January 12, 2026 — Justin Sung and Dana Small are two neurobiologists offering us some very basic wisdom. It is wisdom with roots in a sophisticated understanding of biology. We should take care not to lose the pleasure of food. In PLOS Biology, they offer a very cogent argument in defense of the pleasure of food. Their bottom line […]
January 8, 2026 — Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. yesterday announced muddled new Dietary Guidelines for Americans in which everyone can find plenty to love or hate – or both. These are the perfect guidelines for our era. TikTok nutrition influencers can spin them any way they want. RFK can tell everyone that he’s owning the so-called nutrition […]
January 1, 2026 — The slate is clean. All is forgiven. We have a fresh new year ahead. So that has us thinking about the trends that are likely to define 2026 in obesity, nutrition, and health. Here are five that floated to the top of our mind. 1. Healthy Weight for Life We have said it before. Weight […]
December 27, 2025 — This was a year of great change in nutrition, physical activity, and wellness. RFK Jr. and his MAHA agenda came in with the new administration, “guns-a-blazing,” as our president might say. The result has been some very interesting cross-currents and attention-grabbing headlines. Here are five of the biggest stories we’ve been watching this year. 1. […]
November 30, 2025 — Thanks to the power of exposure bias, a chorus of studies that correlate ultra-processed foods consumption with obesity and chronic diseases has convinced many policy advocates that these foods are a scourge to be eradicated. “Higher taxes on UPFs” are a “priority action,” says The Lancet, to “put health before profit.” But this well-intentioned impulse […]
November 20, 2025 — “Big food is taking over,” says Barry Popkin, adding an exclamation point in the New York Times to a growing roar of condemnation for ultra-processed foods. The occasion for this is the publication of three new papers – plus an editorial – all at once in The Lancet this week. Popkin was an author on […]
September 29, 2025 — We spend a lot of time these days talking about the risks of ultra-processed foods. Sugar. Additives. Marketing. Long‐term metabolic effects. These are very real concerns. But recent events in Indonesia offer a sobering reminder that more basic failures – poor oversight, bad food handling, spoiled ingredients – can cause acute harm. This has happened […]
September 21, 2025 — Julia Belluz and Kevin Hall have some Food Intelligence to offer us this week and their book of this title will be shipping on Tuesday. No, this is not a paid endorsement. It is, though, an earnest recommendation to learn from two of the most thoughtful people we know on the subject of food, health, […]
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 29, 2025 — We are on a steady diet of studies with a seemingly singular aim: to persuade us ultra-processed foods are really, really bad for us. We get the point. But the nourishment for our brains from this unbalanced research diet seems deficient. The latest is an RCT that shows us oatmeal made from scratch is a […]
