Show notes
Marion Nestle is Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita, at New York University, in the department she chaired from 1988-2003 and from which she retired in September 2017.
She earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology and an M.P.H. in public health nutrition from the University of California, Berkeley. Previous faculty positions were at Brandeis University and the UCSF School of Medicine.
From 1986-88, she was senior nutrition policy advisor in the Department of Health and Human Services and editor of the 1988 Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and Health. Her research and writing examine scientific and socioeconomic influences on food choice and its consequences, emphasizing the role of food industry marketing.
Marion is the author, co-author, or co-editor of fourteen books, several of them prize-winning, most notably Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health (2002); Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety (2003); What to Eat (2006); Why Calories Count: From Science to Politics, with Dr. Malden Nesheim (2012); Eat, Drink Vote: An Illustrated Guide to Food Politics (2013); and Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (and Winning) in 2015.
She has also written two books about pet food, Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine (2008) and Feed Your Pet Right in 2010 (also with Dr. Nesheim). She published Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat, in 2018. Her most recent book, with Kerry Trueman, is Let's Ask Marion: What You Need to Know about the Politics of Food, Nutrition, and Health (2020). Her forthcoming book with University of California Press is a memoir to be published in October 2022, Slow Cooked: An Unexpected Life in Food Politics.
Marion’s books and activities have won many awards and honors, among them four James Beard awards, Bard College’s John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service, the Public Health Hero award from the University of California School of Public Health at Berkeley (which also named her Alumni of the Year), and Les Dames d'Escoffier International’s Grand Dame award. She also has been awarded honorary degrees from Transylvania University in Kentucky, and the City University of New York’s Macaulay Honors College.
From 2008 to 2013, she wrote a monthly Food Matters column for the San Francisco Chronicle food section. She blogs daily (almost) at www.foodpolitics.com.
Her Twitter account, @marionnestle, has been named among the top 10 in health and science by Time Magazine, Science Magazine, and The Guardian, and has more than 140,000 followers.
On this episode of What’s Burning, Marion Nestle’s chat with Host Mitchell Davis includes conversation around the problem with nutritional research, the need for people to learn to cook, and food as a marker of identity.
Follow Marion on both Twitter and Instagram: @marionnestle.
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