by Marion Nestle

Search results: superfood

Dec 18 2019

The latest in superfoods: camel’s milk?

Really?  Camel’s milk?  I am indebted to DairyReporter.com for a review of research on the health benefits of camel’s milk.

According to this overview, camel’s milk can

  • Prevent colorectal cancer
  • Reduce cellular inflammation due to diabetes
  • Cures autism
  • Enhances immunity
  • Cures hepatitis
  • Prevents food allergies

A miracle food?

Alas, the article explains, most of these studies were performed in mice or published in journals unlikely to be rigorously peer reviewed.

What can I tell you about the nutritional quality of camel’s milk?

Unfortunately, the USDA’s food composition data base does not have an entry for camel’s milk.  What looks like a reasonable review of the nutritional value of camel’s milk (which you can download from this site) suggests that there are differences in nutrient composition between cow’s and camel’s milks, but the differences are small.  Because the proteins differ, people sensitive or allergic to cow’s milk will have an easier time consuming camel’s milk.

The big issue with camel’s milk in the United States is that it is not pasteurized.  Raw milk carries a greater food safety risk than pasteurized milk.

The FDA also has issued a warning against unproven claims that camel milk prevents autism.

I’m not seeing any particular health benefits from drinking camel milk other than avoiding allergic reactions to cow’s milk.

If you insist on drinking it, make sure it comes from a producer who diligently tests it for pathogens.

Tags:
Aug 1 2007

Scientifically engineered “superfoods”

Eating Liberally is now interviewing me on a regular basis in a post called “Let’s Ask Marion.” Today’s question is about foods created by technologists to introduce some health benefit–what I like to call “techno-foods.” It is timely because today’s New York Times has a report by Andrew Martin of his visit to the recent convention of the Institute of Food Technology. Are these foods really designed to make you healthy? Or are they about the financial health of their makers?

Tags: ,
Jun 2 2026

American Journal of Health Promotion: papers on misinformation: my latest

The True Health Initiative held its 2nd Annual Global Health Misinformation Symposium, in which I participated.  The papers from the symposium have just been published in the American Journal of Health Promotion.  They are available under the heading “Knowing Well, Being Well” on the journal’s site.  All are open access.  My contribution is here.

Food Politics in an Era of Misinformation

Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH

I write books about the politics of food, most recently What to Eat Now. When my first book on the topic, Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health, appeared in 2002, the first question everyone asked me was “What does food have to do with politics?” But since President Donald Trump appointed Robert F. Kennedy Jr as Secretary of Health and Human Services, I am no longer asked that question. Trump introduced Kennedy’s nomination with this statement: “For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to public health.”1 It is now more obvious than ever that just as food has cultural, religious, and socioeconomic dimensions, it also has political dimensions. Here, I present examples of how politics affects food choice in three areas especially vulnerable to misinformation: food and nutrition research, ultra-processed foods, and dietary guidelines.

Food and Nutrition Research

Food companies are not social service or public health agencies; their primary, first-priority job is to generate profits for shareholders. One way food companies express this priority is to sponsor research. But industry-funded studies tend to follow what Sheldon Krimsky termed the “funding effect”—industry-funded studies strongly tend to produce results favorable to the sponsor’s commercial interests.2 Such studies are not invariably biased in a corporate-friendly direction; they just are skewed in that direction more often than not. When researching my book on this topic, Unsavory Truth, I was only able to find 11 studies published on the funding effect in food and nutrition research (by 2018). These varied in methods, products, and health effects, but all reported benefits to sponsors’ interests. Recipients of industry funding often appear unaware of the influence of industry funding and deny it. They may conduct their studies according to high scientific standards, but investigations of funding effects demonstrate that the bias mainly shows up in the framing of the research question or in the interpretation of results (null results interpreted as positive, for example). It is one thing to call for open-ended research on diet and health, but quite another to request proposals for research to demonstrate benefits. Food companies are unlikely to sponsor research that might produce unfavorable results.3
Some scientists argue that concerns about funding effects represent ad hominem attacks on researchers. Career goals, scientific beliefs, dietary practices, and belief systems, they insist, are just as biasing as industry funding; disclosure is sufficient to deal with the problem.4 But not all influences in science pose conflicts of interest. All scientists have beliefs about the likely outcome of their research; they have hypotheses they are trying to prove. These beliefs differ among researchers, as do the outcomes of their studies. But with industry funding, the biases are the same; they tend to favor the sponsor’s interests.5 Companies fund studies to “prove” their products are superfoods, or health promoting, or at least not harmful. Industry-funded research is about marketing, not science.

Ultra-Processed Foods

In 2025, The Lancet released three comprehensive reports on the science,6 policy,7 and politics8 of ultra-processed foods (I am a co-author on the last two). The process for producing these reports was lengthy and difficult, not least because the journal’s editors were skeptical of the concept of ultra-processed foods and pushed the authors to clarify the concepts and strengthen the evidence. Eventually the editors were convinced; they introduced the reports with an editorial powerfully titled “Ultra-processed foods: time to put health before profit.”9
Ultra-processed foods were defined by Carlos Monteiro et al in 2009 according to what they called the Nova system, which divides foods into four categories based on their degree of processing: unprocessed or minimally processed (Nova 1), processed culinary ingredients (Nova 2), processed (Nova 3), and ultra-processed (Nova 4).6,10 Ultra-processed foods are industrially produced, do not resemble the foods from which they were produced, typically contain sugars, salt, and industrial chemicals, and are designed to be irresistible (if not addictive)–and highly profitable. Many studies link diets high in ultra-processed foods to poor health outcomes. Although most of these studies are observational and cannot prove causation, well controlled clinical trials demonstrate that ultra-processed diets induce people to greatly overconsume calories, without realizing it.11 This result alone is reason enough for advice to reduce consumption of ultra-processed foods.
Understandably, the food industry opposes this concept: eating less is bad for business. Food trade associations argue that all foods are processed, processing is necessary, and the concept of ultra-processed is poorly defined, especially because it excludes highly nutritious foods such as commercial whole wheat breads and yogurts. The food industry is joined in these criticisms by some nutrition scientists concerned about inaccuracies in observational studies and the short duration and limited number of subjects in the controlled clinical trials.12 These criticisms hold grains of truth, but the overwhelming preponderance of evidence argues in favor of advice to reduce intake of ultra-processed foods.
The food industry, however, is on the attack. It much prefers education focused on salt, sugar, and saturated fat (encouraging product reformulation) Business advisors call for strongly defending ultra-processed foods in two ways. The food industry should educate the public about the benefits of ultra-processed foods and the flaws in the Nova classification system; it also should conduct its own research to demonstrate those benefits and flaws13–misinformation via public relations and funded research.

Dietary Guidelines

The call for education brings me to the 2025-2030 dietary guidelines, supporting documents released on January 7, 2026, and the process used to produce them. When I was a member of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) in 1995, we selected the topics to be researched, did the research, wrote the research report—and wrote the actual dietary guidelines. We turned these documents over to HHS and USDA to be printed. We were fully responsible for their content. That changed in 2005 when the agencies took over writing the guidelines. Since 2010, the agencies have taken over the entire process except for
the DGAC research review. The dietary guidelines are now an almost entirely political—rather than scientific—document.
The DGAC for the 2025-2030 guidelines was appointed during the previous administration; it released its report in December 2024.14 Its recommendations were much like those of previous guidelines since 1980: balance calories; eat more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains; reduce intake of sugars, sodium, saturated fat, alcohol, red and processed meat; choose low-fat dairy. Although this DGAC was asked to consider a recommendation on ultra-processed foods, it chose not to on the basis of flaws in observational data and the short duration of the one, then available, exceptionally well-controlled clinical trial conducted in a metabolic ward.11
The Trump administration’s HHS and USDA, however, rejected most of that report and started over. It gave nine experts three months or less to write their own reviews of the science; these formed the basis of the new guidelines and the new inverted pyramid food guide released under the slogan “Eat real food.” While most of the eight guidelines are similar to those issued previously, one of the differences is advice to limit intake of highly processed foods (a euphemism for ultra-processed). So far, so good.15
Beyond that advice, however, the new guidelines include recommendations less well supported by existing evidence. They call for prioritizing and doubling intake of protein (a euphemism for red meat), consuming whole milk, and choosing “healthy” fats rich in essential fatty acids. Unfortunately, the guidelines’ examples of such fats are olive oil, butter, and beef tallow, none of them good sources of the two essential fatty acids, linoleic and linolenic. Errors like these, confusing messages (add salt, but restrict sodium; eat animal fats but keep saturated fat to 10% or less of calories), and the way animal-source foods are presented in the accompanying website for the inverted pyramid (RealFood.gov), make the guidelines appear to have been influenced by the meat and dairy industries, especially because so many writers of the science summaries reported financial ties to meat and dairy trade associations.16 The guidelines also appear to reflect the dietary ideology of Secretary Kennedy, who consumes a publicly avowed carnivore diet.
The new dietary guidelines are aimed explicitly at personal responsibility for dietary choice. But placing the dietary burden entirely on individuals absolves the government from doing anything other than educate. If objections to the guidelines from the food industry have been mild so far, it is surely because its leaders know that education is not enough to change dietary behavior. They much prefer education to policies aimed at regulating product contents or marketing. But to really help people eat real food and reduce intake of ultra-processed foods, we need a wide range of policy options—taxes, subsidies, marketing, procurement, product placement7—to make healthier foods more available, accessible, and affordable, so that the healthy choice is the easier choice.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author receives honoraria for lectures and royalties from books about the politics of food.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

References

1. Trump DJ. @RealDonaldTrump; 2024. https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1857170020427595797. Accessed 21 Mar 2026.
Google Scholar
2. Krimsky S. Do financial conflicts of interest bias research? An inquiry into the “funding effect” hypothesis. Sci Technol Hum Val. 2013;38(4):566-587.
3. Nestle M. Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat.. Basic Books; 2018.
4. Cope MB, Allison DB. White hat bias: a threat to the integrity of scientific reporting. Acta Paediatr. 2010;99:1615-1617.
5. Bero LA, Grundy Q, Abelson J, Dobbins M, Carter N, Pavord I. Why having a (nonfinancial) interest is not a conflict of interest. PLoS Biol. 2016;14(12):e2001221.
6. Monteiro CA, Louzada ML, Steele-Martinez E, et al. Ultra-processed foods and human health 1. Ultra-processed foods and human health: the main thesis and the evidence. Lancet. 2025;406(10520):2667-2684.
7. Scrinis G, Popkin BM, Covalan C, et al. Ultra-processed foods and human health 2. Policies to halt and reverse the rise in ultra-processed food production, marketing, and consumption. Lancet. 2025;406:2685-2702.
8. Baker P, Slater S, White M, et al. Ultra-processed foods and human health 3. Towards unified global action on ultra-processed foods: understanding commercial determinants, countering corporate power, and mobilising a public health response. Lancet. 2025;406(10520):2703-2726.
9. Lancet. Editorial: Ultra-Processed foods: time to put health before profit. 2025;406(10520):2601.
10. Monteiro CA. Nutrition and health. The issue is not food, nor nutrients, so much as processing. Public Health Nutr. 2009;12(5):729-731.
11. Hall KD, Ayuketah A, Brychta R, et al. Ultra-processed diets cause excess calorie intake and weight gain: an inpatient randomized controlled trial of ad libitum food intake. Cell Metab. 2019;30(1):67-77.e3.
12. Ludwig DS, Willett WC, Putt ME. Concerns over conclusions in an ultra-processed food trial. Nat Med. 2026;32(2):463-464.
13. Southey F. The UPF problem: no more burying heads in the sand. Food Navigator-Europe. 2025. https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2025/11/27/food-and-drink-makers-cant-ignore-upf-problem-any-longer/. Accessed 21 Mar 2026.
14. HHS USDA. Scientific Report of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. 2024. Accessed Mar 21, 2026. https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/2025-advisory-committee-report
15. HHS USDA. Dietary guidelines for Americans, 2025-2030. 2026. https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/. Accessed 21 Mar 2026.
16. Neves FS, Nilson EAF, Mendes LL, Khandpur N, Nestle M. The 2025–2030 US dietary guidelines: an analysis of scientific integrity and global health governance. Lancet Reg Health, Am. 2026;56:101402.
Tags: , ,
May 11 2026

A rare exception: an industry-funded study with negative results

As I endlessly repeat, industry-funded studies tend to favor the sponsor’s commercial interests.  The correlation between industry funding and study outcome is not 100% however.  Exceptions do occur.

Here’s one sent to me by a reader, Matthew Kadey: “Marion, a rare industry funded study with results that likely did not please the sponsors.”

The study: Effects of one avocado a day for six months on cognitive performance in overweight adults: A randomized controlled trial. The Journal of nutrition, health and aging. Volume 30, Issue 6, June 2026, 100847.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnha.2026.100847.

Objective: “To determine if consuming one avocado per day for 6 months has cognitive benefits in adults with central obesity, addressing cognitive health early in the aging trajectory.”

Conclusions: “The consumption of one avocado per day without any additional lifestyle modifications for six months did not significantly alter cognitive function in adults with central obesity across all age groups. Additional work is needed to determine whether avocados, as part of dietary strategies initiated in midlife, contribute to healthy cognitive aging, particularly in normal weight and metabolically vulnerable populations.”

Funding disclosure: “This study was funded by the Hass Avocado Board in Mission Viejo, California”

Competing interests: Nine of the eleven authors report financial support from the Hass Avocado Board Avocado Nutrition Center.

Comment: I could not imagine why anyone would do this study in the first place.  It is a rare example of one that produced negative result from an industry-funded study, but note the positive spin in the conclusions: “Additional work is needed to determine whether avocados, as part of dietary strategies initiated in midlife, contribute to healthy cognitive aging, particularly in normal weight and metabolically vulnerable populations.”

Really?  Why?  I can’t think of any reason why more studies like this would be needed, except to get more funding from the Hass Avocado Board, which seems willing to spend lots on research aimed at positioning avocados as superfoods.

Note:  All fruits and vegetables have nutritional benefits.  By these criteria, all are superfoods.

Tags: ,
Nov 10 2025

Industry funded studies of the week: Mango

In case it’s not obvious, I view studies claiming major health benefits from eating one food—mangoes in this case—to be about marketing, not science.  We don’t eat just one food; we eat diets of enormous complexity.  This makes such studies inherently ridiculous.  And I’m not the only one who thinks so.  Some examples:

I.  Insulin sensitivity

This one comes from Obesity and Energetics Offerings’ occasional series on “Headline vs Study”

Headline: Daily Mango Consumption May Improve Insulin Sensitivity in Overweight or Obese Adults.

Study: RCT [randomized control trial] of Mango or Control Product: Markers of Inflammation [Joint Primary Outcomes] Were Not Different at the End of 4 Weeks. [Oops]

Here’s the press release from the National Mango Board: New Study: Eating Mangos Daily Shown to Improve Insulin Sensitivity and Blood Glucose Control.  It notes: “This study was supported through an unrestricted grant from the National Mango Board (NMB). NMB had no influence over the study or its findings.”

II.  Cholesterol and blood pressure

Here’s the blurb for this one: Journal of the American Nutrition Association Mango intake linked to short-term cholesterol, blood pressure benefits A two-week trial in postmenopausal women found that daily mango consumption lowered blood pressure and fasting cholesterol, though it did not affect microvascular function or inflammation markers. Read More

Conclusions: Further research using amounts of mango typically consumed, over an extended period of time, are warranted [well, at least this is an honest assessment].

Funding: This study was supported by a research grant from the National Mango Board. The sponsor had no role in the design or conduct of the study, the data analysis, interpretation of the results, or the decision to publish.

III.  Diabetes prevention

Basiri R, Dawkins K, Singar S, Ormsbee LT, Akhavan NS, Hickner RC, Arjmandi BH. Daily Mango Intake Improves Glycemic and Body Composition Outcomes in Adults with Prediabetes: A Randomized Controlled Study. Foods. 2025; 14(17):2971. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods14172971 

Conclusion: The daily consumption of mango for 24 weeks improved the glycemic control, insulin sensitivity, and body composition in adults with prediabetes, which supports the potential of mango as a practical dietary intervention for metabolic health.

Funding: The National Mango Board provided funding for this study.

From ConscienHealth: Magical Mango Thinking About Preventing Diabetes

Diabetes Prevention?

But the real problem with claiming a benefit for diabetes prevention is that this study did not study the onset of diabetes.

So do mangoes prevent diabetes? Not likely. Not all by themselves.

Are they a better snack than sugary granola bars? Probably so.

From Medical News Today: Is it OK to eat mango if you’re at risk for diabetes? Experts weigh in

  • In a recent study, mangoes more effectively improved prediabetes risk factors in a new study than low-sugar granola bars.
  • The key to mangoes’ better results likely lies in their being a whole food with natural fiber, vitamins, and nutrients.
  • However, experts agree that the best way to avoid type 2 diabetes is to eat a balanced, healthy diet and be physically active, rather than to depend on a single ‘superfood’ to prevent the condition.

Comment

Enough said.  I love mangoes (although I have to be careful about their skin and pits).  Their deliciousness is reason enough to eat them.  I suppose the Mango Board has to justify its existence….

Tags: ,
Oct 13 2025

Industry-funded studies of the week: Nuts!

My collection of studies funded by the nut industry is growing, so here are a bunch all at once.

Almonds: Almond Consumption Modestly Improves Pain Ratings, Muscle Force Production, and Biochemical Markers of Muscle Damage Following Downhill Running in Mildly Overweight, Middle-Aged Adults: A Randomized, Crossover Trial. Current Developments in Nutrition, Volume 8, Issue 9, 104432

  • Conclusion: This study demonstrates that 2.0 oz/d of almonds modestly reduces pain, better maintains muscle strength, and reduces the CK response to eccentric-based exercise.
  • Funding: This study was supported by the Almond Board of California

Peanuts: Peanut Polyphenols Are Bioaccessible and Inhibit Proliferation of Cultured Jurkat Leukemia Cells.  Current Developments in Nutrition, Volume 8, Supplement 2, July 2024, 102631

  • Conclusions: Polyphenol-rich PSE inhibits the growth and proliferation of Jurkat cells [a cell line derived from leukemia T-cells].
  • Funding: The Peanut Institute.

Pecans: Pecan Intake Improves Lipoprotein Particle Concentrations Compared with Usual Intake in Adults at Increased Risk of Cardiometabolic Diseases: A Randomized Controlled Trial.  The Journal of Nutrition, Volume 155, Issue 5, 1459 – 1465

  • Conclusion: Incorporating 57 g/d of pecans into the diet in place of usual snacks for 12 wk improved apoB, atherogenic lipoprotein subfractions, and the LP-IR in adults at risk of cardiometabolic diseases.
  • Funding: This study was funded by the American Pecan Council.

Pistachios: Nighttime Pistachio Consumption Alters Stool Microbiota Diversity and Taxa Abundance Compared with Education to Consume 1–2 Carbohydrate Exchanges (15–30 grams) over 12 Weeks in Adults with Prediabetes: A Secondary Analysis from a Randomized Crossover Trial.  Current Developments in Nutrition.  Volume 9, Issue 7107481July 2025 [Thanks to Martin Camhi for this one]

  • Conclusions: In adults with prediabetes, intake of 57 g/d of pistachios as a nighttime snack altered stool microbial community diversity and composition compared with a CHO-rich snack, providing evidence of stool microbial effects with pistachio consumption.
  • Funding: The American Pistachio Growers; Penn State’s Clinical & Translational Research Institute, Pennsylvania State University

Comment: If one nut producer does this, they all have to.  This is about market competition.  The idea is to convince you that nuts are superfoods performing health miracles and to eat more nuts.  These studies must be interpreted as marketing efforts.

Nuts are indeed healthy, but highly caloric—best eaten in small handfuls.  

If such studies should convince you of anything, it’s to eat the nuts you like.  They all can be shown to have health benefits.

Tags: ,
Jun 2 2025

Industry-funded scientific scandal: maple syrup, alas

Why alas?  I love maple syrup.

But the Quebec Maple Syrup Producers association apparently has decided that it needs to boost sales by promoting maple syrup as a superfood.

Sigh.

The article in the New York Times is titled: “A Scientist Is Paid to Study Maple Syrup. He’s Also Paid to Promote It.”

The subtitle: “Funded by the maple industry, a researcher has exaggerated his findings to suggest that syrup could help prevent serious diseases.”

For more than a decade, Navindra Seeram, a biomedical researcher, has praised maple syrup, calling it a “hero ingredient” and “champion food” that could have wide-ranging health benefits…As he straddles the realms of scientific inquiry and promotion, he has distorted the real-world implications of his findings and exaggerated health benefits…In videos and press releases, he has suggested that consuming maple syrup may help stave off diseases including cancer, Alzheimer’s and diabetes.

The article continues…

At the University of Rhode Island, where he worked until last year, Dr. Seeram oversaw projects that were awarded $2.6 million in U.S. government funding, including a grant explicitly intended to increase maple syrup sales. That promotional work produced a stream of social media posts like, “Maple Syrup’s Benefits: Anti-Cancer, Anti-Oxidant, Anti-Inflammatory.”

Oh how I wish.

As for who pays for this,

The Quebec Maple Syrup Producers, an industry association that markets and regulates most of the world’s maple syrup, has long funded Dr. Seeram’s work. The association and the Canadian government have together provided at least $2.8 million for his research, according to a 2019 grant applicatio

Maple syrup is just a form of sugar, and mostly sucrose at that.  It does have a few minerals in small amounts, along with its fabulously delicious flavoring ingredients.

But a nutritional powerhouse?  Alas, no.

Tags: ,
Apr 9 2025

What’s up with candy? And its food dyes?

I don’t say much about candy on this site, mainly because it’s best consumed in small amounts, if at all.

Candy sellers, however, have a very different view.  Their job is to sell candy, and the more the better (never mind consequences).

I’m always interested to see what they say and do to increase sales, especially when they try to make candy seem healthier (oops).

Tags: , ,