September 11, 2025 — Toxic is one of those clickbait words that ironically fuels poisonous rhetoric on the very nuanced subject of food and health. Insert “toxic” into a conversation and nuance will disappear. Robert Lustig famously used the word “toxic” to inject hyperbole into food policy when he proclaimed that sugar is toxic. Now we have a demagogue […]
August 24, 2025 — We are hearing much sound and fury about making America healthy and the noise is largely about improving the quality of the U.S. food supply. It would indeed be nice if MAHA brought us a better food supply. But in a thoughtful piece for The Atlantic, Yasmin Tayag says a more likely outcome may be […]
August 23, 2025 — Americans are setting their mouths on fire with spicy hot foods says Ellen Cushing in her recent article for The Atlantic. Getting to the bottom of any trend in popular culture is not an easy task with a singular result. But Cushing explains part of the story is that flamin’ hot spice is an easy […]
August 5, 2025 — A new study yesterday in Nature Medicine will surely add fuel to the fire of people who believe we can simply blame ultra-processed foods for the rise in obesity over the last four decades. The design of the study was solid – a randomized controlled crossover study. Just the kind of thing that sticklers for […]
July 26, 2025 — Bob Kushner knows a thing or two about the complexity and challenge of obesity and clinical care for this disease. He’s written 15 books, 56 chapters, and hundreds of scientific articles about it. But the unique thing he brought yesterday was a skill for explaining the complexity of obesity in plain language that real people […]
July 17, 2025 — Protein in your iced tea? In your snack chips? Yes indeed, these are artifacts of “protein madness.” This growing obsession with cramming protein into ever more of the products we consume has far-reaching effects. For The Atlantic, Lila Shroff describes her epiphany about this trend: “Protein products have come a long way. Perhaps, they have […]
July 7, 2025 — FDA Commissioner Marty Makary believes that defining ultra-processed foods is the key to overcoming the health problems these products produce. He recently told the New York Times: “We do not see ultra-processed foods as foods to be banned. We see them as foods to be defined so that markets can compete based on health.” So […]
June 4, 2025 — It is fascinating. Nutrition 2025 concluded yesterday in Orlando and even though the conference is all about nutrition research, an intense interest in the interaction of GLP-1 medicines with nutrition was a theme in the meeting from its very start all the way to the end. At the end, with two distinguished obesity researchers, Randy […]
May 15, 2025 — Who needs 164 pages of nutrition mumbo jumbo? The U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, yesterday told the House Appropriations Committee he will be releasing a four-page document that sounds a lot like U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Dummies. He says it will be done by August: “We have until January, […]
May 8, 2025 — David Kessler is the former FDA Commissioner who laid the groundwork for aggressive tobacco regulation with a simple metaphor. He argued that nicotine is addictive like heroin or cocaine. Now he and many others are working to stretch that metaphor to warn the public about addictive junk food. It is a simple and very appealing […]
