Eating in America Podcast

Ric Bayly
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Eating in America is about the food on our table and who's in charge of keeping it healthy. www.eatinginamerica.co

  1. 1d ago

    Do you want personalized nutrition from your PCP...or Pepsi?

    I am preparing a podcast and post around the notion of precision nutrition I say “notion” because, while “precision nutrition” is a topic being given serious attention by some serious scientists, it is almost an oxymoron – a nonsensical expression – in that, as a species, we are designed to thrive on a wide variety of foods in varying quantities. Until we started to modify foods through industrialization, we were fairly self-regulating in our consumption of appropriate and healthy foods. Precision didn’t enter into it. But industrial processing of foods has changed that, and I will get into why that is in my podcast and post next week. What is happening with precision nutrition, and its close cousins personalized nutrition and nutrigenetics and its second cousin, Food As Medicine, is an important, complex, and dynamic topic in this era of AI, ultraprocessed food, and the increasing dominance of industrial food companies like PepsiCo and General Mills in our food environment. Pepsi as a precision nutrition wannabe? I mention the makers of a protein water (Pepsi) and Cookies & Crème Cheerios Protein (General Mills) because they are part of the Big Food effort to usurp the science, dominate the regulatory environment, and commercialize the concept of precision nutrition and personalized nutrition. I recommend not reading a scientific paper or piece of social media about precision or personalized nutrition without doing a check for the commercial interests that may be involved. Put precision and personalized nutrition in the control of medicine, not Big Food I’ll get into this and provide at least one reason why personalized nutrition should be usurped, not by Pepsi and General Mills, but by the medical profession. I have long argued that personalized nutrition should be a regular part of personal medical care. I am skeptical of it outside that framework. All coming next week. Eating in America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Operation Stork Speed In March 2025, RFK, Jr. announced Operation Stork Speed to revise the Food and Drug Administration’s 30-year old infant formula requirements. This week, another year and a half gone by, the FDA announced the first of the three phases of its proposed formula standards updates. Phases One and Two: Easy The current phase would primarily update vitamins A and D and six minerals. Phase two will deal with 11 more vitamins and inositol, a sugar alcohol that is an important component of breast milk. These first two phases have importance but will be relatively easy for the FDA to navigate to success. Phase Three: Hard? This three-part phasing is clever on the part of the FDA and RFK, Junior. I approve. They are isolating the goal of bringing the first two parts to shore before navigating the shoals facing the third phase. The macronutrients in formula: protein, fat, and carbs The third part will question the three macronutrient standards. First, there is protein. Translate this as “whey and casein from milk”. Second, is fats. Translate this as questions and controversy about seed oils. And, third is carbohydrates. Translate this as “sugar”. Protein is the one macronutrient around which there seems to be little controversy. Most protein used in formula is whey and casein from cow’s milk with a balance designed to closely mimic breast milk. The MAHA distaste for seed oils in formula As for the fats infants need, essential omega-3 fatty acids are likely to be added as mandatory ingredients in this phase, but because they are critical to infant development they are already usually incorporated in formula. Linoleic acid is an omega-6 fatty acid and is also critical and already a requirement. Omega-6 fatty acids are sourced from seed oils, as are the alpha-linoleic omega-3 fatty acids, where they are cheap and abundant. That is where the potential for controversy comes in. Make America Healthy Again does not like the seed oil sourcing, but babies must have these linoleic and alpha-linoleic acids and non-seed oil sources are expensive. A crazy bad idea MAHA proponents, including the recently resigned FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, would like to see linoleic acid removed as a requirement in formula. This is such a wacko idea that better minds will almost certainly prevail. Instead a sufficient maximum limit on the amount of linoleic acid is a possibility in this last phase. The type of sugar matters So it is not the vitamins and minerals. It is not the protein. It is not the fat. It is the carbohydrate used in most American formula that is the problem. That carbohydrate is non-lactose sugar, which is linked to obesity and to harming the development of our infants, as I wrote in Eating in America at the end of August. Mimicking mom’s milk means lactose The carbohydrate in breast milk is lactose. The enzyme lactase in the small intestine breaks the lactose down into glucose and galactose, which are then absorbed into the bloodstream. Then the galactose is, primarily, metabolized into glucose in the liver. All this takes time, reducing the level of spiking of blood sugar in the infant and the risk of metabolic disorder and obesity. Glucose in formula and the risk of infant obesity But many formulas use reduced or no lactose, instead adding other sugars, including corn syrup or corn syrup solids, which contain only glucose. Studies have shown that use of formula with glucose and other non-lactose sugars is linked to the development of obesity in infants. One study estimated that the risk of obesity at two years old is elevated by 16% for infants who consumed lactose-reduced formula through their first 12 months. Action is urgently required Starting children on a trajectory of obesity in their first 1,000 days is unacceptable. But sugar is the foundation of much of our ultra-processed food environment. Big Formula, and Big Food, of which it is a part, don’t like the government even thinking about regulating sugar. This is why the third phase of formula updating is likely to be the most contentious and delayed, especially if Kennedy sticks to his MAHA guns and tries to fight Big Formula on carbohydrate regulation. Most infants drink formula On any given day, four out of five American infants 0 to 12 months old consume no breast milk. They mainly drink formula, although a small percentage drink cow’s milk. The FDA needs to take non-lactose sugar out of American formula. The science is there, and the Europeans have already banned corn syrup from most formula. Lose the non-lactose sugars Kennedy and his people in the FDA were smart to save the lactose fight for last while the vitamin and mineral changes are locked down in the first two phases of formula regulation revisions. I’ll be hoping for the best, but Kennedy and MAHA have so far failed badly in making real progress when hindered by Big Food -- as they are likely to be in pushing for changes to formula sugar standards. Thank you for reading. You can support Eating In America in lots of different ways, including your paid or free subscription, sharing with friends and colleagues, and your comments and likes. I appreciate them all! References Ordovas JM, Ferguson LR, Tai ES, Mathers JC. Personalised nutrition and health. BMJ. Jun 13 2018;361:bmj.k2173. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k2173 Berciano S, Figueiredo J, Brisbois TD, et al. Precision nutrition: Maintaining scientific integrity while realizing market potential. Front Nutr. 2022;9:979665. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.979665 Operation Stork Speed. October 29, 2026. https://www.fda.gov/food/infant-formula-homepage/operation-stork-speed Abrams SA, Brenna JT, Clemens R, et al. Food and Drug Administration Expert Panel on Infant Formula “Operation Stork Speed” June 2025: Part 1, Nutrient Considerations. Adv Nutr. Apr 2026;17(4):100583. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advnut.2025.100583 Infant Formula Notice of Propo… This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.eatinginamerica.co/subscribe

  2. 6d ago

    Breakfast in America: Froot Loops banned by preschoolers!

    A bright ray of hope shone on the breakfast table while visiting friends this morning. Two weeks ago I reviewed Sugar Coated, Unboxing the Hidden Forces Shaping America’s Favorite Breakfast Food, Marion Nestle and Lisa Sutherland’s new telling of the transformation of a 19th century health food, un-sugared granola, into a keystone of the American ultraprocessed food diet. The Kellogg brothers’ of the 1870s, launched as disciples into the American food environment by the fervently health-preaching Seventh-day Adventist church, started a lineage that one-hundred years later resulted in the bastardized, unholy, unhealthy Kellogg’s Froot Loops of 1963 with its 12 grams of added sugar, bright artificial colors, refined flours, and child-targeting Toucan Sam mascot. Today’s food environment: gone to hell in a shopping cart Since 1963 it’s been sixty years of the American food environment generally going to hell in a shopping cart, but, praise be to Nestle and Sutherland, the first a deity in matters of nutrition policy, the descent into ultraprocessed Hades turns out to be a two-way path! Uncommonly intutive pre-schoolers My friends, let’s call them Pop and Mima just as their three- and five-year-old grandchildren do, made a point of eating healthy breakfasts every day. But Pop and Mima first and foremost, love their grandkids and understand the license that grandparents have in making sure the adoring love of the little ones pours back in return. So Froot Loops were acquired for the first morning of a four-day stay of the preschoolers with Pop and Mima. On the morning of the first day, Pop poured himself a bowl of granola, while Mima got ready to pour two bowls of Froot Loops for the little ones. Lo and behold, at Pop’s first bite, adoring Child 1 said “I want what Pop is having” and adoring Child 2 said “Me, too!” And granola, with yogurt, fruit, and a little drizzle of maple syrup to seal the deal, is all the four of them ate every day for breakfast. Pop and Mima, your medal is in the mail. Pop and Mima deserve a medal In my experience as a parent there is little precedent for Pop and Mima’s granola magic. It was a breakfast miracle. There is hope. The coffee pot Today it’s Breakfast in America on Eating in America, or at least, perhaps, Part One, since, as you will see, I don’t get far on the breakfast menu. We’re going to start where many of us start our day: at the coffee pot. And a lot of Americans drink coffee: ¾ of us. Half of us drink it every day. 1 And mostly in the morning. For some people, breakfast is only coffee. It is not my fault or your fault These days as the writer of Eating In America, I feel like I’m the bearer of bad news far too much. It’s not really my fault: I am not a wellness influencer peddling hope in exchange for clicks, and neither you nor I are responsible for screwing up the food environment. We’re both just figuring out how to do the best for ourselves and our families with the food we are dealt. And, when I write about the politics and the commercial side of our food environment, it’s about who we can blame, boycott, or vote against, all of which feels better and is far more accurate than blaming ourselves. Coffee: the dependable feel good nutrition story But when I write about coffee and tea, it’s a happy, feel good story, with the science continuing to tell us that these beverages that most of us enjoy and that make us feel good, are, in fact, good for us. And the science keeps coming. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.eatinginamerica.co/subscribe

    Breakfast in America: Froot Loops banned by preschoolers!

  3. Oct 18

    When it comes to protein, we are the hunted

    Maybe if supplement hawker and wellness influencer Nicole Saphier is confirmed as Surgeon General, she’ll let us know how to choose the best protein water to buy. After all, with the flood of protein products pouring into our supermarkets and convenience stores, it is hard to know which product will build our muscles the fastest. Maybe a protein soda is best, like SkyPop? Or Slammin’ Strawberry Pop-Tarts with protein? We can just ignore the 8 teaspoons of sugar, Red Dye #40, and all that other stuff Pop-Tarts doesn’t brag about on the front of the box, right? Or how about Khloe Kardashian’s Khloud Protein Popcorn, perhaps the Cinnamon Roll flavor? I’m just kidding about all this, of course. It is troubling that consumers are being preyed on by sellers of – and here’s an oxymoron for you – water containing protein. More absurd is the brand of protein water that also contains dietary fiber. You can get your fiber-maxxing and protein-maxxing fix all in one otherwise innocent bottle of water. When it comes to protein, we are the hunted Big Food is always a predator upon our nutrition worries, and with a population that is largely aging, sedentary, overweight, dieting with a GLP-1, or, frequently, all four, more and more American adults are very rightly concerned with their muscular strength. We present lots of potential prey for protein marketing. But, as silly and sad as these protein-added products are, taking a pause to re-think our protein intake while checking the new recommendations from the federal government, makes sense. We lose muscle as we age. We lose it faster if we are sedentary, and we are more sedentary if we are overweight or obese. Many of us who are or have been overweight or obese, are able to control our weight with a GLP-1 like Zepbound or Wegovy. The question has been raised as to whether GLP-1 based dieting can involve losing too much muscle mass along with the loss of fat tissue. There’s also the common condition of skeletal muscle attrition and reduction in strength coexisting with obesity, known clinically as sarcopenic obesity. I’ll address all these concerns. We need strength for health, to fully function, and ultimately for independence. Our strength is largely, but not entirely, a function of our muscle mass. Strength also depends on how fast our brain fires our muscle, our skill in using our muscle, our body mechanics, and the balance in our muscle between slow twitch and fast twitch muscle fibers, fast twitch being better for sprinters and slow twitch for marathon runners. Strength can be built to some extent just by training your nervous system and your movement skills, but the real gains in strength and confidence come with building up the key muscle groups. Building muscle requires stimulus: play time! Perhaps workouts should be re-worked and re-branded as “play time.” “Gamification” is everywhere today. Maybe some would enjoy “gamified” workouts. Whatever it takes. Too many people are put off by the very thought of muscle training, but building muscle requires both protein and a stimulus, a signal to our bodies to add the muscle. Our bodies wisely require proof that more muscle is needed before they go about adding it. Otherwise, we would be growing muscle without control, using extra protein in our system. The stimulus that tells our bodies to create new muscle comes from pushing our muscles to their limit by working them, usually through training using weights or other resistance. Without a training stimulus, muscles won’t grow. Training and protein are both essential to building muscle. So how much protein is needed? The scientific consensus and federal recommendation was 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight from 1941 until this year. That’s going on 90 years. The method for coming up with the initial 0.8 grams recommendation has been replaced by a more accurate technology that does not underestimate protein need. Also, for most of that time 0.8 grams was considered a target even though it was created as a recommended minimum. The new Dietary Guidelines for Americans issued in January by the Trump administration increased the recommended minimum to 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight, that’s 50 to 100% more than the old minimum recommendation. The math made easier Let’s pause for a moment because there’s more metric math in that equation than most of us Americans are keen on doing. Translated to pounds of body weight, we’re looking for roughly ½ to ¾ of a gram of protein per pound of body weight. So for a 150 pound adult, that is a recommendation of about 75 to 110 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day. Across the day that could look like two large eggs (25g), almond butter on two slices of 100% whole wheat toast (20g), yogurt (15g), or a 4-ounce fillet of chicken (35g) or salmon (25g). There is a 75 to 110 grams range in this minimum recommendation because there are many other factors besides body weight to consider, including age, GLP-1 use or other weight-loss dieting, exercising and strength training, and overweight and obesity. All of these factors are reasons to consider aiming for the upper end of this range or beyond. Kennedy is…right So it pains me to say it because he is so deadly wrong about other things like vaccines, but RFK, Jr. is right – albeit only partly – about increasing the recommended protein level. What he, the USDA, and the rest of the cattle-and-dairy-cozy Trump administration are wrong about is suggesting that consumption of red meat should be increased. And maybe full fat dairy is okay for active youths on a healthy diet, but for adults, saturated fat, like that in milk, is strongly linked to heart disease. Further, the Guidelines should have emphasized that seafood and plant protein are healthier than protein from meat. Eating in America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Protein can be 10% to 35% of our diet! Protein can safely make up 10% to 35% of the calories in a diet according to the standard set by the National Academies of Science’s Academy of Medicine. So more protein is fine. If that extra protein replaces refined carbohydrates or saturated fat, all the better. Older adults don’t make muscle as easily The ability to synthesize muscle tissue is reduced in older adults – that’s called anabolic resistance – but eating an increased amount of protein can overcome that deficit. Because of this, the new Dietary Guidelines recommendation of a minimum of ½ to ¾ grams of protein per pound of body weight is largely in line with recommendations for older adults. Sarcopenic obesity, explained Adults of any age who have sarcopenia, that is loss of muscle mass or strength, associated with obesity, will benefit from increased protein and strength training to build muscle and increase its quality. Protein and strength conditioning As with recommendations for older adults, the International Society of Sports Nutrition’s position on protein for exercising individuals is roughly in line with the new Dietary Guidelines recommendation. Competitive athletes tend to have increased protein and other nutrition requirements depending on what their sport is and what their training requirements are. There’s clearly a range in needs from ping-pong to football players. Eat protein anytime and it will go to work - if you have given it a reason to! For the rest of us who do strength workouts, there’s a myth that the anabolic window when protein can be synthesized into muscle is limited to two hours after strength training. That window is actually 24 hours, so eat your protein whenever you can during the day, just be sure to get your resistance training in. However, for older adults, to overcome the anabolic resistance that comes with aging and makes muscle synthesis difficult, spread out the protein intake across three or four meals during the day. For many of us, that might only mean adding a good protein source such as e… This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.eatinginamerica.co/subscribe

  4. Oct 4

    Eating In America: coming next

    From stories of food pantries during SNAP cuts, to coffee and the Ngabe people in Panama who pick the beans, to industry funded research like the 1945 margarine experiment on orphans in Chicago, to the role of sailing ships and the military in shaping our current food environment and the role of food on military ships in shaping morale, to Surgeon General candidates who invest in smoking (still an issue!), to GLP-1s, to a much better way to define and understand ultra-processed food, to the generally recognized as crippled GRAS system of food additive safety, to the dangerous state of cannabis and hemp dysregulation due to greed and politics, and, not at all last or least, to my hero, the father of epidemiology, slayer of cholera, and clean water fanatic, John Snow, the first year of Eating In America has been busy. I was getting my Master of Science in Nutrition Policy and Programs and my Master of Public Health when Covid hit. I rolled up my sleeves and used my epidemiology to make maps of where food assistance would be needed and where hospital beds would run short. I picked up the phone and traced Covid cases and contacts to help contain the epidemic and get assistance to those in need. I thought “good job Ric!,” way to pick a time to be training in public health and epidemiology and nutrition. What no one saw coming, except those who were then planning what has since happened with the American government, was that public health would soon be pilloried, assaulted, defunded, and deprioritized. Stories I have posted in the last year have often pointed out how the science got it wrong or authorities kept their blinders on when presented with the facts. That has always been true. Socrates was executed for teaching youth to think and the Church banned Copernicus’s ideas about the solar system. But as scientific knowledge and capacity have exploded and, coupled with technology, become an overwhelming source of power in our civilization, is the killing of science a more frequent response of the despot? The last 100 years provides all the evidence we need to worry about when extremists take control of science. From the famines in Russia and China stemming from Stalin and Mao’s rejection of agricultural science, to the German brain drain as Hitler rejected Einstein’s physics and Jewish scientists in general, to Pol Pot’s killing fields filled with the hundreds of thousands of corpses of anyone with the executable offense of having an education, men with the certainty of their own infallibility have sent millions to their deaths. My writing in Eating In America has an urgency, for me, because it so often deals with the consequences of the actions and policies of America’s infallible despot, Trump, and his servant, RFK, Jr. As long as Trump and Kennedy are in office, I will have, uh, a lot to report on and analyze coming from our central government. I’ve posted and podcasted 62 pieces since Eating In America launched. Science and facts are the foundation of everything I write, although I try to help our understanding of the facts by, at times, drawing lines to show the connections which are hidden from us and making fair assumptions about what is going on with the motivations of politicians, corporations, researchers, and other organizations. A new phase of Eating In America begins today, as I take a moment to sharpen my quills, and add in a new, I hope important, project for the coming year. Since AI can hear even my faint voice in the public health wilderness, I need to keep to myself just what my new project is at the moment… In the meantime I need to dial back my writing for Eating In America. I’ll keep posting, just not as much. I hope I’ll have your continued support over the next year. Your support has meant so much. It’s absolutely key for Eating In America and related endeavors going forward…Please stick around. Thank you. Ric References Mann DL. When Facts Become Forbidden: The Past and Present History of Scientific Censorship. JACC Basic Transl Sci. Mar 2025;10(3):402–404. https://doi.og/10.1016/j.jacbts.2025.02.003 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.eatinginamerica.co/subscribe

  5. Sep 20

    Why did Trump and Congress delay the ban on THC snacks that are sold to kids?

    Candy and snacks made with THC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, are for sale to both adults and kids in America: not in cannabis dispensaries but places like convenience stores. These treats are not regulated. Seventh graders on their way to school can stop and pick up packages of THC edibles made to look like familiar name brand candies. Except these candies can get them high, dangerously high. As I reported in my April series “Ultraprocessed Cannabis: Potency, Policy, and Public Health in America,” in 2018 Trump and Congress deregulated hemp, meaning cannabis without an intoxicating amount of THC. While the intent was to allow the unregulated sale of wellness products and supplements containing CBD, or cannabidiol, a non-psychoactive chemical in the Cannabis Sativa plant, there was a loophole. While hemp products couldn’t contain more than a tiny amount of Delta-9 THC, which causes the high in cannabis, nothing forbid using ultraprocessing techniques to make products with potent amounts of the Delta-8 THC that is found in hemp. For years, large quantities of Delta-8 THC have been added to canned drinks, gummies, and other snacks that have been sold without restriction, including purchasing age. To receive new posts and support Eating in America, please become a free or paid subscriber! Some states have taken action, but more than half have not Thirteen states ranging from Idaho to New York have banned hemp products with Delta-8 THC. Another seven allow intoxicating products but impose limitations or regulation. It is alarming from a public health viewpoint that intoxicating hemp products are legal and unregulated in about 25 states. Federal action at last Last year, as part of a continuing funding bill, Congress, with Trump’s signature, set this coming November 12th as the date when all hemp-based products with intoxicating levels of THC would be banned federally. Some legislators pushed for an additional one-year delay in the ban, but that effort failed. Trump changes mind, now favors a delay in action. Did the White House Chief of Staff’s daughter marrying a hemp products CEO have anything to do with Trump’s reversal? In June, Trump reversed himself and began asking Congress either to enact a regulatory framework allowing hemp-based products or to delay the ban. MS-NOW has pointed out this is the same month that White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles’ daughter got married to the CEO of MC Nutraceuticals, a large wholesaler of hemp-based products, including Delta-8 THC. Could Trump’s reversal on the ban be a wedding gift? Forgive me for suggesting this possibility, but Trump’s past behavior is consistent with an inability to see himself in a conflict of interest in anything he fancies to do. What was the political game with the delay? At the beginning of August the quest for a delay turned into a proposed 4-week postponement of the ban ostensibly to allow legislators time to work out a hemp regulatory proposal. This ask for a small one-month delay baffled me at the time. It came an entire three months before the ban was meant to go into effect. I could understand if November 12th was drawing close after three months of hard lobbying and work constructing a compromise proposal and then a delay to the ban was asked for, but to ask so far ahead for a small one-month delay? Clearly, some political gamesmanship and heavy hemp industry lobbying was at play. Maybe the hemp lobby thought waiting until after the mid-terms would free up some favorable votes, or maybe they thought just being able to get one positive outcome in favor of hemp, even if just a short delay, would swing momentum in hemp’s favor. Or maybe the fact that Congress was not going to be in session at the start of the ban was a factor. One month delay slid into a funding bill and passed. In any case, the hemp ban delay was added to a must-pass federal short-term funding extension and the hemp industry got their 4-week reprieve. As it stands the ban will now end on December 11. Three types of hemp-based products: not gross, gross, and the big money maker to be. So let’s try to make sense of what is at stake. There are three types of hemp-based products. In the first, the hemp form of the Cannabis Sativa plant is used to make CBD products, such as tinctures, gummies, edibles, teas, and topical creams. The same plant is used for making rope and fabric. Within this first, non-intoxicating CBD category, there are three sub-categories. The first subcategory of hemp products use full spectrum CBD, meaning small amounts of different types of THC are retained. Some users regard full spectrum as providing the most beneficial effect. However, full spectrum consumable products can have enough total THC to cross the federal threshold of 0.4 mg, in which case they would be banned beginning December 11th. In the second sub-category, broad spectrum CBD has Delta-9 THC, the main kind of THC in cannabis, but the total quantity of is not enough to have any psychoactive effect. Thirdly, CBD isolate is, as the name implies, just the cannabidiol with other compounds, including any kind of THC, removed. The worst harm with this whole category of CBD products - it is not a huge harm but it is a harm - is that people are usually spending money on the basis of health claims which are not proven and are not regulated. The actual amount of active ingredient can vary from what is claimed on the package, which is never a good thing. There is, however, strong evidence for the usefulness of CBD in treating epilepsy, although using an unregulated product for this important purpose carries risks. The second type of hemp-based product is of greatest concern and most in need of regulation. Those are the consumables like gummies and edibles that can have very high levels of Delta-8 or other synthetic THC components. Some makers have gone so far as to put these dangerous psychoactive products into forms and packages which look like well-known, colorful, innocent candies. No alcohol but still a buzz in the can THC beverages represent the third type of hemp-based product. I suspect the enormous financial potential of THC drinks sold outside of cannabis dispensaries is the biggest motivator for the hemp lobby to try to kill the hemp ban. Currently these drinks are being put on shelves in stores that sell alcohol. Can hemp leapfrog cannabis to get federal approval and regulation? As alcohol sales decline and cannabis consumption increases, major voices on the retail side of the alcohol industry are in favor of regulating THC drinks made from hemp so that liquor stores and restaurants can sell them. Some major brewers like Constellation (Corona, Modelo), Heineken (Lagunitas), and Coors Molson, along with some craft brewers, are already investing in hemp-based beverages. Restaurant associations are also part of the lobby to legalize intoxicating hemp drinks. This whole beverage segment would love to leapfrog the possibility of federal legalization of cannabis and reap big gains in this quickly developing market. The big dog in the fight: THC in a can or martini glass So, to review, in the realm of hemp first we have the fairly innocent CBD products, then the THC gummies and edibles, a segment that has been grossly tarnished by the those who make hemp products targeting a market that doesn’t have an adult understanding of psychoactive drugs and their hazards, including kids who end up hallucinating at school. … This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.eatinginamerica.co/subscribe

  6. Sep 15

    “Survivor, Surgeon General,” Episode 3, Donald J. Trump, your host

    Surgeon General nominee Dr. Nicole Saphier will testify at her Senate confirmation hearing tomorrow. If she is approved as Surgeon General it will represent another major corruption of America’s public health authority. Eating In America previously reported that Saphier owns a supplement company. Her pricey tinctures have unquantified, ultraprocessed ingredients, and the health claims she makes for them are unsupported by science. One of them contains kava root, a supplement that is banned in the U.S. military because of its association with liver damage. Her involvement in supplements should have immediately dismissed her from consideration as Surgeon General. Newly disclosed is that she has profited by $270,000 from these products. Eating in America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Equally disqualifying are new revelations in the financial disclosure and ethics agreement she submitted last week that she owns stock in the three major tobacco companies, Altria Group, British American Tobacco, and Philip Morris. Equally disqualifying are the new revelations Saphier owns shares of Nestlé, a giant ultraprocessed food company, who’s ethics include vigorously marketing infant formula to women who could have breast fed but were convinced by Nestlé to use formula, even though they did not have clean water to mix the formula, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of babies and children. Equally disqualifying are the new revelations that she is an owner of Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Mondelēz, Taco Bell, McDonald’s, KFC, makers of food linked to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and many other ailments. Saphier owns stock in 239 major corporations apart from these nine who peddle toxic products. She did not have to sacrifice profit to make choices that were less abhorrent for a health leader. With these new revelations of tobacco and sugar-based food investments, Saphier draws even closer to matching the profiles and disqualifications of the two Surgeons General nominees who were “voted off” before her. As I point out in my May podcast/post “Survivor, Surgeon General,” Saphier shares with the first nominee, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, graduation from a medical school in the Caribbean and broadcasting at Fox News. With failed nominee #2 Casey Means, Saphier shares profiting from the supplement industry and stated ambiguity about vaccines. Newly disclosed and also thoroughly damning are the tobacco investments Saphier has made, like Means, in Altria Group and Philip Morris. Trump’s need to insist repeatedly that his choices are right until they are accepted, despite the consequences Americans are suffering, is again reflected in his third Surgeon General nominee, stamped in the very same mold as the first two. Unfortunately, back in her hearing in February, the Senate paid little attention to Casey Means’ involvement with tobacco, so that black stain on Saphier’s public health resume may not be a factor in her hearing tomorrow. Thank you for reading. Your support for Eating In America is appreciated. References Saphier, Nicole. Surgeon General nomination, financial disclosure details. September 7, 2026. Provided by U.S. Office of Government Ethics, September 15, 2026. Saphier, Nicole. Letter of financial disclosure and ethics agreement. September 7, 2026. https://extapps2.oge.gov/201/Presiden.nsf/PAS+Index/54788BB045EFAE6E85258E6E002DFF11/$FILE/Saphier Bayly R. Survivor, Surgeon General, podcast/post on Eating In America. May 26, 2026. https://www.eatinginamerica.co/p/survivor-surgeon-general-who-will This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.eatinginamerica.co/subscribe

  7. Sep 13

    Sugar Coated, Unboxing the Hidden Forces Shaping America’s Favorite Breakfast Food

    Are you one of the 300 million Americans who together spend $23 billion to eat breakfast cereal each year? Is there nostalgia in that bowl or just a pleasant-enough dose of food to push you out the door in the morning? Marion Nestle and Lisa Sutherland’s new book, Sugar Coated, Unboxing the Hidden Forces Shaping America’s Favorite Breakfast Food, is a not-sugar-coated history of the invention and evolution of cereal in America, inspired by and told through an extraordinary collection of Kellogg cereal box reproductions dating back to 1919 and given to Nestle by Kellogg in 2010. Nestle and Sutherland, who was Vice President for Nutrition at Kellogg at the time, understood immediately that these artifacts embodied - and displayed in bright colors - a macro case study of the way processed food has been marketed in the United States in the last hundred years. Granula, the sanctified but inedible beginning As Nestle and Sutherland recount the history, the first granola was created in 1863 in a sanatorium in western New York. “Granula,” as it was called, was inedible unless it was soaked overnight. Nonetheless, the idea for the whole grain breakfast food was quickly appropriated by two brothers, the Kelloggs, who added a moralistic wrapper as they served it along with the beliefs of the health and nutrition conscious Seventh-Day Adventist Church. C.W. Post, of the soon to be Postum Cereals, helped in the kitchen of the Kelloggs’ sanatorium in Battle Creek, Michigan where Post also, let’s not sugar coat it again, appropriated stole the idea of a healthy whole grain cereal. Snake oil and whole grains By the turn of the century, the shift from pulpit to profit was complete in the cereal market and soon 100 cereal makers populated Battle Creek. In 1906, health-promising snake oil sales were at their peak in America, but purchases of genuinely healthy cereal were taking off, albeit with the help of snake-oil-like health claims such as Postum Grape-Nuts’ “rebuilds the soft gray matter in your brain.” Cereal had already been industrialized with extrusion and crushing processes that break the whole grains down into a more digestible form. Some cereal makers in Battle Creek were adding barley malt to sweeten their products, but the elder Kellogg, Dr. John Harvey, was adamantly opposed to sugar in the diet. The younger W.K. Kellogg saw great wealth in the future, however, and in 1906 added cane sugar to the new Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. The road to the prominence of breakfast cereal as a highly- and ultra-processed food in our culture was paved. The cereal industry’s manipulation of … everybody In Sugar Coated, Nestle and Sutherland carefully lead us through formulation of cereals over time with the addition of artificial colors, vitamins, minerals, fiber, protein, artificial sweeteners, and, of course, sugar, and lots of it. The book thoroughly and frighteningly tracks the industry’s manipulation of the Food and Drug Administration for food and labeling standards, the Federal Trade Commission for commercial advertising, academia and the nutrition research community for production of the supporting science, along with the USDA and Congress for laws and policies, all to help avoid or reduce regulation and gain license to market in ways that would best promote cereal sales. Health claims, laughable and cringeworthy The authors by turn amused and enraged me in sorting out the confusing and contentious history of health claims on cereal boxes, from the reasonable “avoids constipation” of the Kellogg 1919 All-Bran to the icky-sticky endorsement of the America Diabetes Association on boxes of Post’s sugary cereals. Sugar Coated is bound to be frequently cited for detailing the way the industry has doggedly pursued its marketing goals, through managing to get government regulations changed, creating self-imposed regulation to deflect government efforts to regulate, or just ignoring the rules, often paying the penalty in court while reaping the bigger benefit in sales. Other writers will undoubtedly extend the lessons of Sugar Coated to help examine and link the tactics of highly- and ultra-processed food segments and other industries which market addictive or regulated substances. (I include sugar as an addictive substance, a conclusion W.K. Kellogg himself might have intuited.) Sugar as the essence of cereal’s rise to be a keystone of the diet of many Americans As the name Sugar Coated implies and Nestle and Sutherland convincingly detail, sugar has long been the essential ingredient for the success of breakfast cereal, as well as one of the key battlegrounds in regulatory and court struggles. The unhealthiness of added sugar is also the reason that the behavior of the Big Four cereal makers in targeting children is unethical. Of the four giants, General Mills, Kellogg, Post, and Quaker Oats, it is no coincidence that Kellogg, now split into W.C. Kellogg for North America and Kellanova for the rest of the world, is owned by Ferraro, the Italian candy maker, and Mars, the American candy maker. Quaker Oats is also owned by a sugar-centric food maker, PepsiCo. Candy for the breakfast of kids as a new norm With marshmallows, chocolate, and candy-names in and on our cereal, we live in a food environment where candy is promoted for breakfast and breakfast is marketed as a sugary snack for eating throughout the day. The authors’ incense at the TV ads, cartoon characters, in-box prizes, colored cereals in unusual shapes, and other marketing tricks that drive the buying of sugar-laden cereal for children is restrained but palpable. The idea of stop signals to warn us Change is coming in other parts of the world and Nestle and Sutherland provide examples. The most important and potentially achievable change the authors describe would be the addition of an instantly understandable and nutritionally-sound front-of-box indication of the healthiness of the cereal or other processed food product being examined. This consumer-friendly heads up has been enacted in the form of octagonal stop-sign shaped warnings in the majority of countries in South America and has greatly reduced sugary cereal sales there. Our Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Make America Healthy Again leader, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has advocated for perhaps the strongest choice for such a warning system, red-yellow-green light icons. Of course, after reading Sugar Coated, we shouldn’t be left with any delusions about the forces the Big Four and the rest of the highly- and ultra-processed food industry are bringing to bear to fight back against RFK, Jr.’s idea. Happy birthday, Marion Nestle! Look at the photo and guess how old Marion Nestle is. This week she celebrated a birthday that ends with a zero. You probably guessed 70th and would be in disbelief that it was her 80th, but it was actually Nestle’s 90th. Where does the impressive nutrition advocacy, book-producing, interview-giving, lecture-delivering, FoodPolitics.com post-writing energy come from? Good luck, but also good nutrition, Nestle says. Happy birthday and thank you and Lisa Sutherland, for this perfect insight into the way Big Food markets, lobbies, and formulates its way onto our tables with the only consideration of healthiness being the ultimate effect on the bottom line. In two weeks, we’ll set Nestle and Sutherland’s Sugar Coated cereal story in the context of the other choices made in the morning by Americans. It will be Breakfast in America on Eating in America. Plea… This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.eatinginamerica.co/subscribe

  8. Sep 6

    Dental health today, the role of teeth in winning wars, and the role of war in bringing dental health to America

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.eatinginamerica.co Height equals genetics plus nutrition plus health. George Washington was about 6’-2” tall. Trump claims to be 6’-3”, but his draft card and driver’s license said he was 6’-2”. Average Americans were a little shorter in Washington’s time than they are now, making Washington’s height more impressive. However, average American men were a whopping 5’8”, three inches taller than the average European! Colonial Americans were largely farmers, growing and eating their own food. Apparently, they got more food and better food on the New World farm, and they got taller. Remembering Wendell Berry Let me pause here to remember the great American agrarian writer Wendell Berry, who died this week. He wrote a lot about society that is divorced from the farm, that is, most of us today: “The industrial eater is, in fact, one who does not know that eating is an agricultural act, who no longer knows or imagines the connections between eating and the land, and who is therefore necessarily passive and uncritical—in short, a victim.” That’s from the book Bringing it to the Table. Thank you, Wendell Berry. The equation for good teeth Back to teeth. Good teeth equals genetics plus nutrition plus health plus good dental care. The dental situation is where Washington came up short There was no or little added sugar in Washington’s growing up years, but also no added fluoride, no toothbrushes, and nothing similar to the professional dental care we have today. Washington lost his last tooth while he was President. None of his various dentures ever fit well, causing him problems like being reluctant to speak in public. I wrote recently about how Washington’s mandatory smallpox inoculation measures were possibly critical in the eventual success of the Continental Army. An incident involving the General’s teeth helped deceive the British about Washington’s ultimately successful attack on Yorktown, Virginia. A stolen letter and a lost battle Washington had written to his dentist in Philadelphia asking him to send tooth cleaning tools, saying that he, Washington, wouldn’t be in Philadelphia soon. The letter was intercepted by the British and unintentionally helped convince them that Washington’s plan was to stay north and attack New York City. Because of this Cornwallis received no reinforcements at Yorktown and lost the battle to Washington, leading to the end of the Revolutionary War. The very unpleasant, unethical makeup of Washington’s dentures Those dentures the General was trying to take care of? Not wood, but the ivory bases were so brown-stained that an observer might think so. The teeth in various of Washington’s dentures consisted of a few of his own teeth that had been removed, along with “purchased” teeth extracted from people enslaved by Washington at Mount Vernon. Cow, donkey, and horse teeth were also used, along with ivory from a hippopotamus, a walrus, and maybe an elephant. The mandibles were spring loaded to open, and the teeth were embedded in lead, tin, copper, and silver alloys. American oral health has improved a lot since Washington’s day The huge increase in dental health began in the 1940s as the era of the ultra-processed was getting started with the technical innovations devised for military food. Two changes in dental care happened just in time to save our teeth, somewhat, from the flood of carbonated, sugared sodas and ultra-processed foods with refined starches and added sugars which was just about to come. Give me 100 pushups and brush for two minutes It was the military that changed American dental habits. Badly hampered in readiness by dental issues like Trench Mouth in World War One, the military made it a firm policy that troops in World War Two would brush daily. They were provided with toothbrushes and powder or paste, supplies that many, perhaps most, could not afford before joining up. Brushing was a habit brought back home in the 1940s by many millions of troops. The other big change was fluoridated water. Fluoridation of the water supply was first tested in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1945. In ten years, tooth decay in the city’s 30,000 school children had dropped 60%. Today over 209 million Americans receive caries protection from 17,400 fluoridated community water systems. Community water supplied populations which receive fluoridation range from an extreme low of 8.5% in Hawaii, mostly on military bases, to a low of 16% in New Jersey, to around 90% to 100% in many southern and rural states. Globally, 25 countries have fluoridated systems. Tooth decay remains a public health issue Despite these changes and big improvements, tooth decay, or caries, remains a public health issue because of all the pain, infections, time lost from work and school, loss of teeth, and costs. It’s the most common chronic disease in children, with half of nine-year olds having already developed caries. And for people over 65, one-quarter have severe tooth loss, meaning they have only eight or less teeth remaining. All the teeth are gone in fifteen percent of older Americans. Socioeconomic disparities and inequities continue to exist in oral health, particularly impacting poor children, but those disparities have tended to lessen as dental health has gotten better in America. Tooth decay down 26% with fluoride in the water Fluoridated water can reduce caries 26% in permanent teeth. This varies depending on factors like the use of fluoride toothpaste in a population or whether the water supply contains natural fluoride. Fluoride is the 13th most common element in nature and some community water systems and many private wells contain higher levels of natural fluoride than the low level added to fluoridated systems. Fluorosis Too much fluoride can cause fluorosis. In its mildest form, fluorosis can cause almost invisible white flecks on the teeth. Acute fluorosis comes with gastrointestinal problems. In a combination of data from 40 other studies, researchers found fluorosis to the degree of showing as spots or streaks on teeth, an esthetic concern, in 12% of people. Another study found that fluorosis is mainly diagnosed in children age five and under who might have swallowed too much fluoridated toothpaste. Fluoride applied directly to the teeth through toothpaste or treatment at a dentist’s visit is by far the most effective method of delivering protection. $120 billion on tooth care per year In 2015, Americans spent $120 billion on their teeth and gums. That spending reduced productivity losses, which were still $46 billion. But fluoridation is the hero for dental return on investment. Every dollar spent on fluoridation decreased dental costs and productivity losses by $20. From a public health standpoint, fluoridation is especially beneficial to those who can’t or don’t access regular dental preventive health services or don’t use fluoride toothpaste. Despite the unquestionable and highly important benefits of fluoridation, community fluoridation is still an issue for many. The concern is not just fluorosis but also the potential risk to IQ. IQ and fluoride A recent analysis combining the results of other studies found a relationship between loss of IQ and increased level of fluoride from all sources. A big caveat of this analysis is that it did not include any direct data of the effect on IQ at the low level of fluoride added to community water systems. More research is needed around the possible effects of low levels of fluoride before the public health benefits of fluoridation are sacrificed. In addition to fluoride in drinking water, toothpaste, or dental treatments to prevent cavities, dental sealants should be applied to the back teeth of children and young adults. Sealants can prevent 80% of cavities, and 9 out of 10 cavities are in the back teeth. You are putting what in my mouth? Throughout history the dental profession has promoted the use of various substances in our mouths which have been great for dental results but can be cringey when other health concerns are considered. Just drawing from the past 100 years, I am thinking of mercury amalgam fillings; BPA or Bisphenol A and a host of other toxic chemicals used in composite fillings, retainers, and sealant; Teflon for brace wires; arsenic to kill tooth roots; formaldehyde to remove the pulp in an infected baby tooth; and chloroform to dissolve the roots of teeth in a root canal operation. About the mercury and BPA-containing fillings: better than the molten lead fillings French dentists would pour as hot liquid into their patients mouths in the 1700s, right?! And then there are the liberal x-rays, the radiation dose of which has been cut dramatically in the digital age. Today, these toxic substances have been eliminated or greatly reduced in dental treatments. Of course, there are other materials and chemicals used in dental care outside the office. Almost all toothbrushes have nylon bristles that can shed microplastics. Dental floss is made of nylon or, much worse, Teflon, as in Glide floss. Even natural products maker Tom’s of Maine uses nylon in its floss. Mouthwash and the possible negative effect on heart health And then there’s mouthwash. The concern most worth considering is that anti-bacterial mouthwash wipes out beneficial bacteria in the oral microbiome. A 2023 set of papers reviewed the evidence and could not conclude if the effect of anti-bacterial mouthwashes, which can improve dental health, are harmful to overall health, mainly through killing bacteria in the saliva which help convert good nitrates from vegetables into nitric oxide in your blood. Nitric oxide is a vasodilator that relaxes your blood vessels, lowers your blood pressure, and is protective against heart disease. More research on mouthwashes is required. Doctors and dentists: is having such separation good? By the way, did your pr

    Dental health today, the role of teeth in winning wars, and the role of war in bringing dental health to America
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