Posts Tagged ‘food industry’

“Fake” Sugar, Speculation, and Health Reporting

March 9, 2023 — Reporting on supposed dangers of “fake” sugar is a self-replicating genre that seemingly never fades. The Washington Post this week published a prime example, telling readers: “The food industry says sugar substitutes help people manage their weight and reduce intake of added sugars. But studies suggest that fake sugars can also have unexpected effects on […]

OCW2023: The End of Obesity? Not Exactly

March 3, 2023 — An interesting collision of stories is playing out in the media today. It comes at the end of Obesity Care Week and on the eve of World Obesity Day. On one hand, the Economist proclaims that “new drugs could spell an end to the world’s obesity epidemic.” On the other, hand the World Obesity Federation […]

An Impossible Quest: Objectively Healthy Food

February 22, 2023 — Has the FDA bitten off more than it can chew? Two presidents ago, back in 2016, the FDA told us the agency had begun work to “redefine the term ‘healthy’” for food labels. Good luck with that is a fair summary of our reaction at the time. Seven years later, the quest to define objectively […]

A New Roadmap for Marketing Healthy-ish Food

September 29, 2022 — What constitutes “healthy” for a packaged food? FDA, prompted by wrangling seven years ago, is out today with a new definition that everyone can fight about. Who cares? Well, just about everyone has an opinion. But the real passion for this subject comes from people who want to sell you more units of their food, […]

Will Plant-Based Meats Save the Planet and Our Health?

May 31, 2022 — Hope springs eternal. Hype sells better than mere facts. Imagined benefits are better than objective documentation. Thus, plant-based ultra-processed foods that simulate the experience of eating meat are still enjoying a health and environmental halo. But will these plant-based meats actually help to save the planet and our health? The Big Plant-Based Health Halo In […]

Food Cues in the Eat-More Food Environment

May 22, 2022 — Our food environment has changed to contribute to the rise in obesity over the last half century. People disagree about many things in the effort to find policies to reduce obesity. But this presumption is one that most of us can agree upon. The real question, though, is how to define these changes. Are ultra-processed […]

Are Food Policy Wonks Giving “Big Food” a Free Pass?

May 15, 2022 — Ten years ago, PLOS Medicine published an examination of the role of “Big Food” in global health with a collection of articles. It was an indictment, to be sure, and this theme continues to resonate today. PLOS Medicine editors summed it up: “Big multinational food companies control what people everywhere eat, resulting in a stark […]

How Sound Are Recommendations to Cut Added Sugar?

April 8, 2022 — We are in the midst of a great reformulation of food products. A little more than a decade ago, Robert Lustig stirred everyone up with his bold claim that sugar is toxic. So added sugar took over the role of dietary bad boy in place of fat. In 2015, U.S. dietary guidelines started recommending a […]

Would You Like Phthalates with That?

November 10, 2021 — A preliminary analysis by a team of scientists at four major research institutions finds disturbing levels of phthalates in a sample of fast food. Lead author Lariah Edwards told WebMD that she wasn’t especially surprised to find this, because the food sold by fast food chains is so highly processed, packaged, and handled. Every step along […]

Feeding Impulses That Harm People

October 24, 2021 — Two stories about very different industries – one very old and one very new – are demanding our attention right now. The new industry is social media. For weeks now, a litany of stories has made it plain that Facebook has made some bad choices to protect their profits while causing harm. The old industry […]