29. Christopher Gardner, Stanford School of Medicine

Dr. Christopher Gardner is a nutrition scientist focused on what foods to eat and what foods to avoid for optimal health, as well as the forces that can successfully motivate people to improve their food and beverage behaviors. His recent research interests include: “stealth nutrition,” which focuses on shifting diets through the integration of non-health related approaches, like the connection between food and climate change; institutional food; and the microbiome.

Christopher Gardner: “I would say the biggest thing for me is humility. I am a nutrition scientist. I understand the mechanism. You should eat that. [But] there is the business aspect, the marketing aspect, the legal aspect, the policy aspect, the cultural aspect, the historical aspect, the storytelling aspect… The humility to recognize how many other disciplines and factors are tugging at people's tongues and hearts and brains, has really been the greatest learning experience for me.”

00:00 Intro to Dr. Gardner

01:03 How nutrition research becomes a Netflix documentary 

04:22 Using humor to inspire retention

06:09 The road from philosophy to nutrition science

07:20 The dissonance with access to nutrition information

09:21 Food & Society: External motivators and behavior change

14:51 Why institutions have a powerful role in food systems transformation

16:55 The "instead of what" and "with what" approach to behavior change

21:26 The complex nature of food choice

25:50 How “stealth nutrition” influences choice

29:34 Embracing humility and creative storytelling in science communication 

32:18 Takeaways for changemakers

Links

• Stanford School of Medicine Nutrition Studies Research Group
• Netflix Documentary - You Are What You Eat
• The Game Changers Documentary
• Cardiometabolic Effects of Omnivorous vs Vegan Diets in Identical Twins A Randomized Clinical Trial
• Michael Pollan’s Omnivore Dilemma 
• Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
• Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation
• Marian Nestle's Food Politics

• CIA’s Greg Drescher on Using Deliciousness to Drive Change | Food Lab Talk Episode 13

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*The views expressed by the guests in this podcast don't necessarily represent the host’s views, nor those of his employer.