Marion Nestle

The perfectly consistent bright red of a strawberry yogurt or the electric blue of a sports drink may become things of the past, but many nutritionists argue this visual recalibration is worth it.

As Dr. Marion Nestle, Professor Emerita of Nutrition and Food Studies at New York University points out, Food dyes add no nutritional value.

They're simply there to make often unhealthy products more appealing, especially to children.

The American shift away from synthetic dyes could influence global standards.

There was a lot going on in the early 2000s.

Marion Nestle wrote her book, Food Politics, very important book.

Eric Schlosser wrote Fast Food Nation.

You had a surge of interest in organic food and local food, and there was a movement forming.

Today we're joined by two leading experts whose careers span nutrition, public health, academia and the food industry.

Marion Nestle is the Paulette Goddard Professor Emerita of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health at New York University and the acclaimed author of numerous books exploring the politics of food, nutrition, health and the environment.

Joining her today is Dr. Lisa Sutherland, Interim President of Jacksonville University and the former Vice President of Nutrition at Kellogg Company.

Together, they've written Sugar Coated, Unboxing the Hidden Forces Shaping America's Favorite Breakfast Food.

Can you believe this? And yeah, you can.

Really? Baby shark cereal?

Professor Marion Nestle, Dr. Lisa Sutherland, this has been an absolute privilege to have the two of you on the show.

Marion in particular, you know, we've been a massive fan.

It's great that sugar is suspicious.

There's a terrific new book that was the basis of this Kim Severson New York Times piece by our favorite Marion Nestle, Nutrition Authority, with a longtime Kellogg's executive named Lisa Sutherland, who's a nutritionist.

And what it is, is it's a tracing of the history of breakfast cereals as the vehicle for every fad there is to market food.

over the decades.

So I'm just going to take you on a brief tour of food politics.

Food politics really began kind of as a concept with Marion Nestle, who's an NYU professor.

And she wrote this book that was really a seminal book, which deeply influenced me, in which she really Showed how because she had been a dietary guideline committee member Which is the expert group that makes the US dietary guidelines in 2005 and she had come to see how industry influences Guidelines and so she wrote this book and immediately sort of opened my eyes to this idea that there is this whole role that industry plays in manipulating the science and manipulating the guidelines and manipulating the people in the agencies that that publish the guidelines and so And in her book, she really thought the problem was the meat and dairy and egg industries that had most undermined good science.

And that's why we failed to have good health in America.

And this is largely because she, Marion Nestle, and pretty much all of the people who are reigning nutrition scientists, believe in the hypothesis set forth by Ancel Keys, whom you all know.

which was that saturated fat and cholesterol raise your blood cholesterol, and that is what is responsible for heart disease.

And the foods that have saturated fat and cholesterol in them are animal foods, meat, dairy, and eggs.

Well, I mean, I, I think w- all of us, none of us is so naive not to understand that every single one of these food companies, um, has an, a legion, an army of lobbyists in Washington, and they'll have, you know, at least one person, one lobbyist that just focuses on USDA, right? So getting your products into USDA, defending your grain allotment and recommendation at USDA, and not letting that change.

It's so interesting because the narrative that you read out in the press that was largely created by, um, NYU pr- nutrition professor Marion Nestle, and then perpetuated by a great writer, Michael Pollan, but he sort of, he, he kind of kept this myth going, is that it's, like, the big, bad meat industry that has been the, you know, the, the, the negative force in creating dietary guidelines, like it's been the meat industry.

The reason our guidelines aren't working is, is the meat industry is just the worst lobby.

And the meat industry is definitely a big industry.

I'm Alexis Madrigal.

Marion Nestle is a legend of the food world.

Her work over many decades, including her path-breaking book, Food Politics, has changed the terms of the debate about food.

And her blog, foodpolitics.com, is an incredible repository of news, ideas, and information about the broad world of food, nutrition, science, and politics.

And for the fourth or even fifth time, we believe, Marion Nestle, a Professor Emerita of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at NYU, joins us here on Forum.

Welcome.

Oh, so happy to be back.

Yeah.

Stay out of the grocery stores.

And Marion Nestle said it.

If it has a-

If, if, if everybody just stopped going into grocery stores-