Marion Nestle, a leading nutrition researcher, and Dhruv Khullar, a physician and contributor, unravel the complexities of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s health agenda amid his controversial stances on vaccines and junk food. They emphasize the urgent need for reform in food politics, focusing on the impacts of ultra-processed foods on public health. Meanwhile, Kelefa Sanneh reflects on the revolutionary influence of Kraftwerk, the pioneers of electronic music, discussing their profound legacy across various music genres and their cultural relevance today.
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Kennedy Highlights Junk Food Risks
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. emphasizes the health risks of ultra-processed foods despite his controversial stances on vaccines.
His campaign echoes liberal themes but faces skepticism due to political contradictions.
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Take On Food Industry Power
To improve public health, stop food companies from marketing ultra-processed junk foods to children.
Real change requires challenging corporate interests aggressively.
insights INSIGHT
What Makes Food Ultra-Processed
Ultra-processed foods are industrially made and unreplicable at home.
They include additives that transform simple ingredients into addictive, profit-driven products.
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How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health
Marion Nestle
In this book, Marion Nestle delves into the complex relationships between the food industry, government policies, and public health. She reveals how food companies lobby officials, co-opt nutrition experts, and market products to children and minority groups, often prioritizing profits over health. The book covers topics such as the undermining of dietary advice, the influence of food lobbies, and the deregulation of dietary supplements. Nestle argues that the food industry's practices lead to confusion about healthy eating and advocates for informed consumer choices and ethical industry practices.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services, has been undermining public trust in vaccines and overseeing crippling cuts to research across American science. And yet his “make America healthy again” highlights themes more familiar in liberal circles: toxins in the environment, biodiversity, healthy eating. Kennedy has put junk food at the center of the political conversation, speaking about ultra-processed foods and their established links to chronic disease—despite President Donald Trump’s well-known reverence for fast food of all kinds. Marion Nestle, a leading nutrition researcher and the author of “Food Politics,” has written in depth on how money and politics affect our diet and our health, and about the ways that American science research has been hampered by limited funding. She tells the physician and contributing writer Dhruv Khullar, who’s been reporting on the American diet, that “it would be wonderful if R.F.K., Jr., could make the food supply healthier. I just think that in order to do that, he’s going to have to take on the food industry, and I don’t think Trump has a history of taking on corporations of any kind. . . . I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Kraftwerk—the pioneering electronic music group that débuted more than half a century ago —has been touring the U.S., with stops planned in Europe this year. The staff writer Kelefa Sanneh calls them one of the most influential bands of all time, playing a formative role in hip-hop, techno, EDM, and much of popular music as we know it. Sanneh picks tracks from Kraftswerk’s repertoire and demonstrates how those sounds trickle out through music history, from Afrika Bambaataa to Coldplay.
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