New York University
Professor of Nutrition and Food Studies and Public Health at New York University and author of What to Eat: An Aisle-by-Aisle Guide to Savvy Food Choice, Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health, Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine, Safe Food: Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism and Eat, Drink, Vote: An Illustrated Guide to Food Politics; former contributor to the Atlantic
How the sugar industry skewed nutrition research We all know how Big Tobacco influenced research on smoking and cancer. Now it turns out that Big Sugar has influenced research on diet and heart disease -- for 50 years. Five decades of research on the dangers of saturated fat have produced widely published recommendations on diet, nutrition and heart disease. This week, the Journal of the American Medical Association has revealed that the sugar industry paid to manipulate the data. Marion Nestle is Professor of Nutrition and Food Studies at New York University. Her books include Food Politics and Eat, Drink, Vote: An Illustrated Guide to Food Politics .
Big Soda Pours in Big Money to Stop Tax on Sugary Drinks Sugar-sweetened beverages are the single biggest source of calories for American teenagers, who are increasingly obese. And, for children, just one or two sodas a day raise the chance of contracting diabetes by 26%. So, after failing in 30 other states, public health advocates are asking voters in San Francisco and Berkeley, California to approve taxes on sugary soft drinks in next month’s elections.
Vermont Governor Signs GMO Labeling Bill into Law Genetically modified organisms have been in America's food supply for 20 years. Today, Governor Peter Shumlin signed a bill making Vermont the first to require labeling of GMO products. The new law will include $1.5 million to fight off the inevitable lawsuits by the food and grocery industries. The FDA, World Health Organization, organized doctors and scientists all have found that foods and beverages containing GMO are no different from products produced conventionally. But consumers want to know. Dr. Marion Nestle is Professor in New York University's Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health. Her books include Food Politics and Eat Drink Vote .
The Politics of Portions The White House is set to unveil new rules for food labeling today. It’s the first time in 20 years that we’ve seen significant changes to the way information is displayed on the food we buy. We look at what’s driving the changes -- from new nutritional information to politics and lobbying.
China and America's Food Supply The United States once called itself the "food basket" for much of the world, but that was before economic globalization. Last year, the US imported 4.1 billion pounds of food products from China. More than half the cod and tilapia we eat -- 50% of the apple juice and 31% of the garlic -- originated in China, a country infamous for food-safety problems. The FDA inspects less than 3% of the imports, but China reportedly treats food for export very differently from what it grows for domestic consumption. Where do Chinese food imports turn up without your knowing it? Are they getting a bad rap because of international politics?
Can Government Control Obesity? The agriculture industry has made food so cheap and so plentiful that one third of Americans are obese and another third overweight. Twenty six million people have Type 2 Diabetes, with 79 million more on the way. With a major push from First Lady Michelle Obama, the federal school lunch program has been revised to limit the intake of calories, require whole grains and double the serving of fruits and vegetables. New York's Mayor Bloomberg has banned extra-large soft drinks . With predictions that half the country will be obese by 2030, it's all about controlling a spreading pandemic. But there's also a backlash. Students and teachers in Kansas went on YouTube singing, “ We are Hungry ." A Republican Congressman has introduced the No Hungry Kids Act . Is it necessary for government to police the diets of America's children? Will it work? Is the Nanny State just going too far?
Blah Chicken, Bland Tomatoes and the Food Revolution There's a growing backlash against industrialized food production, including tomatoes and chickens that don't taste right and aren't genuinely nutritious. But not everybody can afford to buy the real things. We speak with food writer Barry Estabrook, whose scathing new book is Tomatoland : How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit, and others about the Good Food movement.
Will America See a Food Revolution? One-third of America's tomato crop is infused with pesticides, picked green and turned red artificially. The US State Department admits some is produced by slave labor. Factory-raised chickens grow too fast and get too big; they taste like rubber and threaten the future of traditional breeds. Evidence against the abuses of modern agriculture is creating a new movement of people who don't want to eat industrialized food any more. But better tasting, more nutritional food is expensive, and the movement may be limited to the favored few.
The Perils and Pleasures of Eating Thanksgiving is America's day to eat and talk about food: why we eat what we eat, why we eat so many bad things and how we can learn to enjoy more of the good things. Food preparation is not rocket science, it's brain science. We learn how food companies mix salt, sugar and fat to make combinations you just can't resist. We also hear how government subsidies favor processed food and how you can get in on what constitutes a promising food revolution. Finally, we talk about the joy of eating and how food shapes our memories of people and places, of childhood and family.
Who's Having Free-range Turkey This Thanksgiving? You may think that today's traditional Thanksgiving meal is the same as it always was, but that's not necessarily so. The food Americans eat is changing. Farmers' markets are all the rage, and in grocery stores, consumers are reading nutrition labels on bottles and cans. With celebrity chefs appearing on TV, cooking and eating habits are changing, too, but not everybody can afford to go green and organic. We hear about changes in food, shopping, cooking and eating from upscale suburbs to urban ghettos, and from region to region. From posh neighborhoods to urban ghettos, from region to region America's food is changing. So are the ways we produce it, buy it, cook it and eat it.
Peanut Butter Contamination Marion Nestle is a professor at New York University's Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health. Her latest book is Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine . She blogs at FoodPolitics.com . A complete list of peanut butter and peanut paste recalls is on the FDA's website . Friday's To the Point on the salmonella outbreak related to peanut products. (Nestle was one of the participants.) Music break: Michelle by Billy Strange with the Mexican Brass
This Time It's Peanuts: Food Scares and Food Production In the largest food recall in US history, more than eighteen hundred products containing peanuts have been pulled from grocery shelves. A salmonella contamination in peanuts has been linked to nine deaths and six hundred illnesses. The outbreak is the latest in a long line of food scares. What went wrong at the Georgia processing plant that shipped peanuts that the owner knew were contaminated? Is the Food and Drug Administration doing enough to make sure food is safe? How do laws affect what we eat? Does the system itself need to be overhauled?
Meat and Milk from Cloned Animals in America's Food Supply? Early this year, the Food and Drug Administration announced that meat and dairy products from cloned animals were safe to eat . The Department of Agriculture immediately called for a " voluntary moratorium ," asking farmers to keep cloned animals off the market indefinitely, to buy time to build acceptance among US and foreign consumers. Americans are already eating meat, not from cloned animals themselves but from their progeny. This discussion was recorded in January, but our guests tell us nothing has changed. If nobody can tell the difference, what's the problem? Is it cruel to animals? Should it be labeled?
Meat and Milk from Cloned Animals in America's Food Supply? The Food and Drug Administration announced this week that meat and dairy products from cloned animals are safe to eat , but the Department of Agriculture is calling for a " voluntary moratorium " for time to build public acceptance among US and foreign consumers. Meantime, it's possible that Americans are already eating meat, not from cloned animals themselves but from their progeny. If nobody can tell the difference, what's the problem? Critics say it's expensive, inefficient and cruel to animals. Should such food be labeled? We hear from critics and advocates, and from a high-profile chef who conducted a double-blind test comparing porterhouse steaks from the progeny of a cloned bull and a conventional one.
How Safe Is America's Food Supply? Recent reports of chemical and biological contamination have raised troubling questions about food safety in the globalized economy. America imports four times as much food as it did ten years ago, but a reduced staff of inspectors can look at just one-percent of nine million shipments from overseas. Food shipped from Mexico, India and China has been tainted with illegal fertilizers, pesticides, antibiotics and industrial chemicals, and the Bush White House has formed a working group on imported food. But just this week, meat products from Georgia were recalled because of an "urgent health threat" from deadly botulism, and E-coli bacteria were found on California produce just last year. Wherever it comes from, how safe is America's food? How do consumers know what to buy?
Will the Senate write a healthcare bill in secret? While Democrats and Republicans argue White House relations with Russia, another question is being decided behind closed doors: who gets help buying health insurance and who doesn't? We hear how the pros and cons are being shrouded in secrecy.
Trump plays scolder-in-chief with NATO allies At the opening of NATO’s dramatic new headquarters in Brussels today, President Trump acknowledged that Article 5 — promising that “an attack on one nation is an attack on all” -- has only been invoked one time: in the aftermath of September 11. But the President failed to provide what 27 other Alliance members have been waiting for: a re-commitment by America’s new leader to Article 5. Instead, they got a scolding.
Trump's 'America First' goes missing abroad In the Middle East, President Trump is changing some policies of the Obama Administration—and reversing his own campaign attacks on Islam as a religion that "hates us." We hear about his visit to Saudi Arabia and what's at stake for the rest of his foreign excursion.
