Food Politics by Marion Nestle

Jerry Mande of Nourish Health sent me this item from The Examination: Junk food researcher finds hidden hand in ultraprocessed foods debate.

Phil Baker sent me this one: The Study: Effect of non-nutritive sweetened beverages v. water on body weight: long-term results of a randomised controlled trial.

In the most complete analysis yet, Protect Our Care has issued a devastating report card on the failure of the Trump administration to keep its MAHA promises.

I was interested to see this chart from the USDA: Chart of Note: U.S. food system required greater share of national water use compared to employment or energy use: Water, labor, and energy are resources relied upon throughout the U.S. food system.

While I’m thinking about food fraud (see last week’s post), I’ve always said that the fish counter is the wild west of the supermarket.

A reader and doctoral student in my NYU department, Earlene Cruz, sent this classic example, a press release from the University of Leeds: Major trial examines no-sugar sweetened soft drinks The major new study was published in the British Journal of Nutr…

I was asked to write the Foreword to a special issue of Georgetown University’s Science Politics titled “Food Forward.”

Who knew that food manufacturers would be up against these kinds of frauds?

I first heard this big news from FoodNavigator: California signs voluntary non-UPF label into law: Gov.

Stuart Gillespie, author of Food Fight, and Julia Belluz, co-author with Kevin Hall of Food Intelligence, asked me to co-post their jointly posted Substacks today, which I am happy to do.

I learned about this one from an article in Science Daily that reads like a press release: Eating grapes daily could unlock powerful skin protection New research suggests grapes may help “rewire” your skin’s defenses against sun damage at the genetic leve…

Every food is its own industry, and mushrooms are no exception.

Jerry Mande of Nourish Science tipped me off on this one.

I keep repeating: the food industry is in trouble.

Remember former FDA commissioner David Kessler’s petition to the FDA to revoke GRAS status for refined carbohydrates as a way to immediately regulate ultra-processed foods?

Charles Platkin of the Center for Food as Medicine & Longevity sent me this gem.

When my children, Rebecca and Charles Nestle, visited last week, we took a walk on the High Line in Manhattan, spotted this water fountain at 23rd Street, and I took this picture.

Everyone should read Eric Schlosser’s op-ed, Why Did Trump Order Up 660 Million Pounds of Mystery Meat?

A bunch of items got me thinking about the gap between what MAHA promised and what it is actually doing: mostly talk, but not much action.

It’s Climate Week, so this seems ironically appropriate.

I subscribe to Jerry Hagstrom’s “The Hagstrom Report” for his tracking of food events in Washington DC I would not know about otherwise.

Wish Fast Food Nation a happy 25th anniversary.

More and more Americans are taking GLP-1 drugs; the current estimate is 11%.

I was struck by this announcement: Campbell’s is not the only one.

If you want to know why school food is so controversial, and improving its nutrition quality is so difficult, follow the money.

I learned about this one from a press release: Natural trans fats in dairy do not raise heart disease risk.

The industry newsletter, FoodNavigator, reports the top international Big Food companies.

Today is my 90th birthday, and this is my 5765th post on this site since starting it in 2007.

Yuka, the wildly popular (88 million users) supermarket app for analyzing food labels for nutritional value and health impact, has produced a terrific report: Ultra-Processed Foods: Decoding a Food Transformation with Major Health Consequences.

My co-author, Lisa Sutherland, is a former vice president of Kellogg.

On this Labor Day, let’s honor the people who do the hard agricultural work that brings food to our tables.

Gloria Steinem was very much a heroine of my generation.

I’ve been following the Cyclospora outbreak with riveted interest because it so exemplifies what’s wrong with our food system: not enough safety effort from producers and not enough government oversight.

Alas, we must now mourn the death of one of the great heroes of food politics, the honorable and immensely inspiring Wendell Berry.

MAHA has announced a big win.

When I saw the title of this study, I thought I’ll bet the Hass Avocado people paid for this one.