Your Brain On... The Food Industry

Ayesha Sherzai (0:00)

This is Your Brain On Podcast, supported by NEURO World. One of the most important concepts we talk about, maybe the most important, is prevention, especially when it comes to nutrition and brain health. We're always sharing recipes on social media, diving into cooking techniques during our live streams on NEURO World, and exploring the science behind brain healthy dietary patterns in our videos and newsletters. That's because good nutrition isn't just helpful, it's foundational. The evidence is clear. Dietary patterns rich in whole plant-based foods are strongly associated with lower risk of cognitive decline, stroke and Alzheimer's dementia. Studies like the MIND and the Mediterranean diet trials have shown that there is a significant reduction in Alzheimer's risk when there is adherence to these dietary patterns, up to 53% in those who followed these patterns most closely. But as much as we talk about what to eat, we also have to talk about access. The truth is, most of us don't make food decisions in a vacuum. We make them in an environment shaped by marketing, misinformation and inequality. This is where public health meets policy and where the food industry has far too much influence. In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Marion Nestle. For decades, she's been exposing how the food industry shapes public perception, science and even government guidelines, often at the expense of our collective health. Together, we're going beyond what to eat and asking, why is it so hard to eat well in the first place? Who benefits from confusion and inaction? And how can we take back control, not just individually, but collectively? This is Your Brain On Food Industry.

Our guest for this episode is the incomparable Marion Nestle, a pioneering nutrition and one of the most renown authorities on the socioeconomics of our food choices. And one thing she said that really sums up this whole topic, and we'll hear that shortly, is in this food environment, we're fighting a one and a half trillion dollar industry all by yourself. That really speaks to how, when we see all of these headlines, where the numbers are incredibly scary, one in three adult is overweight, and two in five adult is considered obese by definition. Though much of the blame is often put on the individual, when you look at the bigger picture, there is this behemoth investing billions of dollars in marketing with how food is portrayed, and how it's advertised in our communities, and it makes you stop in your path. This whole concept of blame goes away, and the whole concept of autonomy just goes away, because you see that when foods that are hyper palatable are ubiquitous, and they're constantly put in your face, it makes you pause and reflect on where the points of change can be in the system.

Dean Sherzai (2:58)

It's a formidable opponent. We're talking about 1.5 trillion dollars, and the money is not just invested in marketing of the food. It's actually in lobbying, it's invested in how it's promoted, how the centers of food are affected as far as their distribution. It is a very well organized system. It's important that we also understand that there is a lot of noise introduced into the public conversation, because when you have confusion, people settle to the basic things around them. The confusion is in the conversations that are being promoted on all sides, and none of them are true. These are conversations that are meant to create confusion. They're not the conversations that can bring clarity at a higher level. Every day on social media, I'm seeing 1 person talking about glucose being terrible for you, and eating liver and meats and grass-fed meat, like as if this planet can even sustain something like that. Or on the other side, it's SOS-free, which is salt, oil and sugar and everything, basically raw food. Nutrition is much more complex. Nutrition is not at a level of human autonomy. If it was, we would have succeeded. There's a lot of information out there saying, food is the thing that's making us unhealthy. A great majority of our chronic diseases, be it heart disease, stroke, dementia, diabetes, and even some cancers, are driven by food. We all know that. And most of us know what foods to eat or not to eat. But still, we're getting more and more obese, more insulin resistance, more diseases that are related to nutrition. Why? Because it's impossible to fight this incredible behemoth in the midst of the noise that's being created to distract us. It's not the blueberry that's going to save you, or the ashwagandha that's going to save you. It's food patterns, sustainable food patterns. And we have to start speaking that in a coherent way, where we all agree on the basics of food, and start getting away from the noise. And I think that's going to be difficult, but it's doable. I think that once everybody agrees that science and scientific method is the path to take, as well as the fact that we are not going to be distracted by the juice of the week, or the unusual food of the week, I think we can start the conversation at a much higher level, which is the food system. And Marion did such a masterful job of speaking to that.