Marion Nestle on the Powerful Forces Shaping What We Eat

SPEAKER_2 (0:03)

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Alexis Madrigal (0:40)

Welcome to Forum, I'm Alexis Madrigal. Marion Nestle is a legend of the food world. Her work over many decades, including her path-breaking book, Food Politics, has changed the terms of the debate about food. And her blog, foodpolitics.com, is an incredible repository of news, ideas, information about the broad world of food, nutrition, science, and politics.

And for the fourth or even fifth time, we believe, Marion Nestle, a professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU, joins us here on Forum. Welcome.

Marion Nestle (1:15)

Oh, so happy to be back.

Alexis Madrigal (1:17)

We are delighted to have you, in part because there is a measure on Berkeley's ballot for a kind of update of the soda tax. You wrote a book in 2015 called Soda Politics, and you, of course, know this history. So give us sort of the little, the summary. Like, where did the soda tax come from, and where did Berkeley's kind of roll in a lie?

Marion Nestle (1:41)

Well, Berkeley really took the leadership on all of this. There were some other towns that tried to pass soda taxes before, but Berkeley really, I use Berkeley as a case study of how to do food advocacy right. They did real community organizing. They went door to door in every communities, the one in the flat, the ones in the flats and the ones high up in the hills.

And they talked to people about the effects of consuming large amounts of sugar in liquid form on obesity, diabetes, risks for chronic disease, they talked to people about whether they knew anybody with type 2 diabetes and did they understand that drinking a lot of your sugar is not a really good way to do it. And people got it. And then they promised that they would use the tax revenues for community initiatives and they have done that. They have, you know, they've lived their promises. And this is a success story with research that shows that it reduces soda consumption and maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe is helping people manage their weight better.

Alexis Madrigal (3:05)

I mean, it's interesting too, because it was in the original ballot measure, right? There was a lot of spending against it from the food industry. And it passed with 80% of the vote, as I understand?

Marion Nestle (3:17)

I believe it was 60-something percent, but it was huge. And, you know, it was an enormous, unqualified passing with a very large percentage. And that was because of the fabulous way in which the committee that was running the campaign did it. I mean, they did real community organizing, which is what you have to do to make this stuff work.

Alexis Madrigal (3:43)

So why do we need something else on the ballot in Berkeley?

Marion Nestle (3:47)

Well, that has to do with how long the initiative lasted and California politics. I live in New York. I'm not up on these details. I do know that there has to be another vote on it.

Maybe you could explain.

Alexis Madrigal (4:02)

Yeah, I think they're just adding another cent to it, right?

Marion Nestle (4:06)

Oh, because it was really not as high as what they wanted to begin with.

The evidence had shown that the higher the tax, the more effective it was. The amount that they actually did the tax was a compromise. So this is to fix the compromise a little bit.

Alexis Madrigal (4:23)

So critics of soda taxes, both here and elsewhere have said, they burden lower-income consumers. You know, government shouldn't try to influence people's personal food choices through taxes. Like, what do you think about those?

Marion Nestle (4:39)

Well, the government has an enormous influence on what people eat, based on what the government subsidizes, how the government gives food companies tax advantages for marketing. I mean, there are just a million ways in which the government influences what we eat. This is only a different way of doing it. Taxes are regressive, and there's no question that this is a regressive tax. But the answer to that is type 2 diabetes is regressive. And it hurts the poor much more than it hurts the rich.

And also, sodas are a really convenient target. They're different from any other food in that they're sugars and water and flavors.