that. They're trying to figure that out. It's all those things, though. In reality, it's multifactorial.

Probably all those things. So, you know, to me, that one experiment was sufficient combined with the 1,500, at least 1,500 studies that link ultra-processed foods to poor health outcome are enough to say, you know, if you're going to eat a healthy diet, don't eat too much ultra-possus food. Why are our food guidelines so terrible? I think of the food pyramid back in the day and how terrible guidance that was. Oh, I like the food pyramid. We actually did a video on how confusing the food pyramid was in terms of guiding people.

And the research or at least initial research that I found was that it surrounded food lobby interests in changing the guidelines. Is that true or is that a non-biased report? I go back way, I go way back on the food pyramid. What was impressive about the food pyramid, which showed meat at the top of the pyramid and then dairy. products and then fruits and vegetables and then grains at the bottom and it was shaped like it's a triangle not a pyramid but the it was based on an extraordinary amount of research to make sure that the number of servings would give people the nutrients that they needed but also it was consumer tested and the message that you were supposed to eat more of the foods from the bottom

than from the top was conveyed by that design better than any other design that they tested the meat industry hated it its products were at the top of the pyramid and I think nutritionists were very concerned at the bottom of the pyramid which was the grain area it said six to 11 servings a day which just seemed enormous

unless you realized how small those servings were and there are people who think that because the grains were at the bottom and people were eating 11 grain servings a day not that I think anybody follows dietary guidance. You know, there was an enormous weight gain that occurred after the pyramid occurred in 1990, came out in 1992, and the prevalence of obesity had already started its very sharp rise

in the 10 years before, and it continued for the next 10 years quite sharply and now has leveled off to some extent. But I thought it was far better than the plate, which is the current. food guide. And in part because it had a real research basis and because it indicated that eating a lot of animal foods was probably not the best thing for you to do. When there were a group of nutritionists who met with people at the White House during the Obama administration, and we advised them to flip the fruits and vegetables and the grains and use that as a food guide, but they didn't pay any attention to us. Well, the concern is that people say if you eat a lot of bread

products, that could be a shortcut to development of metabolic conditions, diabetes, etc. Because there are a lot of calories. Yeah. A lot of calories. So yes, that's why we thought flipping the two bottom ones would make sense. But the issue of animal foods versus plant foods has become very important because of climate change because animal foods are so much more responsible. Ruminant animals are responsible for so much greenhouse gas emission. So that's a big issue these days as part of it. And nobody's come up with a better food guide in my view. As far as the government is concerned, they put out these guidelines that say, you know, your plate should be 50% fruits, vegetables, whatever the guidance is at the moment. And then

their subsidies don't follow that own guidance can you talk a little bit about that they do exactly the opposite so it's almost they're not following their own food plate yeah i once saw of you know the the department of agriculture subsidy pyramid it's quite it's quite different from what the old pyramid looked like um you know the government subsidizes two things the feed for animals and fuel for automobiles. If you look at corn production in the United States, almost half of it is used for animal feed and the other half is used for alcohol, for automobiles.

There's a tiny little fraction, maybe 10%, I'm not sure what it is. It's getting smaller all the time. That is used for industrial uses of corn and corn as food for people. I think we need agriculture. system that is aimed at public health and is aimed, and that would be food for people, not food feed for animals. Well, okay, animals are food for people indirectly, but we would all

be better off probably eating less of animal foods, not no animal foods, but less. What do you think needs to change from a systemic level, whether it's legislative, should we ban lobbying from food groups? Should it be changing the the subsidies, what is like, where do we get the biggest bang for our buck? We have to take money out of politics. Number one, you want to change the food system, you've got to overturn citizens united, the Supreme Court decision that allowed unlimited corporate money in politics.

You have to put, you have to have a level playing field so that poor people can run for office, and there can be people who run for office who are actually interested in public health rather than corporate, health? That's just for starters. We have to change Wall Street so that Wall Street does what some business leaders have been trying to do for a long time, which is to get corporations to reward all of their stockholders, all of their, the people who have a stake in their business. That means members of the community, consumers, as well as stockholders. And we have

something called a B corporation in which the stockholders have voted to allow social issues to be part of what the corporations do. But there are hardly any large corporations that have become B corporations. It's mostly for little ones that are trying to change the system more power to them. Who do you think is hurt most by our current state of food guidance? People don't have any money. Why is that? Oh, because they don't have any money. They can't. buy healthy food. Healthy food costs more. We're in an inflationary time right now, and the cost of all foods have gone up, but the costs of fruits, vegetables, grains, whole foods, has gone up much higher than the cost of processed foods. Ultra-processed foods, the cost have gone up, but less,

considerably less. And so when poor people say, we can't afford to buy free food, you. We can't afford to buy fruits and vegetables, we're going to have to throw out part of them. They're perishable. We can't keep them. They're more expensive. They are more expensive. That's a true observation. Do you think those companies are also targeting

poor people with advertising more? Which companies? The food companies? The junk food companies? Oh, of course they are. What evidence do we have of that? We have studies that show. We have research reports that look at the amount of money that's being

spent on food marketing and where that marketing is targeted and show very clearly that it's targeted at black and Hispanic communities, low-income communities, kids. I mean, let's talk about marketing to children because I think that's the most egregious thing. And, you know, I remember I was invited during the Obama era to a meeting at the White House on food marketing to children. Mrs. Obama ran it. And it was, you know, she gave a very eloquent speech at that meeting telling food companies that they really had to back off on marketing. Children was unethical. It was not helping kids' health. Children are becoming obese in a way that they never used to be.

And this really needs to change. And afterwards, we broke into smaller groups and met for non-quotable discussions. and they were supposed to be very frank discussions about the issue and a food industry executive who I won't name said very clearly I wish we could stop marketing to children I don't think it's ethical I wish we didn't have to do it but our stockholders won't let us stop because that's where their profits are you know and when I'm at my most cynical I try not to be cynical but when I'm at my most cynical, I asked the question, who would benefit? What corporate entities would

benefit if people ate healthfully? And I'm very hard pressed to think of any, except not-for-profit HMOs, health maintenance organizations, and there are very few of those in the United States. But they're the only corporate entity that I can think of, and they're not-for-profit. But once you're into a profit mode, your job is to make more profit. And if there's one message to get across, eating less is terrible for business. That's why they're frantic. These companies are frantic about the new obesity drugs. Nestle, no relation is coming out with a line of products aimed at people who are taking the obesity drugs. You read in the paper every day about how worried they are, that people are going to eat less. This is not going to be good for business.

During the Volvo Fall Experience event, discover exceptional offers and thoughtful design that leaves plenty of room for autumn adventures. And see for yourself how Volvo's legendary safety brings peace of mind to every crisp morning commute. This September, Lisa 2026 X-E-90 plug-in hybrid from $599 bi-weekly at 3.99% during the Volvo Fall Experience event. Conditions supply, visit your local Volvo retailer or go to explorevolvo.com. Oh, this is it, the day you finally ask for that big promotion. You're in front of your mirror with your Starbucks coffee. Be confident, assertive, remember eye contact, but also remember to blink.

Smile, but not too much, that's weird. What if you aren't any good at your job? What if they dim out you instead? Okay, don't be silly. You're smart, you're driven, you're going to be late if you keep talking to the mirror. This promotion is yours. Go get them.

Starbucks, it's never just coffee. This episode is brought to you by MewMuMu. Introducing Mutein, the new feminine fragrance by the iconic fashion house. Mutein captures the youthful, unconventional essence of the Mew-Mew Girl, brought to life by a gourmand, intimate and enveloping scent of wild strawberry

and brown sugar accords. Mutine is not a statement, but a knowing glance, a sweet rebellion, lighthearted and laced with wit, a gesture made for oneself. Discover the new fragrance, Mutine, now available in Canada. Summer's here, and you can now get almost anything you need for your sunny days delivered with Uber Eats. What do we mean by almost? Well, you can't get a well-groom lawn delivered, but you can get a chicken parmesan delivered. A cabana? That's a no, but a banana, that's a yes.

A nice tan, sorry, nope. But a box fan, happily yes. A day of sunshine? No. A box of fine wines? Yes. Uber Eats can definitely get you that. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by Regency app for details. Reading, playing, learning. Stellist lenses do more than just correct your child's vision. They slow down the progression of myopia. So your child can continue to discover all the world has to offer through their own eyes. Light the path to a brighter future with Stellist lenses for myopia control.

Learn more at SLR.com and ask your family eye care professional for SLR Stellist lenses at your child's next visit. Do you think that it's a problem that they've shifted their model to the GLP1 agonist branding or maybe even the artificial sweetener branding? Do you have any concerns that they're going in that route or do you think overall that's a positive? route? Oh, I think it's an enormous problem. Monetizing? I mean, everything gets monetized. So how can we look at the GLP1 drugs as a business opportunity? That's what they're looking at. And this is nothing to do with public health. If they were interested in public health, they would sell healthier food. And we would all be better off for it. But they're caught in a business environment in which they not only have to make a profit, and I'm not against profits. I'm

really not. But they have to grow their profits. And every company that's making food can't grow their profits because we already have twice as much food available in the United States as the population needs on average. We have 4,000 calories available every single day for every single individual in the United States, regardless of age or activity level, elderly, sedentary people and little tiny babies have 4,000 calories worth of food available to them and need half that much on average. So here's a food company. If you're in a food company, you've got a problem. You've got to sell your product in an environment in which there's twice as much food available as anybody needs or you hope wants.

And so in order to deal with that problem, you've got to get people either to pay more for your product. Ooh, that's not so easy to do. We're very used to cheap food in this country. Pretty hard to raise prices without getting everybody very upset. So you can get people to pay more, or you can get people to buy your product instead of some somebody else's, a lot of effort goes into that, or you can get people to eat more in general.

And therein lies the problem. Right. So they take option three, which is a big, big problem. A big problem. What's your take on almost the harsh irony of the fact that 500, 600 years ago, those who were wealthiest, royalty perhaps, used to be overweight because they had unlimited food at their disposal, and those who were poorest were having malnutrition due to a lack of food, that now in the United States, it's kind of flipped. And those who are poorer are being

targeted by these companies, abundance of junk food, difficult to access quality foods through food deserts. They're now carrying more weight. Almost like if you take someone from, you know, 500 years ago and you put them in a time machine now, they think everyone on the streets is royalty. Isn't that ironic? It's totally ironic and very sad. And the reasons for it are pretty well, known. This is cheap food. And not only is it cheap food, but it's cheap food that's marketed directly to people who can least afford to be ill because we don't have a health care system in this country. I mean, not one that anybody thinks functions very well. I can't even make the health care system work for me. And I know something about this. Right, right. Do you think

that the food companies, like what strategies are the food companies using to reach kids these days that you feel is unethical? Because I've heard you speak about them in certain... Oh, social media. Social media. Absolutely. Social media. Games, toys, influencers. They pay influencers.

They pay five-year-old influencers. In every way in which social media can be exploited, they're using it. did you read the article i believe it was in the wall street journal or maybe washington no washington post that talked about how food influencers are pushing eat what you like and are being paid and subsidized by the food industry to push that it's okay if you're consuming excess calories like be you have you seen that happen oh i certainly have yeah what's your take on that Well, I think it's unfortunate, and the Dietetic Association should really have some kind of ethical standards for what dietitians with credentials can say.

I mean, we live in a country in which the First Amendment is taken very seriously by the courts, and I don't, you know, people can say whatever they want to. But I think people need to be held accountable for the kinds of advice that they're giving and to tell people, that it doesn't matter how much they weigh may play into people's concerns about stigmatism, which is horrible and really needs to stop. But there's no question that being overweight is a risk factor for chronic disease.

I mean, there's so much evidence that shows that to deny that seems to me to deny an obvious fact, and that gets us into the whole, question is of whether you believe in facts or not or whether there are alternative facts. And I think that the idea that we in America have facts and alternative facts is extremely unfortunate and divides us terribly. I think that's definitely a worldwide problem. I mean, I'm seeing it across the board in Europe as well. You know, for me, the trouble I've run into

across social media is I'll make content about the importance of losing weight, of not being in a morbidly obese category. And I faced harsh criticism from the general public, maybe not all of them, maybe not even the majority of them, but a loud enough minority where they label doctors as fatphobic or problematic because they're encouraging weight loss.

So they talk about bariatric procedures or GLP1 agonists. And the way that I think about it is, if you're saying this from a position of someone who's faced weight-related stigma, I understand at least why you're saying that. But if you're now being paid to level that criticism at me, boy, are you a bad person?

Because you're now leveraging the pain of that person and the struggle of that person to raise up their voice to be mad at doctors who are recommending weight loss. Yeah, I have a lot of sympathy for people who are overweight and having a terrible time losing it. Human physiology was not set up to make it easy to lose weight. just like you're fighting the whole food system

a $2 trillion a year business if you're trying to eat healthfully if you're trying to lose weight you're fighting your own physiology and it's very difficult some people can do it more easily than others there's no question than that but the vast majority of people 70% of American adults are overweight

and 30% of children or something like that I don't know if those figures are accurate, but they're generally descriptive. And, you know, those of us who grew up in a different era or had kids in a different era, look at our kids' class pictures and can't believe the difference in the way kids look. The kids 30 years ago were skinny. 50 years ago, they were really skinny. And now they're not.

So to not recognize those realities is very difficult. at the same time, you don't want to do anything that's going to promote further stigma because it's so horrible for people to live with when they've struggled all their lives. And I think the struggles are real. I don't think there's any question about that, that if you're somebody who is unlucky enough not to be able to lose weight easily, it's very difficult. I mean, I talk to people this week who are on the new drugs, they've lost 50 pounds, 70 pounds, 80 pounds.

I mean, their lives are changing. And this is a whole different experience. And doctors have to work with... You're a doctor, you're working with individuals. And it's very different to talk about what individuals should do because it depends on what that individual person is like. But from a population standpoint, having 70%... percent of the population overweight is not good yeah it's not normal either and people

it is very well that's the thing it's normal if you consider that them being the majority you could say it's normal the way that i use the term normal and i've also kind of gotten in trouble with it is we're very pathology phobic as a society because we're worried rightfully so about creating stigma against people who have a medical condition or even a psychological condition in this scenario, if you're carrying that much excess weight, this is a pathology. Whether you want to say it's normal for the society is one thing, but medically it's not normal. It's not the norm for our bodies. Our bodies are not meant to carry that much obesity for our hearts, for our joints, for our brains, for cancer risk, all those things skyrocket when someone has a BMI over 3540.

Yeah, I would say the risk for that skyrockets. You know, I have to be very careful. with words in this, as I've learned, you know, because I've had the same experience you have. I talk about obesity as a risk factor for chronic disease, and I'm told that's racist, it's sexist, and it's inappropriate, and that makes it very difficult to talk about the realities. Risk, and we're not very mathematically inclined in the United States, and so probability estimates are difficult for a lot of people. And risk is a question of probability. It's not a 100% guarantee that every single person who is overweight is going to have problems. Of course. It just, they have a higher probability of having those problems than somebody who was not

heavily overweight. So that's hard for people to talk about. And I understand that. But the reality is that it's a risk factor. And the reality is that they're facing social stigma that is unfair they're up against this trillion dollar industry that's actively trying to influence them in ways that they see might not see and definitely don't see on the congressional lobbying level and it's not fair like they're they're a complete disadvantage it's like someone you know fighting someone with their fists when they have a big weapon you know it's they're gonna it's like almost a losing battle for them well and there's no support right which is the other who gets feedback to the health care system again. There's no support for trying to deal with it. And that's why people are

looking at these new GLP1 drugs as something that is just going to change society. I hope they do. Yeah. Now that I feel like with social media, one of the benefits of social media that actually Jonathan Haidt and I argue a little bit about, I think folks are starting to wake up to the notion of this food lobbying industry, the fact that they're tricking us, they're talking about it, they're understanding it at least to some initial degree. And I feel like the food companies are sensing this and are now shifting their budgets to other nations, other continents, where they still feel like they can influence people because they're not as aware. Is that true? Well, I think sales of a lot of junk foods are down in the United States. If you look at sodas,

for example, the peak year for consumption of full sugar Coke and Pepsi was 1999, and it's declined ever since. It's got a long way to go, but it's declined. And so if you can't sell it here, sell it there, and move your marketing over to low-resourced countries where populations have a little money and they're maybe rising in economic status, and they can afford to buy these Western products that have a lot of cachet and health aura or some kind of aura, and absolutely that's happening. And a lot of people are really worried about it because as the people in these populations switch from real foods to ultra-processed foods, the consequences are immediate and obvious.

And so there are countries in Latin America, for example, that look at the United States and say, oh, we just can't have that level of obesity across our society, because if we do, we won't be able to pay for it. We can't care for people, for that many people with type 2 diabetes. We don't have enough money to supply insulin to people with that level. For that many people with diabetes, we've got to do something. And so they're putting warning labels on ultra-processed foods. They're having marketing restrictions. They're restrictions. They're restricting the kinds of foods that can be offered in schools. They're trying in every way in which they can dream up a policy and try a policy to try to help people to eat more healthfully and to make it easier for people to make healthier choices.

I wish we were doing that. I know. I went to El Salvador for some medical work just before the pandemic. and I remember giving a speech to their nationwide media and looking at their top ten causes of death and seeing that despite them being labeled as underdeveloped in terms of medical access, that we were all dying of the same things.

Right. The junk food, the processed food, leading to heart disease, it's all the same thing. Whereas before the issue in countries like that was malnutrition from under-eating. Now it's malnutrition from overeating these harsh junk foods. Well, actually, they still have both in these low-resource.

countries. And this presents just an enormous problem for governments of how they're going to deal with it when health care is as expensive as it is and as non-existent as it is. I keep coming back to that because it's crucial to developing a healthy society to have that kind of support for people who need it. Do you think from a government level there should be other checks of balance is incorporated, like with EBT and food stamps, do you think we should more thoroughly regulate what people are purchasing? Should they not purchase junk food? Should they only purchase whole foods? Or is that something that's unethical or not advisable? Well, we have a food assistance program that does that, and that's the women infants and children program, in which the people

who are eligible, women and children who are eligible for that program. I fill out these forms all the time. They have a choice of foods and all of those foods are supposed to be healthy. With SNAP, which is a far bigger program and reaches a far greater population, they basically get to

get anything to use their government benefits by anything they want. And I wrote a book about sugar sweetened beverages, which I think is the first place where you start. If you're going to stop ultra-processed foods,

start with sugar-sweetened beverages. They have no redeeming nutritional value. They have way too much sugar, and you're getting that sugar down into your digestive tract way too quickly for the health of your metabolic system. So that's where I would start. And all attempts to try to have pilot projects with the Department of Agriculture have been stopped.

There's something in the Farm Bill now where it's interesting, saying that the republic this is one of the difficulties with this is this is a republican versus democratic issue and the republicans want restrictions on what snap recipients can buy and that puts the democrats in a very awkward position a lot of people feel that it's condescending to make decisions about what snap participants can buy i'd like to see a few pilot projects to see because I've been told by SNAP recipients repeatedly that they would welcome some kind of restrictions because it would make it easier for them to make decisions. And then if they wanted to buy sugar, sweetened beverages, they could do so with their own money. But this would act as an

inhibitor on that. And they would welcome help with that. I'm sure not everybody feels that way. what's your take on if all sugar sweetened beverages sodas all went to artificial sweeteners would you consider that a win no why artificial sweeteners make me uncomfortable why they're chemicals we don't know how to metabolize them we don't know what they do an increasing amount of research is linking them to health problems one after another study and one after another artificial sweetener. I don't think they taste good. So they go under, you know, they're not on my dietary radar because I don't need anything artificial if I can avoid it.

And I don't know enough about what they do. The studies are absolutely impossible. You can't lock people up in a locked metabolic ward for the 10 years or so it would take to decide whether feeding them one sweetener or an, another had one effect or another, the research is impossible. You're never going to get the kinds of clear, unambiguous results that you really want. And this is a public experiment, and we don't know how it's going to come out. I feel like there's been some decent research showing that

by swapping off a true sugar soda to an artificial sweetener beverage, Because you're going to be consuming less calories, you would be losing weight. And isn't that benefit alone a worthwhile venture? It would be an individual, let's say, when I'm working with the... It would be nice if it worked. And it works in some individuals. But if you look at the research as a whole, it shows that people easily compensate for those calories by eating other things, and it has essentially no effect on body weight, except

in a small subset of the population. and that's again population level research. Individuals, yes, populations it hasn't shown anything. So without clear evidence of benefit and with uncomfortable questions of potential risk, I tend to be cautious. I prefer the precautionary principle. This is a philosophical issue.

Of course, yeah. The philosophical issue is do you wait until there is research showing harm before you make a decision, or do you take precautions if you're concerned, concerned about it and don't have the clear evidence for no harm that you're looking for. I tend to err on the side of precaution. That's just me. Yeah, and everyone will have a different line that they set of where it's time to make that distinction or change. Yeah, I don't eat artificial things with artificial sweeteners in them. They're an index of ultra-processing. They're junk food

by definition. And I don't think they taste good. I don't like the way they taste. What about foods that mimic meats but are plant-based. Oh, they're amazing. Absolutely amazing. Again, I don't eat anything artificial. I think if you don't want to eat meat, that's fine. You don't need a substitute. You know, again, one of my food rules is don't eat anything artificial.

So they're off my radar. I mean, I've tasted them. I know what they taste like. And I've had people tell me, I'm so glad. that we now have these products because now I can take my kid to McDonald's. What a win. Well, it's, you know, and for them, it's a win. Well, if it helps drive change, like a nicotine patch, if it helps them get off the cigarettes,

like we all talked about vaping as being a tool for getting people off of smoking, that's great. But if now we're getting young kids hooked on vaping and then they move up to smoking, it's a failure. So if those foods end up being a bridge to getting less animal products in your diet, maybe that is a win. Well, that's the argument. That would be a win. The jury's still out. Right. I wait and see. I mean, there are big arguments in the literature about how much they reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Some people feel, and I, you know, Peter Singer, who the animal ethicist, feels that anything that reduces the killing of animals is a good thing. and so he doesn't care how ultra-processed they are. He thinks they're a good thing. I think the jury is still out. And as I said, they're off my dietary radar. If I want to eat meat, I'll eat meat. If I don't want to eat meat, I won't. There are plenty of other foods that will replace those nutrients.

The white chocolate macadamia cream cold burb from Starbucks is made just the way you like it. Handcrafted cold foam topped with toasted cookie crumble. It's a sweet summer twist on ice ice cream. coffee. Your cold brew is ready at Starbucks. Bank more oncours when you switch to a Scotia Bank banking package. Learn more at scotia bank.com slash banking packages. Conditions apply. Scotia Bank, you're richer than you think. How would it less time with the

to have to bring and for your life podcast to have. With the Riva Abhol service get that.

Bestell your your own online and hold him bequeem and ready-gaped in market up,

naturally only minimum best bestel worth. So, be more time for the next podcast follow or

your newels tracks. Now try to be at Rue slash shop or in the Reve app

your appell service online bestel, the market upholing. The Olympics are coming up. There's an Olympic gold medalist.

They get approached with a soda sponsorship. What should they say? No. They should say no. Why? Isn't it wonderful? I'm in the position where I can say that. Well, why?

Why? So me. I'm an athlete. I have tenure at a university. I get to say anything I want and I don't need the money. So I'm in a very privileged position from making pronouncements like this. that I'm well aware of it. I think for an athlete who is a role model for young people to partner with a sugar-sweetened beverages

is not saying, I drink these things and you should too. I feel the same way about school food. If you have these kinds of foods in schools, you are telling children that this is what it's okay to eat. You're setting an example of what is appropriate and desirable for health in society. And for, you know, a famous athlete to partner with Coke or Pepsi, I don't think so.

It sends the wrong message to the community. You know, when Beyonce partnered with Pepsi Cola, I was very concerned about it. You know, somebody as important as, I hope Taylor's Swift won't do that. What about in the past, some of the guidelines that were being put forth from an agriculture standpoint were actually influenced so heavily by some of these industry leaders or lobbyists where they removed certain words like sustainable.

Tell me about that one example. That one stands out to me. That's the S word. I know. Never to be said in polite society. when the this was a couple of dietary guidelines ago the I think it was the 2015 ones the committee that the scientific advisory committee that writes a big research report and then it gives it to the agencies and they write the dietary guidelines the committee said in it that the meat recommendation was based not only on the health consequences of meat production, but also on the environmental consequences, and that they thought it was very important to have a food system that was not only healthy but sustainable.

And the meat industry got very upset, and they went to Congress, and Congress wrote in a report from the Agricultural Appropriations Committee, a paragraph that instructed the Department of Agriculture not to consider sustainability in the dietary guidelines. They were forbidden to do that. And you look at the dietary of the 2015 dietary guidelines. The word sustainability does not appear in them. And that was strictly because of the meat industry lobbying. Oh, meat industry lobbying.

No question about it. And then in the subsequent guidelines that was off the table to begin with, and in the current dietary guidelines advisory committee, the Department of Agriculture and Health and Human Services announced that they would not consider sustainability as part of the dietary guidelines. The committee was not to do that, and that they would consider sustainability in some other way yet to happen. I have seen no evidence that they're working on it.

I have heard that the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee is talking about sustainability. They might do it anyway. I don't know. We'll see. But the advisory committee is advisory. nobody has to take their advice. And this is interesting to me because I was on the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee in 1995. And at that time, our committee chose the research questions, decided what research questions we were going to look at,

wrote the research report, and wrote the dietary guidelines. We did the whole thing. The agencies made a little editorial changes. did the design, they tweaked it a little bit, but basically we wrote that report. That changed in 25 or 10, I can't remember which one, under Bush 2, when it was switched from the committee writing the guidelines to the agencies writing the guidelines. So at that point, the dietary guidelines advisory committee became strictly advisory. agencies don't have to listen yeah you know and now the agencies write the research questions the committee doesn't even

choose the research questions they just do the research i as a family medicine physician have largely been outspoken on saying that supplements are not necessary for folks i've turned down huge sums of money to promote them on this channel i am very skeptical when anyone introduces them says there's a huge need, there is a miracle potion, that's been actually the main reason why I started the channel to fight back against all of that. Do you feel like there's a nutritional gap in our current society where we need to be taking supplements or what's your general stance on them? Well, my general stance is yours. And what fascinates me about supplements, I mean, they're amazing, is that 70% of the American population, adult population, takes

supplements. And they take supplements because they feel that their diets are not adequate, despite an astonishing amount of evidence that the single most important problem in the American diet is too many calories. And despite the most astonishing lack of evidence that vitamin, mineral, herbal, and whatever supplements make healthy people healthier, the people who take them, I mean, one of the great ironies is the people who take supplements are the people who need them least. They're the ones who are healthiest. The people who might benefit from supplements don't buy them because they cost too much or they don't know that they're supposed to or they haven't had, you know, if you're vitamin deficient a supplement is

really helpful. Iron supplements are really helpful for young babies. But beyond that, once you start getting into the shelves full of these astonishing products, all of them in gummy candy form these days. I love going to supermarkets. It's looking at supplements. It's so much fun. What makes you want to pull your hair out at the supermarket the most? Supplements. Yeah. Supplements, health claims, and just all the junk food. The astonishing amounts. And the shelf space of where they put them? Oh, well that I mean, yeah. I mean, remember

supermarkets are in the business of making money and they make money a big chunk of it because companies pay them to put the products in certain places in the store where they're most likely to be seen. The entire purpose of the supermarket is to get you to stay in it

as long as possible and to do as much walking up and down the aisles as you can. Terrific for your exercise regime. I'm I'm for it. I'm for it. But the more products you see, the more you buy. I mean, absolute rule of supermarkets. The more they're in front of you, the more you buy. The ends of the aisles are called end caps. There is a reason why every single product near a cash register is there. Somebody paid to put it there. If you look, even the checkout, the self-checkout

counters have products right next to them somebody is paid that store to put that product there because the chances of you're buying it are greater the object of the game is to get you to put as much stuff in your card as possible right what um you mentioned earlier the glp one agonist the medications that hopefully will uh at least put a dent in our current overweight problem what's your gut feeling on them as a whole? Again, I think the jury's out. I've heard very different kinds of things. I've had people tell me, I took GLP, one, I've lost all this weight, my metabolic problems have resolved. I'm a completely different person. I feel so much better. I can do this. I can do that that I couldn't do before. As far as I'm concerned, these things were miracle drugs. I've had people say to me,

I took these things, I tried, they made me so sick, I couldn't bear them, I had to stop taking them right away. And I've heard people say in between things. This is an individual problem, and, you know, I think the drugs will get better. I don't even want to talk about how much they cost. But I think the costs will go down, the drugs will get better, insurance companies will have to pay for them, Medicare and Medicaid will have to pay for them. This is going to happen. but the jury is still out on what the long-term effects are and what happens when people are taking these for long periods of time I've seen contradictory research on what happens when you stop taking them

some of the research says everybody gains weight some of the research says there's a group of people don't gain weight and they're able to keep it off I think we have to wait and see how that comes for many people these are a lifeline Yeah. So I don't know what's going to happen to people who lose vast amounts of weight on it. What are they going to do about all their skin? It's a good question.

Although I'm sure it's a better problem to have more loose skin than more heart problems. Well, yes. Or more kidney problems. Or more psychological problems. Or more of all the other problems, one after another after another that are being demonstrated as resolving because people are taking these drugs. So I'm ordinarily not a you should take drug kind of person, but I'm trying to stay as open-minded as I can about these. Given your wisdom and experience in the food industry space, from a philosophical standpoint, what's your take on the fact that technology, advancements, things that have been good, have now also created almost like a homeostasis, negative feedback mechanism of creating new problems?

So we created social media, it was meant to connect us all, and now it's causing our attention spans to dwindle, and there's more cases of ADHD being diagnosed, more Adderall, prescribed, et cetera. Food has become ultra-processed, more palatable, less malnutrition from a hunger standpoint. We've drastically dropped the hunger numbers across the globe. Across the globe, yeah.

And now we're seeing the overconsumption of these foods and the obesity. Now we've created a medicine for it. So it's almost like through a technology, we create a breakthrough, create a new problem, have to create a medication to solve the effects. What are your feelings from that? You've just described capitalism. So you're always just playing catch-up, creating a new problem and ketchup. You're looking for ways to monetize, whatever there is to monetize.

You know, and I'll say it again. Who would benefit if people ate healthfully? And we start thinking about it. The health care system, no. The immediate reaction is insurance companies, and I have a little trouble with this because it's counterintuitive, but insurance companies do not benefit if people prevent illness. Why? Explain that. Well, the economists explain it because it costs more to prevent illness across the population than it does to treat a smaller number of individuals.

Okay, Kaiser Permanente benefits if its patient population is healthier. but it's a not-for-profit HMO. The minute the profit motive, the reason why I'm accusing you of capitalism is the minute the profit motive gets into it, that's what you're looking at. And

food companies are not social service agencies. They're not-for-profit. They're for-profit entities making profits for stakeholders and stockholders, and they need to figure out a way to do that, and not only make a profit, but under the way

we require them to do it, they have to grow their profits. And that's what the problem is. If they didn't have to grow the profits, if they could just make a tidy sum and live with it, then we would have much less of a problem. But that requires regulation.

I've had food company executives tell me, we would be happy to reduce the salt in our products. But everybody else has to do too. We would be happy to take the sugar out. but everybody else has to too that requires government regulation so let's talk about what's happening in government it's been captured by corporations because that's who elects officials and unless we do

something about the way we elect officials and get money out of politics we're never going to have a level playing field for federal officials who are interested in things other than corporate health And that's the problem that I see in our society right now. What do we do about it? I don't know. We try to elect better people. Right. Good luck with that.

Yeah, exactly. Good luck with that. The struggle is real on them. Yeah. What's been some of the criticism that's been levied your way throughout your career in navigating the food politics space? You mean criticism of me personally? Or the work that you've done?

Well, you wouldn't be amazed at how polite people are to me, to my face. Okay. But on social media? Well, you know, I mean, I'm on social media. I don't get much push back on it. I mean, for a while, my blog at FoodPolitics.com, which I've been doing for years, for a while I had trolls. And I thought they were paid because the tone of it was very similar to a corporate-run social public relations firm,

used the same kind of tactics. and it came from, I had a friend, a cyber friend, look at it, and she told me that it came from a site that was a spam site. So it was somebody was paying, somebody was paying to do this. And that if I wanted to spend a lot of money, I could find out who it was. And I didn't. So I didn't. But in the last few years, I've been told some very amusing things.

I was told by somebody that I met at a meeting, you know, I've read all your books. And this guy did not look like somebody who would have read all my books. I said, what do you mean you've read all my books? Why? He said, I was paid to. Oh.

And I said, ooh, tell me about that. And he was a consultant for a soft drink company, and they were paying him to read all my books and develop positions. white papers that would rebut the arguments that I made in my books. That was kind of exciting. I didn't know that. I've now heard that several times.

Wow. So I was very flattered. And then somebody else said that he was at a meeting and somebody showed a slide and said, look, she didn't get any media attention for her book Unsavery Truth, which is my book about how food companies pay for research. research to get the answers that they want. And they were celebrating that it didn't sell a lot of copies. I'm an academic. I don't expect to sell a lot of copies. So there's a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that I just don't know about. But I've met food industry executives. They've come to my office at

NYU to meet with me. The heads of very, very large food companies. They want to tell me what terrific things they're doing to make better and healthier food products. If they're, you know, fighting me directly, I don't see it. So do you ever meet with them and say, oh, well, there's some positive changes happening or this person's acting in good faith or is it all just very sketchy stuff? You know, again, I've met people who work for food companies who seem like really good people to me. They really want to do good. They have gone into that company because they wanted to change it from within and make that company produce healthier and more environmental, sustainable foods.

But the minute their actions hit the into the profits, it stopped. And, you know, I talk to people who have created clubs of the sustainability officers of major food companies, and they tell me these are the unhappy. people they've ever met because they're in those companies trying to do real good and they're thwarted at every turn because if what they do cuts into profits they can't do it and they're kicked out or their lives are made miserable one or the others so again it's i have a wait and see you know when students ask me should i go work for food companies because what i really want to do is to change these companies from within, I say, well, it'll be a great learning experience. Go try. See what you can do

and tell me about it later. I want to hear about it. Should we not trust industry funded research? Well, that's really interesting. I wrote a book about it. So what interests me about industry funding of research is that there is an enormous literature. I mean, a huge research literature on looking at the effects of industry funding, mainly chemical industry funding, cigarette industry funding, and pharmaceutical drug industry funding. And the pharmaceutical drug industry funding is the research is the easiest to relate to because it shows that if you give a doctor, you, if I give you a pen and a prescription pad with a drug logo on it, you are going to change your prescription habits to prescribe that drug more often, and you are not going to have the slightest idea that

you're doing it. That's what the research shows. So the insidious thing about corporate funding of research and of these kinds of practice elements is that people don't realize that they're being influenced. So what the research shows is that drug industry funding, for example, has an enormous impact on prescription practices, which is what they're interested in, and that the physicians who receive the funding don't realize it, didn't intend to be influenced, don't recognize the influence, deny the influence. So I tried to do the same thing for food companies to see what the literature said on food company influence on research. There's much, much less research on food companies than there is on drug companies drug company research got 50 years of it i mean it started

50 years ago food companies much more recent but the early results are the same so food company it got so so annoyed by seeing food industry funded research i could tell it by the title i could look at the title of a study and think, who paid for that? Like your grape post on your blog? My grape blog. Every Monday, I post one of these, each one funnier than the next. So you look at the title of this study, you can predict who paid for it. There's something wrong with that. And if I know who paid for it, I can predict what the results are.

There's something wrong with that. Now, it's not 100%. And there was a period on my blog. when I was collecting a lot of these. And at the end of a year, I had collected 168 studies that were funded by industry and 156 of them came out with results that were favorable to the sponsor. And this was a situation in which I begged readers.

If you run across any studies that are funded by industry and they come out with results that are not favorable to the sponsor's interest, please send them to me, please. And I've managed to find 12 in a year out of 168. Is it a publication bias where they don't publish the negative research? Well, they are publishing negative research now. So there's certainly some publication bias in it. But mostly it's, you know, the result of that is really that it's easier to find.

Industry-funded studies with results favorable to the sponsor than the opposite. And they won't fund a study unless they're confident. that they're going to get the results you're looking for. The grape one, for example, they were asking for studies to show the benefits of grapes. They're not going to fund studies that don't show benefits. They're not going to fund studies that show or have the potential for showing that grapes aren't as good as blueberries for doing whatever it is you want them to do. Every fruit and vegetable has some element in it that's going to be healthy. That's why you're supposed to eat fruits and vegetables. And a variety of them. Eat lots of different kinds. And so I talk

to researchers about it. And again, I'm in a very privileged position. I'm retired now. But when I was working, I had tenure. I was a full professor with tenure. Nobody could touch me. And I didn't, and, you know, I'm not a greedy person. I don't need a lot of money. I'm fine. So I don't need to take money. I don't have to take ads on my blog. I don't have to host guests. posts. I get requests every single day. You know, can I write this for your blog? Can I put this ad up on your blog? Can, would you please, can I write about this product on your blog? No, no, no. I don't have to. And that puts me in a very privileged position and I recognize that. But if I did do that, I think I couldn't help but be influenced. And I would deny the influence just like everybody

Yes. And that would be most unfortunate. Yeah. Do you also hate the word superfood? Yes. Okay. I hate the term. Because I also don't understand it, outside of it just being a marketing thing. No, it's a marketing term. It's a marketing term. The object of the game, if you're selling a food product,

is to have somebody unthinkingly pull it off the shelf. You do not want people looking at the Nutrition Facts panel. You do not want people looking at, you certainly don't want people looking at your ingredient list, which is why ingredient lists are printed. pink on dark pink so that you can't read them or dark gray on black. I mean, it's amazing how hard they are to read. They don't want you thinking about that. They want you blindly picking the product off the shelf and dropping it in your card

and paying for it. And if they can put a health claim or something that's sound, we've got vitamins, we've got minerals, we've got... From the earth. And, you know, we don't have... GMOs and it's organic, you know, then pop it in your card. Don't think about it. You're not supposed to think. Yeah. I saw, um, my objective is to get people to think. Yeah, exactly. That which is hard. Um, and I don't say that in a way to dis people. It's actually because the world

around us is evolving so quickly now with technologies that it's a battle for our attention 24-7. it's hard to decide where to put our attention. Well, just look at social media, for example. It's impossible. There's so much input that you have to have very strong filters. And if you're young, you don't have those filters because those filters develop over many, many years. And in my work, what I'm trying to do

is to get people to think about these issues, at least to some extent, because I think it would be better for their health. And I'm interested in public health. Yeah, I want to touch on that real quick. Your interest in public health had interesting roots in its beginnings of how you ended up in your PhD program as a molecular scientist. What made you early on in your life choose higher education when at a time that wasn't perhaps so advocated for? Oh, I didn't know what else to do. What was the culture like back then? Oh, well, women were housewives. period, end of story. And let me tell you, I did that. I was married at 19 and had kids pretty

soon after. But when I, you know, I was pretty unhappy as a housewife. I wasn't very good at it. And I was encouraged to go back to school and did. And it was whenever I didn't know what to do, I went back to school. And I find the, I find research very exciting. Nothing is more thrilling to me than coming across a study or a paper that answers a question in a way that just seems clear and unambiguous and delightful. I really like that. I just like that kind of thing, and I'm happy to do it. So, you know, I went to, my degree is in molecular biology.

Long story about that. And then I did a postdoc. It was the long story that you had a crush on somebody? I had a crush on a professor. It was in that department. And I was a science major in college, and I went to, it was the first year of the molecular biology program. And were people in that academic circle

discouraging you from doing this? Well, the faculty advisor said, oh, yeah, we're going to give you a fellowship, but that's because we're a new program and no men applied this year. But next year when we're sure we're going to have lots of men applicants, you're going to have to give it up. That didn't happen. And I'm sure that that person who was my great champion all the way through, as it turned out, would deny with his dying breath that he had ever said that.

And I never confronted him with it because I liked him too much. But that's really what he said. But in any case, I went on to a teaching position. and quickly discovered that it was going to be impossible for me. I had two small children by then, and it was clear to me that I couldn't manage a scientific career and two small children at the same time, and that the children had to come first.

It was just the way it was. So that's what happened. I took a teaching job and was given a nutrition course to teach, and that's what I've done ever since. It was like, as I describe it, it was like falling in love. I just loved it. You could talk about science, you could talk about politics, everybody could relate to it. I had been teaching cell in molecular biology, which is very dry and abstract, and a struggle to get students to understand the concepts.

Everybody loved talking about food and nutrition. They just loved it. It was so much fun to teach. Would you recommend that as an avenue for listeners that are perhaps looking for a potential field of study? Oh, yeah. What are the highlights of that? Well, you get to talk about what you're eating. And if you're really lucky, you're in a program that lets you cook

and really extols the deliciousness of food. I mean, and I was also lucky enough to be in a position at New York University for our department to invent the field of food studies, which looks at the cultural historical aspects of food and very much care about how it tastes. What are some of the coolest fun facts about culinary, cultural food values that people hold? Well, that they exist. I mean, people have very, very strong feelings about what they eat and what they like and what they don't like.

Why is that? Why do you go to Italian culture if you eat food in an incorrect way, incorrect way, in quotes, they'll be fascinated by it or turned off by it. Or if you put ketchup or mustard on a hot dog in the wrong state or whatever, they'll have such a strong reaction. Well, I think it's because it's something that you put in your body. And it has a level of intimacy that only sex is equivalent to. You know, you're putting it in your mouth.

It's going through your digestive tract. You have the whole fascination of what happens with elimination. and there's deliciousness, there's the smell, and there's the cultural value that of what, of your, it's your whole childhood rolled into it. My next book project is going to be about breakfast cereals, and people have the strongest, most intense, emotional reactions to one or another breakfast cereal that they were exposed to.

It makes talking about it. so much fun. It is. It's a lot like our olfactory system in remembering certain scents and how they trigger certain memories. Food has that impact, obviously, through the olfactory system as well, but taste. Well, and also,

it's your grandmother, in my case, it's my grandmother who made the Jewish chala on Friday nights and would take little pieces of it and form them into birds with little raisin eyes. It was my grandmother's love

for her grandchildren, you know, I mean, that kind of thing. And everybody has a story like that. Everybody does. Of some childhood memory that was just very delicious to them that had to do with food, people's food memories. I mean, books are written about food memories. So what makes teaching the history, culture, politics, nutrition, science, whatever, around food, and what makes it so much fun to teach is you bring all. of that into it, every bit of it. So the, it's, very holistic. It's as holistic or interdisciplinary as we, as we academics put it. You know, it's an, it's interdisciplinary in every conceivable way. That makes it very exciting and also makes it possible to talk about it in ways that you can't talk about

a lot of other fields. Right. You know, and I remember when I was an undergraduate biology teacher, We had a lab session on squid, and I would get frozen squid from California or sometimes flashed frozen ones and sometimes refrigerated ones, and we would dissect them, and then we would cook them. Wow. You know, that was kind of fun. That is fun. Do you have a student ever in your years of teaching that stands out to you as someone who's made an impact on you? Oh, yeah, a lot. Can't single out anybody.

No. Sorry. Okay, fair. Final question, but I have to ask it in two ways. One as a food lover and one as a molecular biologist. As a food lover, if you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would that be? Ice cream. Okay.

As a molecular biologist. I confess. Well, what flavor ice cream? Well, you know, I'm a vanilla person. Oh. Because I like putting other things on it. I really like fruit ice cream Okay

So it's a fruit serving And then, yeah exactly And as a molecular biologist If you had to eat one food for rest of your life Well then you get into the whole vegetable thing And it's not one You know, it's never one food But you have to

This is the only one food you can eat for the rest of your life Are you going with a protein Are you going with a bean? I can't I just can't I can't do it. Sorry. Because there is no one perfect food.

You cannot survive on one food. And I can talk about how much I love ice cream, but believe me, I limit the amounts of it I eat. So, I mean, it's a basic tenet of nutrition that you want a variety of relatively unprocessed foods. And that's, if you do that, then you have lots of room for other kinds of errors like ice cream. But to vilify ice cream, please don't.

I love cookies and cream milkshake, so I'm with you. There you go. Okay. There you go. I'm so grateful to Dr. Nestle for coming to the studio to shoot. She's really an OG in the food and nutrition space and definitely didn't have to do my show. So big thanks to her. If you like this episode about the food industry, you might like my interview with Lane Norton,

talking all things, fitness and nutrition. and also what we both hate about health podcasts, really juicy. So scroll on down and find that episode right now. And if you can, if you enjoyed the podcast, please give us a five-star review as it gives us a lot of credibility in building our viewership. As always, stay happy and healthy.