Food & Nutrition

Science-backed reporting on diet, nutrients, food systems, and how what we eat affects health — cutting through trends to examine what the evidence actually shows.

When Preservation Becomes Persuasion: Lunchables, Big Tobacco, and the Science of Processed Food

The “story” of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) has become a tale of horror, with an ominous, omnipotent corporate villain, “Big Food,” mapping mammalian dopamine pathways to turn vulnerable children and their parents into submissive consumers.

Sugar-sweetened beverage study isn’t merely flawed. It’s pure data dredging

In Czechoslovakia, there was a time when parents had to decide whether to tell a child that Russia was not your friend and that communism was a failed system. The parents had to judge when the child was ready.

Whole Foods Sells Both 'Nitrate-Free Meat' and Nitrate Supplements

Nitrites are making news again (and again). A new 20-year study reports that men with the highest intake of nitrites had a 23% higher risk of colorectal cancer.

Going Keto: What Happens Beyond the Plate

What Ketosis Changes Throughout the Body

America’s protein obsession: is more better?

Every day, a new protein product promises a place in our daily routine. A decade ago, the norm was whey powder and bars that tasted more like spackle than food.

From Ancient Fermentation to the current romance with the “Sauerkraut Diet”

What was the first chemical reaction harnessed by humans? That was undoubtedly fire. And the second? That would be fermentation, the process by which yeasts and bacteria convert carbohydrates into alcohol, organic acids, and carbon dioxide.