Gary Taubes: MAHA, Ultra-Processed Foods, and Bad Science

Science journalist Gary Taubes discusses the MAHA Report, new dietary guidelines, and bad nutrition science.

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Can Robert F. Kennedy Jr. put the country on a diet and Make America Healthy Again? Just asking questions.

The MAHA Report is a 73-page document put out by a government commission headed by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary RFJ Jr. Its goal is to "study the scope of the chronic childhood disease crisis and any potential causes including the American diet." The report points out that childhood obesity rates in the U.S. remain higher than in other G7 countries.

We invited Gary Taubes to join us today because he's a science journalist and researcher who has spent more than two decades studying the American diet. His books include Good Calories, Bad Calories, Why We Get Fat, and The Case Against Sugar. He writes about nutrition science in his Substack, Uncertainty Principles, where he has tackled the question of whether ultra-processed foods are the likely culprit driving America's obesity problem.

We also discuss whether RFK Jr. is more likely to improve or derail U.S. health and nutrition research, the recent resignation of one of the National Institutes of Health's top nutrition researchers, and a challenge to Taubes' "sugar hypothesis" from the pseudonymous blogger Cremieux Recueil.

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