UC San Francisco
Pediatric endocrinologist at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital and director of its Weight Assessment for Teen and Child Health (WATCH) Program; author of Fat Chance: Beating the Odds against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease
The Bitter Battle over Added Sugar in Your Food Obesity is a major health problem in the United States, and sugar is one of the causes. Even foods that already contain natural sugar have more sugar added as they're prepared for the market. Food labels already tell you the total amount of sugar. Now the FDA wants to break that down , so you know how much has been added. That's led to a lobbying frenzy, with 287,889 public comments. If Campbell Soup, Coca-Cola, Kellogg cereals, the Dairy Industry and two state governors are against you, you must be doing something right. That's what the food-and-nutrition police say about industry opposition to the FDA proposal. One health-advocacy group analyzed 80,000 food products, found 58% contained more sugar than they have naturally and insists that consumers ought to know. We hear about the lobbying frenzy over an idea first introduced by Michelle Obama.
A New Warning About Sugar Sugar and red meat are the villains du jour when it comes to what we should and should not eat. Today, an important advisory committee issued its recommendations for the USDA food guidelines. The federal government adjusts its food pyramid -- or plate, now -- every five years and is expected to make a final decision later this year. The panel recommends that we pay taxes on sugary drinks and snacks. They also say we should eat less red meat and consider the environment when we decided whether or not to eat a burger. Both recommendations are likely to be fought vigorously by the food industry. We catch up on the food fight.
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.
The Trump agenda: where's the beef? President Trump says big things are happening. After celebrating a House bill on health care, he doesn’t yet have Senate agreement. With James Comey’s public testimony scheduled tomorrow, the President today tweeted his selection of a new FBI Director. Is the Chief Executive all style and no substance? Later, terror attacks in Iran and conflicting claims about who’s behind them.
President Trump: US to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord Trump says he was elected to serve Pittsburgh, not Paris.
Who's to blame for the opioid crisis? Some of the lawyers who took on Big Tobacco are now going after Big Pharma. It’s all about the deadly epidemic of opioid use. Are the drug companies to blame? What about the users? Later, on today’s Talking Point: making sense of Britain’s upset election.