October 14, 2021 — It only took five years. But then, the U.S. government has been through a lot in those five years. Yesterday the FDA finally released voluntary guidelines aiming to cut sodium in prepared foods by 12 percent over the next two and a half years. In a joint statement, Acting Commissioner Janet Woodcock and CFSAN Director […]
May 31, 2021 — Consumers want to eat healthy. Food companies want to sell them products to meet that need. So what’s the problem? Well, there’s a big gap between what people say and what they do. Talking about healthy eating is easy. But following through on healthy eating is very tricky for a big food company because the […]
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 […]
June 12, 2019 — Ultra-processed food is such an ugly phrase. Could this friendly little goldfish cracker really be such a threat to health? Defining that threat was the subject of a very collegial, but intense discussion on the closing day of Nutrition 2019 between Kevin Hall and Mike Gibney. But it was hardly confined to that one session. […]
May 17, 2019 — Kevin Hall is a bit of a myth buster. In a number of studies, he has put popular ideas about obesity and nutrition under the microscope of objective data. And by doing so, he proved them wrong. But in a new study published yesterday, he proved himself wrong about ultra-processed food. In a carefully controlled […]
April 26, 2019 — Ask any attorney. Safe is a four-letter word. So in light of data that raises some good questions about the risks of a very common food additive – propionate – how should we respond? Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health have found evidence to suggest propionate may alter our metabolism and lead to […]
April 24, 2019 — The opening of the Sixth Canadian Obesity Summit was a bit of a homecoming for Kevin Hall. It was his first visit to Ottawa in about three decades and Obesity Canada rewarded him with its Distinguished Lecturer Award. He used the occasion to review the evidence behind the diet wars wars that rage on Twitter. […]
February 12, 2019 — Will ultra-processed food kill you? Probably not, but two new studies provide some real evidence for caution about this dietary boogeyman. First, a large observational study in France finds a 14 percent higher risk of death in a people who eat more of the stuff. And then, an RCT from NIH shows that ultra-processed foods […]
October 2, 2018 — France has one of the lowest obesity rates in the world. But it’s growing and the French parliament knows why. Le Big Mac. Burgers outsold baguettes for the first time ever in 2017. Burgers are on the menus in 85 percent of French restaurants. They sold 1.5 billion of them last year. So naturally, when the parliament […]
February 17, 2018 — It’s hard to know what to think about this week’s proposal for sweeping changes in SNAP from the White House. Once known as food stamps, SNAP is the cornerstone program for fighting food insecurity. Under this proposal, a Harvest Box of processed food would replace half of the food that SNAP recipients can presently choose […]
