Recommended at this point is to catch up by reviewing Part 1, “Is There an Ultra-Processed Foods Coverup?” What makes information about Dr. Dhruv Khullar’s controversial article even more interesting and relevant is this quotation published less than four months previously:
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who may soon lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has made common cause with some lawmakers by railing against ultra-processed food, pledging to remove it from public schools and limit the use of pesticides, artificial dyes, and, perhaps more dubiously, seed oils.
So apparently, Kennedy underwent some changes of opinion about the matter during the few weeks between that publication and his being made head of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Meanwhile, National Institutes of Health investigator Kevin Hall was recalibrating some of his theories based on the advanced work that he had been doing with volunteers, testing four different diets in turn. Dr. Khullar explains:
When the team served ultra-processed foods that were neither calorie-dense nor hyper-palatable — for example, liquid eggs, flavored yogurt and oatmeal, turkey bacon, and burrito bowls with beans — people ate essentially as much as they did on the minimally processed diet. They even lost weight.
Hall had no choice but to conclude that “Weight gain is not a necessary component of a highly ultra-processed diet,” to which Dr. Khullar appended, “He had, in a sense, refuted his hypothesis again.” And that is exactly what any genuine and honest scientist is delighted to do — to discover that he or she had guessed wrong, or drawn conclusions from incomplete data. A true scientist does not care how many times research has to start over, or how often his or her theories need to be revised, as long as truth is reached in the end.
Dr. Khullar also spoke with the venerable Marion Nestle, and introduces her to readers with this description:
[…] a molecular biologist and nutritionist who started the country’s first academic food-studies program, at N.Y.U., helping to bring attention to the roles that culture, capitalism, and politics play in what and how much we eat.
That apparently is exactly the crux of the whole food policy problem: the role being played by factors politely termed culture, capitalism, and politics, when the clashes of opinion are worthy of cruder but more accurate terms for controversy, that some critics would prefer to use. Dr. Khullar recounts how Nestle reminded him of a historical fact:
During the Second World War, U.S. military leaders were alarmed that many recruits, having grown up during the Great Depression, couldn’t join the war effort because of conditions caused by a lack of nutrients, such as rickets, scurvy, anemia, and tooth decay. “That came as a shock, and the military became heavily concerned with nutrition.”
This is very significant in the light of today’s situation, which includes the ineligibility of many young Americans to join the military because they are simply too fat.
At any rate, Nestle is not entirely on board with heaping blame upon ultra-processed food; but is not a big fan of it, either. (She is, incidentally, enthusiastic about Shredded Wheat, and even dusts it with a bit of sugar — to celebrate the fact that she, and not some corporation, is in charge of deciding the amount.)
Together, the two visited some places where food is produced, learning incidental facts, like how giant blocks of cheese should only be grated at the last minute, because “Pre-shredded cheese spoils faster. This way we can avoid preservatives.” This is exactly the sort of knowledge that leaves in the grim landscape some space for hope.
Your responses and feedback are welcome!
Source: “Why Is the American Diet So Deadly?”, Archive.is, 01/06/25
Source: “RFK Jr. aides accused of censoring NIH’s top ultra-processed food scientist,” CBSNews.com, 04/17/25
Image by DanielaElenaTentis/Pixabay
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