Today I am honored to feature Marion Nestle on the show. Marion is one of the most highly regarded voices in food nutrition and marketing. She has a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and MPH in Public Health Nutrition. Her experience in this space is unmatched. She has taught at the university level since the 1960's, recently retiring from teaching in 2017. However, "retiring" means she now has more time to write--over 15 books and a daily blog called Food Politics.

Here's the highlights of our conversation:

Food companies market their products similar to how cigarette companies do.

Food companies are businesses for profit. Thus, they need to continually grow their profit margins. That's hard to do in a competitive food environment where there's too much food--way more than the population needs.

Thus, food companies focus on ultra processed foods. These are industrialized "foods" made from ingredients not real food. They are made cheap and sold for a high profit. They can stay on the shelf for a long time since they aren't real food.

In the 1980's the shareholder value movement started. Deregulation started too. So food companies started to produce more food and found ways to get people to eat more. Bigger portions and an increased calorie count helped. Their junk food is so cheap to make because of corn and soybean subsidies. Know what's not subsidized? Healthy food. Organic Food. Know why? Because our federal entities are captured by the companies they are supposed to regulate. BUT then again, deregulation started in the 80's.

So now 70% of Americans are overweight. 40% are obese.

There is a direct correlation between bad food and poor health.

What does this mean? Ultra-processed food is bad. Avoiding it is the one thing you can do that will have a big and positive impact on your health.

There are not enough studies to show pesticides won't harm us. Additives too. So eat organic when possible.

If you want to read Marion's blog: www.foodpolitics.com

@marionnestle

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