Feeding You Lies: How to Unravel the Food Industry’s Playbook and Reclaim Your Health

I crossed paths recently with an old food friend: Fig Newtons. When I was growing up, these cookies were a staple in the cupboard and in my lunchbox. This newer version, I noticed, claimed to be 100 percent whole grain, made with real fruit. Sounds healthy, right?

I read labels like they’re bestsellers, so when I took a closer look at the list of ingredients in this cookie, my jaw dropped. I couldn’t believe how many processed chemicals they contained. There was sugar under at least three different names, and artificial flavorings.

Ironically, these popular cookies were created back in the 19th century as a health food. Physicians believed that a daily intake of biscuits and fruit would cure digestive problems. This advice inspired a baker in Philadelphia, who invented a novel machine that would wrap pastry dough around fig paste, to make an enchanting little cookie. His recipe was purchased by a larger Massachusetts bakery, and the product was named after the town of Newton, Massachusetts. The Fig Newton was born in 1891.¹

Fast forward to the present: Fig Newtons are a perfect example of how chemicals are replacing nutrients in the foods we eat. They contain some of the basic ingredients we’d use to bake our own cookies, like flour, sugar, and baking soda, but most of the ingredients are not what you’d find in your pantry. (Many of them can’t even be purchased in a grocery store.) Here’s a sampling:

There are three types of added sugar in Nabisco’s 100% Whole Grain Wheat Triple Berry Newtons: regular sugar, corn syrup, and invert sugar. All of which are refined sugars—and scarily associated with obesity, heart disease, cancer, dementia, and liver damage. You’ll eat 12 grams of sugar (3 teaspoons) in just two small Fig Newtons. And how many of us can stop at just two cookies?

Fat is a chief ingredient and shows up in the form of canola oil, a heavily refined oil that goes through an insane amount of processing with chemical solvents (like hexane, a neurotoxin²), steamers, neutralizers, de-waxers, bleach, and deodorizers.³ Although it does indeed contain real fruit, these little Triple Berry Newtons are still artificially flavored and dyed with Red 40, a risky dye that requires a warning label in Europe.⁴ These flavors and dyes have zero nutritional value and are solely used by the industry to mimic the look and taste of real food with fake chemicals.

I’m not picking on Fig Newtons. (Well, maybe just a little.) But I could have just as easily chosen any one of the thousands of brands of processed foods on supermarket shelves these days. I’m just calling out these cookies because they market themselves as a healthier alternative. Yet some versions of Fig Newtons are still laced with refined sugar, refined flour, preservatives, synthetic food dyes, and artificial flavors. If Fig Newtons are this bad, just imagine what an “unhealthy” cookie is like.

Fig Newtons are an example of the Big Food industry at work. These multinational companies are really good at selling us fake food, produced in giant factories from a long list of already highly processed ingredients. They sell us these products because they are highly profitable, even if it means we’re consuming dangerous chemicals, additives, and toxic ingredients.

And it gets worse than that. It’s intentional. Food companies have big R&D departments for this very reason—to make their food addictive.⁵ If it wasn’t, they’d have a much harder time staying in business. As a result, American families are compelled to keep gobbling down loads of processed foods, full of way too much sugar and risky additives … fake food. It’s no surprise that this has led to escalating rates of obesity, diabetes, and other chronic diseases. But we believe we need processed food—because we’ve been conditioned to crave it. The big companies rake in the profits; we pay with our health.

We’ve been processing food since the dawn of time, initially for good reasons. Cooking, fermenting, canning, freezing, and other preservation methods are forms of processing, and they have generally created safer foods.

In recent decades, however, Big Food has taken processing to an entirely new level, creating franken “foods” that are bad for us but good for their bottom line. However, before I explain everything that’s wrong with these food products—and how we can learn to eat better—we need to understand how we got here, scarfing down processed industrial foods that are full of crap you’d never want to feed yourself or your family.

When you sell food that makes people sick, it turns out you have to spend a lot of time and money trying to convince people it’s not your fault. Just as the tobacco industry invested millions of dollars trying (in vain) to discredit the research showing the link between smoking and lung cancer, so has Big Food invested huge resources into persuading people that their unhealthy products aren’t behind the obesity, type 2 diabetes, and chronic diseases affecting Americans on a grand scale.

One of the main ways the food industry does this is by creating entities known as “front groups” whose purpose is to spread information that is favorable to the industry, all while hiding the fact that they’re working for the food and chemical industries. These organizations have names that sound grassroots, but they’re actually paid for and organized by giant corporations with deep pockets. These front groups advance their claims that processed foods full of artificial additives, factory farmed meat, and GMOs are safe, wholesome, and beyond reproach.

In many instances, Big Food and Chemical companies will try to hide their ties to a front group.⁶ Here’s a typical sequence of events:

A large corporation donates money to a foundation or charity that gives the appearance of being independent but acts as a funnel for the corporation’s money going forward.

This foundation funds a new organization to be established to “communicate” to the public. Sometimes, a PR firm is hired to create this organization. They may even create multiple organizations down the line to further hide their connections to industry. These are all front groups.

This new front group creates a respectable-looking website and establishes social media accounts, stating that its mission is to spread the truth about science and food.

The front group creates “experts” in the field by training farmers, dietitians, bloggers, and scientists how to help spread their messages about the “safety” of GMOs, food additives, factory farming practices, or pesticides. These experts may be paid or given other accommodations to do this work for the front group organization. If they are moms, this is considered a bonus, because the industry knows that moms typically make household food decisions and will be more widely accepted by the public.⁷

The organization will then recommend these trained experts to journalists who are writing for major media publications. You’ll often see these front groups and their trained messengers quoted in the media without any mention of their connections to the industries they work for, and without any conflict-of-interest disclaimers.

In many instances, these trained farmers, scientists, and “mommy bloggers” will also write their own blogs or pen articles for bigger mainstream publications. Likewise, they create Facebook groups and pages that will be used to poke fun at activists (like me) and try to disrupt the work we are doing. This process has been duplicated dozens of times and will continue as long as they are not exposed.

An investigation by Friends of the Earth documented the sheer scale of these propaganda efforts. They found, for instance, that four of the largest food and chemical trade associations spent over $500 million from 2009 to 2013 on these efforts. They also uncovered that 14 of the largest front groups working for the food industry spent about $126 million during that same time period, often without fully disclosing where their funding came from.⁸

A good example of a prominent front group⁹ is the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH). According to documents leaked to the publication Mother Jones, this self-proclaimed “pro-science consumer advocacy organization” has received significant funding from a who’s who list of Big Food and chemical companies, such as Bayer, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and Monsanto.¹⁰

We are not a trade association, we do not represent any industry, we were created to be the science alternative to ‘news’ that is often little more than hype based on exaggerated findings, and to help policymakers see past scaremongers, activist groups who have targeted GMOs, vaccines, conventional agriculture, nuclear power, natural gas, and ‘chemicals,’ while peddling health scares and fad diets. The Council’s primary aim is to inform the public and policymakers of good science while debunking the junk.¹¹

Color me skeptical: I sincerely doubt that these big companies are spending millions of dollars on a group without influencing their findings and positions. (And isn’t it strange that their positions are always pro-industry?) Nonetheless, major media outlets such as USA Today regularly publish columns written by ACSH’s president and a senior fellow, without any mention of their apparent ties to corporate interests.¹²

Now consider the Cornell Alliance for Science, housed at Cornell University. This prestigious-sounding group just happens to be the public relations arm for the agrochemical industry.¹³ Its stance is squarely pro-GMO and pro-chemical.¹⁴

The Cornell Alliance for Science claims to have zero industry ties, yet their partners have included several organizations funded by biotechnology companies who sell GMOs and the chemicals used in conjunction with them. To muddle industry ties, they no longer publish a list of “Partners” on their website; however, Internet archives¹⁵ reveal that one partner has been the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, which receives funding from Monsanto (maker of GMO seeds) and CropLife, a trade organization for Monsanto and other biotech giants.¹⁶ See how they try to obscure affiliations like these?

The group got called out by 67 farmers who sent a letter to Cornell, urging them to evict the Cornell Alliance for Science for their biased stance on GMOs. “Nothing in the materials or programs of ‘The Alliance for Science’ is anything but entirely pro-biotechnology. They are without balance or significant critical evaluation of the range of agricultural systems and technologies that exist in food production today,” wrote Elizabeth Henderson, an organic farmer from Wayne County, New York.¹⁷

Meanwhile, the Cornell Alliance for Science provides leadership training to students, farmers, and scientists, many of whom have a background in marketing, business, or journalism, so they are better prepared to use their communication skills to promote the use of GMOs, along with chemical-intrusive agriculture, and to slam activists who are fighting for more sustainable practices. It also offers journalism fellowships with cash awards for “in-depth reporting on important topics in agriculture related to food security and innovative agricultural practices” (in other words, GMOs and pesticides).¹⁸ They put on a front that they are activists trying to help farmers when they are actually just conducting PR work for the biotech industry. It’s appalling.

Another example of an industry front group is the Center for Food Integrity (CFI). Its members include trade groups like the National Restaurant Association, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the Dairy Farmers of America, and companies like Monsanto and Hershey’s,¹⁹ with a primary mission to downplay any public concerns about chemical food additives. They spent a whopping $23,225,098 between 2012 and 2016 on marketing and publicity efforts pushing the agenda of their members.²⁰ It might not surprise you to learn that I’ve personally been a frequent target of CFI’s media attacks, especially since I’ve persuaded numerous CFI members (past and present, such as Chick-fil-A) to remove additives from their food and adopt antibiotic-free policies in the sourcing of their meat.

Then there’s the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance (USFRA), a front group partnered with biotech and chemical giants like Bayer and Monsanto, along with Elanco (makers of conventional animal feed) and Merck Animal Health (makers of animal antibiotics and vaccines). ²¹ USFRA spends millions every year promoting the use of routine antibiotics in farm animals, GMOs, and the safety of synthetic pesticides and conventional agriculture.²² They have reportedly trained thousands of farmers and ranchers throughout the U.S. to be spokespeople promoting these dangerous aims, teaching them how to use USFRA talking points.²³

In 2016 USFRA launched a campaign called “Straight Talk,” hoping to dissuade companies from removing GMOs from their food products. The launch came shortly after Dannon pledged that it would eliminate GMO feed from some of the animals that produce its dairy products (a giant blow to the GMO industry since GMOs are most widely used to feed farm animals). The industry paper Agri-Pulse reported, “USFRA CEO Randy Krotz didn’t go into specifics on which companies will be approached through the campaign, but there is a list of ‘a dozen food companies that we are very, very focused on’ and that ‘the list would not surprise you at all.’”²⁴

Similar to front groups are “trade groups” or “trade associations.” These are organizations openly funded by businesses that operate in order to promote their interests. They participate in activities such as lobbying, political donations, advertising, education, and publishing. Every business and industry has them—and Big Food is no different. Examples include the Calorie Control Council representing low-calorie sweetener manufacturers, the Sugar Association representing sugar growers, the American Beverage Association representing bottled beverage and soda makers, and the Grocery Manufacturers Association representing packaged food and beverage companies. Besides lobbying, trade groups frequently funnel their money to front groups to further their message to the public. These trade groups play a significant role in shaping public opinion about food and beverages, and they have a far-ranging influence on food policies. Their influence on the American diet cannot be overstated.

Government agencies, namely the U.S. departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services, develop the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and they take recommendations from various groups, including trade associations.

According to an investigation into trade groups by the Center for Public Integrity, “Big spenders included the American Beverage Association, which has been shelling out millions to try and keep cities and states from taxing sugary drinks.” Yet, they found most of the money spent by trade groups goes toward efforts to influence the public. “They certainly want to influence the general public, because the general public will then influence the politicians, the lawmakers or the regulators in that particular industry,” said Steve Barrett, editor-in-chief of PRWeek, in referencing their investigation.²⁵

This type of influence peddling by front groups and trade associations goes on all the time. It is their main reason for being.

Who do you trust for information about your food? Do you trust the government? How about food companies themselves? Most people would say “no way!” to both those questions. The industry has found that the public generally doesn’t trust information coming directly from them, so they deploy a stealthy tactic. You see, the public is often trusting of information that comes from credentialed experts who appear to be completely independent and separate from industry, such as academics at publicly funded universities. That’s why Big Food and Chemical regularly work with university scientists behind closed doors to spread misinformation about food and nutrition, dispute activists, repeat industry talking points, and generally manipulate the public. They essentially use certain university professors as puppets to advance their message. In general, they do this under the name of “science outreach” or “science communication,” but when it is propagated by industry it is really just industry propaganda with a fancy name slapped on it. It’s more about protecting the bottom line of the industry than actually spreading the truth about science.

I’ve known about this connection between academics and industry for a long time, and have had personal experience with it. Let me give you one telling example.

Soon after the Food Babe Army petitioned Kraft and Subway to change their ingredients, a professor from the University of Florida, Dr. Kevin M. Folta, appeared on the scene and began criticizing our work (and me personally). This particular professor is a very vocal proponent of GMO technology and the chemicals used along with them made by Monsanto (he even reportedly drank Roundup weed killer mixed with Diet Mountain Dew at some of his talks to demonstrate its safety).²⁶ He also explicitly stated on several occasions that he was an independent public scientist with no relationship to Monsanto.²⁷ Thus, he was trusted by many.

Folta ramped up his attacks against me after I was invited to his campus to give a talk for the university’s Common Reading Program, nominated by one of the staff members: “We admire your work and believe that our students would greatly benefit from hearing you speak,” they wrote. During the talk to hundreds of freshman, I discussed my journey as a food activist, including the campaigns I had led to get the food industry to change by removing controversial chemicals and improving their food practices. The students were required to read The Good Food Revolution by Will Allen in preparation for my talk, so they were primed to hear more about the central theme of an unjust food system that produces unhealthy food for the majority. After my talk, I stuck around for an hour or so and met candidly with many of the students and some teachers who attended. Folta was in the auditorium but did not approach me or come up to meet me like so many others did.

I later discovered that Folta e-mailed his boss the morning after my talk, writing, “Over an hour of bad science, lies about food and farming, poisoning the minds of about 500 UF undergrads. No Q&A session. Now we have to fix it.”²⁸ He proceeded to write on his blog, “There’s something that dies inside when you are a faculty member that works hard to teach about food, farming and science, and your own university brings in a crackpot to unravel all of the information you have brought to students … If this is a charismatic leader of a new food movement it is quite a disaster. She’s uninformed, uneducated, trite and illogical. She’s afraid of science and intellectual engagement. She’s Oz candy at best.”²⁹

Needless to say, Monsanto was pleased that Folta attended my talk and wrote a discrediting piece about me on his blog. Monsanto executive Lisa Drake e-mailed Folta a couple days later: “Just saw this post—you rock! Glad you were able to stop by, but a sacrifice for sure. Lisa.”³⁰ Folta also got praise from public relations firm Look East (formerly CMA), which has worked with Monsanto: “I found your piece on Food Babe’s visit to your campus extremely entertaining. Nice work.”³¹ The president and CEO of the American Seed Trade Association (a Big Ag trade group) wrote him privately as well: “I’ve been following your work, statements, speeches on science v. advocacy and I want to say thank you. Your willingness to standup to the likes of the ‘Food Babe’ and call BS is wonderful and you do it in such an graceful manner.”³²

He didn’t stop there. Folta closely followed our work for months following my visit to UF. Every time we made headway on an important issue, Dr. Folta, who as I mentioned, called himself an independent public scientist, was there to refute our claims and throw in some ad hominem attacks in the media. Here are a couple direct quotes from the news:

“The fact that she is able to mobilize this army of blind followers who reject science and follow her words, to smear and harm the reputations of companies that are doing nothing wrong.”—The Atlantic, 2/11/2015.³³

“Kevin M. Folta, the chairman of the horticultural sciences department at the University of Florida, described Ms. Hari’s lecture at the university last October as a ‘corrupt message of bogus science and abject food terrorism.’”—The New York Times, 3/15/2015.³⁴

Folta even e-mailed Adam Carolla’s office on three occasions, hoping to get on his popular podcast. “I’m a huge fan of the podcast. I’m also a professor that leads one of the USA’s leading ag programs at a huge university. I know a ton about farming, food, GMO, food terrorism (like the Food Babe and other morons that want to scare people out of eating), food allergies, and food’s interface with contemporary society.”³⁵

My intuition and common sense told me there was no way this guy would be engaging in personal attacks like this unless he was in cahoots with Big Food or chemical companies, but he kept denying any alliances or funding arrangements. He maintained that he was an independent public scientist working for the University of Florida. As a result, the media portrayed him as an unbiased scientist and he was continually given a platform to bash me publicly.

Then came a bombshell report published in The New York Times several months later. When I saw this story on the front page of the paper, my jaw dropped wide open. The piece, entitled “Food Industry Enlisted Academics in G.M.O. Lobbying War, Emails Show,” described how the chemical and food industries work with public university scientists to advance their agendas to consumers.³⁶ They published hundreds of private e-mails between Dr. Folta, Monsanto, front groups, and the public relations firm Ketchum. (The e-mails came to light after Freedom of Information Act requests were submitted by the nonprofit group U.S. Right to Know.³⁷) The vast series of e-mails indicate that although Folta repeatedly denied having any connection to Monsanto, he solicited a $25,000 grant from the company to further his biotech communications efforts; the money was paid to the University of Florida. (In an e-mail to Monsanto executives, he promised “a solid return on the investment.”) This is a clear conflict of interest and contrary to his previous claims that he has no ties to Monsanto. As was reported in the Gainesville Sun, after this information went public, Folta tried to give Monsanto a refund: “I talked to Monsanto about returning the money. They are totally against it, said it looks like an admission of guilt.” Monsanto’s spokesperson told the paper, “We funded Dr. Folta’s proposal through an unrestricted grant to the University of Florida with no strings attached—which means we cannot make any formal requirements on how the funds are used.”³⁸ The university later made amends by reallocating the funds to benefit a food pantry.

Sadly, these conflicts go on all the time. You run into them constantly with scientific studies about nutrition, particularly in studies of beverages. According to a 2007 report in PLOS Medicine, research results appear to be biased in favor of the food manufacturers who pay for the studies.³⁹ The numbers are staggering: research funded solely by the beverage industry was four to eight times more likely to draw conclusions favorable to industry sponsors than were studies with no industry funding. Dr. David Ludwig, the study’s senior author, noted that not only do such findings attract frequent media attention, but they also influence governmental and professional dietary guidelines, as well as Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decisions on health claims allowed on foods and beverages. Sadly, when it comes to scientific research, Big Food is essentially able to buy the results it wants. At the very least, such biased data confuses consumers, obscuring the truth so we keep on buying their processed junk.

Marion Nestle, a nutrition professor and author, summed this up beautifully in an interview with the American Association of University Professors:

Sponsorship almost invariably predicts the results of research … results are highly likely to favor the sponsor’s interest. The companies are not buying the results, although it sometimes seems that way. Instead, it seems to me that researchers who are willing to accept grants from food companies tend to be less critical about the way they design their studies. I often notice that sponsored studies lack appropriately rigorous controls. One way to understand this is to suggest that scientists who accept corporate sponsorship have internalized the values of the sponsor so thoroughly that they think themselves independent … As a rule, corporate funding discourages critical thinking—or promotes uncritical thinking—about the importance of individual foods or nutrients in healthful diets. Sponsored studies have only one purpose—to establish a basis for marketing claims. They are not carried out to promote public health.⁴⁰

But wait: there’s more. According to a report titled “Nutrition Scientists on the Take from Big Food,” authored by attorney and food advocate Michele Simon, an alarming number of studies on nutrition are corrupted by groups and companies connected to Big Food.⁴¹ Her fascinating report details how these companies control and influence the science surrounding nutritional research. Also included in the report is an expose of the American Society of Nutrition (ASN), which is considered a renowned academic organization specializing in nutrition research. In reality, the ASN is sponsored by a gaggle of industry conglomerates like Cargill, Coca-Cola, Kellogg’s, PepsiCo, and McDonald’s (who have each paid at least $10,000 per year for the spot). Meanwhile, the ASN publishes the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN), considered one of the most respected scientific journals in the field of nutrition. Dubiously, though, at least one researcher in cahoots with Big Food serves on the AJCN’s editorial board, which determines what gets published in the journal.

Worth mentioning too is that the AJCN contends that processed foods are not the enemy and promotes the idea that nearly every food is processed, since processing also refers to food that is cut, frozen, or cooked. That’s a weak argument, if you ask me. I think there’s a huge difference between a bag of frozen peas and a bag of Doritos.

To further complicate matters, industry-funded influence is not always disclosed in published research papers. A Journal of Public Health Policy paper found that although several studies funded by Coca-Cola reported “no influence by the funder, the correspondence describes detailed exchanges on the study design, presentation of results and acknowledgement of funding. This raises important questions about the meaning of standard statements on conflicts of interest.”⁴² This allows food companies like Coca-Cola to influence public policy and regulatory decisions regarding their products. This is articulated in a study published in the journal Critical Public Health, which analyzed e-mails between former senior executives at Coca-Cola. Their analysis found that “deliberate” actions were taken by the company to influence scientific evidence and expert opinion, in an effort to push public policy in their favor.

When we see the latest nutrition science story in the news, we need to be skeptical—and look at whether the science is independent or not. If it’s not independent, we should look at the source of its funding and consider how this study fits within the larger body of research.

Many dietitians have partnered up with Big Food, blurring the lines between valid nutritional information and food marketing. Some glaring examples:

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics put the first “Kids Eat Right” seal on Kraft Singles (an American cheese snack that isn’t more than 51 percent real cheese). Thankfully this was short-lived. Although the Academy and Kraft Foods initially entered into a three-year partnership, they received so much backlash that they were forced to remove the seal from Kraft’s processed cheese during the first month.⁴³

Frito-Lay once pitched dietitians to advocate Fritos as a good option for a gluten-free diet.⁴⁴ Frito-Lay has also sponsored seminars or dietitians in which the company advised dietitians on health trends and nutrition education. Frito-Lay even created an entire website dedicated to nutritionists called SnackSense.com, where they further attempted to convince health professionals that chips are healthy. Here, they told dietitians that “There is no ‘junk’ in Fritos Original corn chips” and that they fit into a “healthier lifestyle.”⁴⁵ Registered dietitians are the people who are supposed to be telling us what is healthy to eat—and they are being taught that Fritos are a health food?

Over the years, junk food companies like Nestlé, Hershey’s, and PepsiCo have set up exhibit booths at the biggest nutrition conferences in the industry. McDonald’s was an official sponsor of the California Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ annual conferences in 2014 and 2017.⁴⁶

When I realized that junk food companies were teaching and catering to health professionals, I was horrified (and some responsible dietitians are horrified as well). However, this isn’t a new trend: there’s a long list of processed food companies and trade associations that have been accredited to teach continuing education courses to registered dietitians, including General Mills, Kraft, Coca-Cola, and PepsiCo. For instance, Coca-Cola once bragged, “In 2014 alone the number of courses completed by RNs, RDs, pharmacists and other HPs exceeded 300,000, and today more than 40,000 nurses know more about the safety and benefits of low-calorie sweeteners as a direct result of these programs.”⁴⁷

And guess what: the industry’s plan is working. Some registered dietitians are now touting it’s okay to eat Hostess cupcakes if they are in a “100 calorie” pack, drink Crystal Light, or to eat “fresco style” at Taco Bell if you’re trying to lose weight.⁴⁸

This would be funny if it wasn’t true. And if the lies weren’t so dangerous.

Whether we like it or not, a lot of lobbying goes on in Washington, D.C., and some of the strongest lobbying efforts are made by the food industry. One of the most powerful lobbying groups is the dairy industry, which long ago succeeded in securing dairy as an actual food group in the American diet. In 2006 the dairy lobby triumphed again by not only maintaining dairy as a food group, but in getting a revision in the U.S. Dietary Guidelines to bump up the dairy recommendation from two servings a day to three servings for adults and children. This still stands in the current guidelines, and the exact wording is: “Recommendations are 2 cups (or the equivalent in yogurt or cheese) for children ages 2 to 3 years, 2½ cups for children ages 4 to 8 years, and 3 cups for teens ages 9 to 18 years and for adults.”⁴⁹

Tax dollars also help promote unhealthy fast food products like pizza and cheesy sandwiches. Thanks to a government program called “dairy checkoff,” the USDA helps market junk food sold by huge restaurant chains as long as it contains dairy products. For instance, the USDA-managed “dairy checkoff” provides funding to Dairy Management Inc., a corporation who collaborates with fast food companies to sell products like a Pizza Hut pan pizza with 25 percent more cheese and McDonald’s Egg White Delight McMuffins with 30 percent larger cheese slices. They even once worked with Wendy’s to create a Cheddar-Lover’s Bacon Cheeseburger that was loaded with two slices of cheddar and draped in cheese sauce. These foods are terrible for us, but the dairy lobby is so powerful that they’ve persuaded the government that we should be eating more of them.⁵⁰

Let me be clear: I’m not down on dairy. I firmly believe, though, that most Americans should eat less dairy, not more. I also believe that they should be very choosy about where their dairy comes from. The reason? Most dairy foods are laced with hormones, chemicals, and other toxins. On typical farms in the United States, calves are separated from their mothers shortly after birth; this creates a great deal of pain and suffering for the mama cow, causing her to secrete massive amounts of stress hormones that are released into her milk. These toxins are then passed down to us, along with all the other unknown antibiotics, growth hormones, and chemicals the industry uses to produce the milk. I’m pretty sure those fast food chains aren’t spending the extra money to ensure their milk comes from the most organic, grass-fed, and humane sources.

Milk is also pasteurized to control bacterial growth. Pasteurization, however, destroys many nutrients found in raw milk. Consider a 2011 study published in The Journal of Food Protection, which reported that pasteurization decreases vitamin E and several B vitamins, including B₁, B₂, B₁₂, and folate.⁵¹ The heat also destroys enzymes your body needs for proper digestion. One of these is phosphatase. Without this enzyme, the calcium lingers in your bloodstream and can accumulate in your arteries. As a result, your arteries get stiff and it’s more difficult for them to pump blood. Stiff arteries give rise to hypertension (high blood pressure), chest pain, and heart failure.

Lobbying is unbelievably powerful. A startling case occurred not long ago when a government-appointed agency, the American Egg Board (AEB), tried to crush the vegan food startup Hampton Creek because their blossoming business was a big threat to the multibillion-dollar egg industry.

Representing egg farmers across the U.S., AEB lobbied hard to attack Hampton Creek because it had invented a low-cost, plant-based egg replacement. Hampton Creek is also the maker of Just Mayo, a popular egg-free mayonnaise.

E-mails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, totaling 600 pages, revealed that the AEB was very worried about Hampton Creek and wanted to drop the hammer on eggless mayo.⁵² In one effort, the AEB tried to get Just Mayo yanked from Whole Foods Market. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s national supervisor of shell eggs suggested that the AEB contact the FDA with their concerns about Just Mayo. The FDA later ruled Just Mayo must change its name. (Whole Foods still sells Just Mayo, and they were able to keep the name Just Mayo.) Furthermore, the e-mails showed they spoke with representatives for Unilever on their false advertising lawsuit against Hampton Creek and had also hired a consultant to examine Hampton Creek’s patent for their egg replacer.

Most harrowing of all, the e-mails revealed the presumably joking suggestion that someone contact “some of my old buddies in Brooklyn to pay Mr. Tetrick [Hampton Creek CEO Josh Tetrick] a visit” in response to an e-mail from an AEB member organization executive who asked, “Can we pool our money and put a hit on him?”

And it’s not just fights over mayo: there are countless examples of how pressure from Big Food shapes public policy, often with huge consequences. Consider the fight over GMO labeling, which would allow consumers to know which foods contain GMO ingredients. On July 7, 2016, after months of intense lobbying from the farming and processed food industry, the Senate voted 63 to 30 in favor of a sham GMO labeling bill (clearly written to protect Monsanto and the agrochemical and GMO industries) as it allows companies to use QR (quick response) codes to label GMOs in their products, instead of simple words on the package. QR codes are cryptic bar code symbols that require a smartphone equipped with a special app in order to read them, as well as Internet access, as the scanner directs you to a website that provides information about the product. This discriminates against low-income families, minorities, mothers, seniors, the disabled, and those without smartphones. Plus—it’s just ludicrous. Wouldn’t simple words on the package stating “Contains GMO Ingredients” be easier for everyone?

According to a survey of 800 Americans by the research firm The Mellman Group, only 16 percent of consumers have ever scanned a QR code for any purpose. That’s likely because QR code scanning takes time in the store. You have to open the app, scan the product, wait for the web page to load, and select the proper tab for information on GMOs. Who is really going to take the time to do that in the grocery store? On the other hand, it takes seconds to read a text-based label on a package (and we don’t need any special equipment). A whopping 88 percent of consumers agree with me and say they’d rather see on-package labeling of GMO foods rather than QR codes. But it doesn’t matter what we want—too many of our politicians are more interested in what Monsanto wants.

And it’s not just Congress. Many government agencies, including the FDA and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), have failed us on so many levels, allowing companies to use and produce dozens of synthetic food additives and agricultural chemicals that are banned or heavily restricted in countries with stronger regulations.

Speaking of the EPA (which is in charge of regulating agricultural chemicals), it was slated to hold four days of public meetings in October 2016 to focus on one key issue: whether or not glyphosate, the world’s most widely used herbicide, can cause cancer. Monsanto derives billions in revenue from selling glyphosate, so you probably aren’t surprised to hear that they’ve been telling us it’s safe for decades. But these public hearings were going to investigate that claim. Seems like a good idea to me, don’t you think? Isn’t that why we have the EPA?

But tellingly, the meeting was postponed just four days before it was to begin. Why? Because the agrochemical industry exerted intense pressure. They argued that if the meetings were held, several leading experts should be excluded from participating, to include “any person who has publicly expressed an opinion regarding the carcinogenicity of glyphosate.” In other words, the hearings should only proceed if all critical experts were banned from speaking.⁵³

As the meetings drew near, CropLife America, a trade group representing Monsanto and other Big Chemical companies, alleged that some panel scientists may be biased against the industry. For example, the group asked that Dr. Kenneth Portier of the American Cancer Society⁵⁴ be deeply scrutinized for any “pre-formed conclusions” about glyphosate, and that leading epidemiologist Dr. Peter Infante be completely disqualified from participating at all.⁵⁵ This intense lobbying helps explain why the EPA concluded that glyphosate is not carcinogenic,⁵⁶ contradicting the findings of the World Health Organization.

To make matters worse, in November 2016, the FDA suspended testing for glyphosate residues in food, breaking an earlier promise.⁵⁷ It would have been the FDA’s first-ever endeavor to get a handle on just how much of the controversial chemical—deemed a probable carcinogen by the cancer research arm of the World Health Organization⁵⁸—is making its way into our food supply. Shouldn’t we know that? Don’t we have a right to know that? (As we’ll learn in Chapter 10, independent labs have conducted their own testing—and the truth about glyphosate in our food is terrifying.)

But maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. As we’ll learn in Chapter 3, the FDA has historically been a stumbling block, at least when it comes to getting transparency from the food industry.

Everyone shopping for food in a grocery store wants a healthier food system. We all want to buy products that make us feel good, not bad; that help our families flourish; that don’t contain ingredients known to cause us harm.

Alas, many of the companies responsible for creating those products on the store shelf have a different goal. They want to make lots of money, which means creating food we can’t stop eating even if it’s really bad for us. (Bonus points if the processed food is cheap to produce.) The end result is a broken food system, full of unregulated food additives and chemicals that only improve the bottom line of food and biotech companies while damaging our health.

How do these companies get away with it? By telling us lies. By deliberately confusing us, making sure we don’t know how to eat right. They will fight anything and everything, from scientific information to independent reports, that threatens their profit margins. They will lobby the government, influence scientists, pay for front groups, and generally do whatever it takes to persuade us to do exactly what independent nutritional science (and even common sense!) tells us not to do.

Nutrition really isn’t that complicated. We know that we should be eating more whole foods and avoiding junk food and processed foods. Alas, in this world of Big Food propaganda, eating real food that’s good for us is bad for business. After all, if we all ate real food … Big Food would practically be out of business.

If you find all of this troubling, wait until you learn more about how the food industry, front groups, trade associations, and other guilty parties are spreading their lies, inundating us with misinformation and falsehoods about the foods we eat every day.