April 4, 2021 — When chocolate Easter eggs first appeared in the 1870s from Fry’s and Cadbury’s, they were a bit of a luxury. That continued for about a century, but the emergence of mass merchandising contributed to explosive growth for the business of Easter chocolates in the latter half of the 20th century. For one day in many […]
March 15, 2021 — The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed a broken food system, writes Miriam Nelson in the Boston Globe. But she is hardly the only one. A UN Study last week told us that food systems account for a full third of global carbon emissions. The Lancet Commission on Obesity in 2019 morphed into a Global Syndemic commission […]
March 7, 2021 — The collision of dietary dogmas is fascinating to watch. Especially in the early days of it. Right now, plant-based diets and ultra-processed foods are getting a whole lot of press. Plant-based is good. Ultra-processed is bad. So naturally, we see the meteoric rise of plant-based, ultra-processed food. Writing in the New York Times, Frank Bruni […]
February 1, 2021 — A long, long time ago, the FDA proposed voluntary goals for reducing salt in processed, packaged, and prepared foods. But that was 2016 and a new administration came the following year with less interest in this subject. So naturally, this went nowhere. It took little more than this idea coming from the Obama team to […]
January 24, 2021 — Ultra-processed foods seem to be a problem for human health. For one thing, the link between consuming them and bad health outcomes seems strong. We have a steady stream of new studies to confirm this. For another, we have some pretty compelling experimental evidence from well-controlled studies to tell us that there may be a […]
January 5, 2021 — Dairy farming is cruel! Milk is racist! Such fighting words about dairy foods are nothing new. Hot passions about milk weave through 10,000 years of human history. So why should issues about dairy in the brand new dietary guidelines surprise anyone? Clearly, strong feelings about the first food we all consume will follow us into […]
January 3, 2021 — Food addiction is a concept that sticks to the popular psyche. Yet it remains scientifically controversial. True believers will tell you that eating addictive food “lights up” parts of the brain involved in addiction. But then, just about anything that brings a person pleasure does that. So this is not an especially persuasive argument to […]
January 2, 2021 — New publications about the role of ultra-processed foods in health and food systems remind us about a missing dialogue. Food policy advocates are very clear that food systems should evolve to favor minimally processed food. Nutrition scientists know that ultra-processed foods have an association with poor health outcomes. But they also know that the science […]
December 27, 2020 — Soda taxes are a favored tool for fighting obesity around the world. The World Health Association is totally on board with this taxing sugar sweetened beverages (SSBs). But there’s just one tiny problem. The promise that these taxes will improve health feels great, but fulfillment of that promise is elusive. In fact, evidence for an […]
December 23, 2020 — China is going to eliminate food waste and fight obesity in a single stroke of regulation. How, you ask? Operation Empty Plate will expand into law. China will make it a crime to promote food waste, including overeating. The hilarity of naive efforts to regulate food marketing never disappoints. Stiff Fines for Bad Marketing Right […]
