How The Food Industry Manipulates Public Opinion, Science, And Government

Coming up on this episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy. A number of these companies actually are standing up and doing good things. And I think I see progress, I see change. Hey everybody, it's Dr. Hyman. I'm back with another little short minisode episode on my new book, Food Fix, coming out February 25th. Check it out, foodfixbook.com Today I want to talk about how the food industry, many places public opinion, manipulates science and manipulates the government. So here we go. Let's take on science first. I mean, who isn't confused about what to eat? And that's why I wrote my book, Food, what the heck should I eat? But what's really going on is a concerted effort by the food industry that manipulates science. The government, our NIH government, spends about 1 billion a year on nutrition research. The food industry spends $12 billion and they fund all kinds of concocted studies that actually manipulate the truth. For example, I think Coca-Cola spent $120 million to universities and other groups to actually provide money, quote, money for research. And guess what? They funded 389 articles in 169 journals. Things like exercise is the key to weight loss. That soda doesn't have any role in our weight. The snack food manufacturers Association groups, the confectioners group, funded studies that show that kids who eat candy actually lose more weight and have less inflammation than kids who don't eat candy. I mean, how does that even make sense? And when you look at the data, studies funded by the food industry are 8 to 50 times more likely to show a benefit. Studies, for example, on artificial sweeteners show that, by the food industry, that 99% they're safe and effective, but about 90 plus percent of the studies that are independent show that they cause weight gain, obesity, damage the microbiome, and definitely are not a healthy food and not good for dieting. So we just have so much of this going on all the time in research. There was a big review, for example, by a group of scientists that looked at sugar recommendations. It was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, which is one of the most important journals in medicine. And yet it said very confusingly that seems like there's no evidence for our sugar guidelines to reduce sugar, that actually sugar isn't harmful, that our concerns are overstated and the data doesn't really support any limits on sugar in our diet. Well, the study was funded by a group called the International Life Science Institute, which sounds awesome, but turns out it is funded by none other than Coca-Cola and Monsanto and Pepsi and all the big characters in the food industry. So we're completely bamboozled by misinformation in major journals and it confuses Doctors, it confuses nutritionists, it confuses the public, and even it confuses policy makers. How do you make sense of all this? So you really have to follow the money. So nutrition science corruption is huge. And it doesn't just stop there. They go on to fund all sorts of professional associations. For example, the American Diabetes Association, the American Heart Association, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, which receives 40% of its funding from the food industry. They create a partnership with Kraft Singles, calling it the Smart Slice of Cheese, you know. which is crazy because it's not even cheese. You know, something has to be 51% cheese to call it cheese. So it's a cheese-like product or I don't even know what to call it. But, you know, the government doesn't even allow you to call it cheese. And that's, quote, a heart-healthy smart snack. It's because they were funded by the food industry. They are also corrupting their meetings. You know, they go to their meetings and they provide all sorts of education. So they have panels with makers of high fructose corn syrup and trans fats and all kinds of crazy stuff. And it just confuses nutritionists because it seems like it's good science. They're very, very good at it. They spend millions, literally millions and billions on this. So they corrupt all these organizations. And so Dr. John Ioannidis, who's a professor at Stanford, said, We shouldn't believe any recommendations coming out of professional societies that have conflicts of interest. I mean, how does the American Heart Association can have, you know, Froot Loops and Twix cereals be heart healthy when they're so full of sugar because they're low fat? They get $300,000 for putting that seal of approval. So we have to be very cautious consumers. So they don't just stop with professional associations. They also create front groups. Front groups are groups that actually seem like they're legitimate groups, but actually are funded by the food industry or the ag industry or the oil industry. So you've got things like Climate Smart Agriculture, which sounds wonderful. and who's against that, right? But it's funded by the fertilizer companies who want to use more fertilizer. And as we've talked about before, fertilizer drives huge amounts of damage to the ecosystem, uses tons of energy to produce, damages our waterways, and is a huge contributor to climate change. So not so smart, in my opinion. So you've got then you've got the ways in which these companies also create corporate social responsibility. That's another mechanism they use. They fund groups that are social groups. It's called Corporate Social Responsibility. What do they fund? They fund the NAACP and they fund the Hispanic Federation. They give them lots of money. And what does that do? That makes them sort of loyal to them a little bit. And it co-opts them. For example, when there's a soda tax on the ballot, they actually will oppose a soda tax because they're funded by Coca-Cola or the food industry or soda makers. It's pretty, pretty frightening. They also fund things like the Hunger Groups, which is why they're so against limiting soda for SNAP or food stamps, where we spend $7 billion in soda for the poor every year, about $30 billion servings through our food stamp program. How does that make any sense when we're trying to create a healthy population? So there's all these insidious ways that they co-opt these groups. I remember when I was showing Fed Up in Atlanta, I met with Bernice King, Martin Luther King's daughter, and she wanted to show the movie in the King Center and said, you know, being nonviolent is also nonviolent to yourself through how you take care of your health. and she was all excited about it. And I got a call a few days later, we couldn't show the film there. And I was like, why? That was a movie about obesity and the food industry. She said, well, because Coca-Cola funds the King Center. It's pretty frightening in how they co-opt these groups. And they also do all kinds of other nefarious things. They, besides the front groups, besides the social responsibility, besides getting into our public health academies, besides corrupting science, they're involved in terrible political efforts that are behind the scenes that manipulate public opinion. For example, there's a couple of things that happened. One was an effort by the Grocery Manufacturers of America, which essentially was the representative group now disbanded, thankfully, that was representing the big food companies. And they illegally got them to contribute to a slush fund to fight GMO labeling, which would have cost those companies billions of dollars. and fought it in Washington State. And they pretended to sort of hide behind this group that wasn't actually disclosing the funding. And the Attorney General of Washington State figured this out and sued the Grocery Manufacturers of America for campaign finance violations and led to the biggest settlement, I think it was like $14 or $18 million against them. Yet the ballot passed to fight GMO labeling and they won because they spent so much money. So they got a wrist slap for a few million bucks. I mean, they make billions of dollars. They don't really care. But after that, a number of these companies actually are standing up and doing good things. And I think I see progress. I see change. And that makes me happy. For example, Nestle's the known Unilever and Mars got out of GMA at that point, the Grocery Manufacturers of America, and they formed the Sustainable Food Policy Alliance, which is a great idea. and I think it's exciting and we'll see what happens with that and I'm gonna hopefully work with them on my food fix campaign. So that was terrible. And then of course there's even worse things they do. For example, they created a ballot initiative in California which was to prohibit local governments from raising local taxes unless there was a two-thirds majority, which would have crippled the governments in the local towns so they couldn't fund schools, fire departments, police stations, et cetera. And they didn't care about that. What they cared about was manipulating the governor, Governor Jerry Brown, who's probably the most liberal governor ever we had in America, to put in a preemptive policy that prevented any future taxes on soda or junk food. Now think about that. I mean, they literally strong-armed the government by threatening them with a measure that they spent $7 million promoting that would have crippled local governments and basically bribed or sort of forced the governor to create this preemptive law, which is terrible. So there's all sorts of nefarious ways that the food industry is acting and we need to fight back. And that's really why I wrote this book, Food Fix: How to Save Our Health, Our Economy, Our Communities, and Our Planet One Bite at a Time. So we can work together with this manifesto to create real change. And I'm excited because I'm creating a campaign that's a nonprofit and advocacy group to change policy in Washington to raise awareness, to create a grassroots movement, and I really want you all to be part of it. I'd love you to check out the book, go foodfixbook.com, you can get a lot of information like my action guide on things you can do yourself. There's also incredible resources of what you can do for yourself and your family and also policy ideas and things that we need to push the government to do and how we can become more politically active. There's a great video on there of five steps for a healthy planet and a healthy you. lots of other bonus materials. So I'd love you to get the book at foodfixbook.com and I'll see you soon again for another little excerpt from the book. Don't forget, there's a way to listen completely ad free. With Hyman Plus on Apple Podcasts, you can enjoy every episode without any breaks. Just open Apple Podcasts and tap try free to start your seven day free trial.