269 - How Big Food is Making You Fat & Sick with Nutrition Legend Marion Nestle

Episode • Feb 14, 2024 • 1h 5m

Our remarkable guest today is scientist and acclaimed author Dr. Marion Nestle. She’s a Paulette Goddard Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health at New York University and founder of the field of food studies. She’s THE authority on food politics – in fact, she wrote the book on it – and for decades, she has been a transformative figure, working to improve our dietary choices while exposing corporate greed and injustice inherent in the food industry.

Dr. Nestle is the author of a dozen books. She appears in the hit documentary Super Size Me and the new Netflix doc You Are What You Eat, among many others. In 2023, she was awarded the prestigious Edinburgh Medal for Science and Humanities.

So tune in for an illuminating conversation with a crusader who’s dedicated her life to changing our broken food system!

“I finally caught on to agriculture, that you cannot understand why people eat the food they do unless you understand how the agricultural system works. And now everything is a food system. How does the whole system work? Everything about food, from how it’s grown to how it’s transported to how it’s sold to how it’s marketed to how people buy it, eat it, waste it, and all of the sociology that goes with that. So, I went from being a splitter to a lumper. Splitters are – the world divides into splitters and lumpers – and in the beginning, I was a splitter. I was interested in every single nutrient; I cared a lot about every single one of them. And now what I’m really interested in is what the whole system looks like. Because I think if we’re going to encourage people to eat more healthfully, we need system change.” - Dr. Marion Nestle

What we discuss in this episode:

- Why Dr. Nestle chose a career path in nutrition.

- How, when, and why the obesity epidemic started.

- How food companies try to get people to eat more.

- The role ultra-processed junk foods play in poor health outcomes.

- How the tobacco industry deceived and manipulated the public, and how food companies have adopted the same tactics.

- Debunking food myths.

- The importance of eating a whole food plant-based diet.

- How the food industry influences the dietary guidelines of the United States.

- Why you should be discerning about the food you feed your pets.

- Dr. Nestle’s lifestyle and diet.

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