—Systemic change begins with personal change—
Marion Nestle is Paulette Goddard Professor, of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita, at New York University, which she chaired from 1988-2003 and from which she officially retired in September 2017. She is also Visiting Professor of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell. She earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology and an M.P.H. in public health nutrition from the University of California, Berkeley, and has been awarded honorary degrees from Transylvania University in Kentucky (2012) and from the City University of New York’s Macaulay Honors College (2016).
Her latest books are Let's Ask Marion and Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat.
For her c.v. (July 2018) click here.
Her previous faculty positions were at Brandeis University and the UCSF School of Medicine. From 1986-88, she was senior nutrition policy advisor in the Department of Health and Human Services and editor of the 1988 Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and Health. Her research examines scientific and socioeconomic influences on food choice, obesity, and food safety, with an emphasis on the role of food marketing.
She is the author of six prize-winning books:
She also has written two books about pet food:
Among her recent honors are the John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service from Bard College in 2010, the Public Health Hero award from the University of California School of Public Health at Berkeley in 2011, the James Beard Foundation Leadership Award in 2013, and the Innovator of the Year Award from the U.S. Healthful Food Council, and the Public Health Association of New York City’s Media Award in 2014.  In 2016, her book, Soda Politics, won literary awards from the James Beard Foundation and the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP), and she was elected to membership in the Delta Omega Honorary Public Health Society. She was honored with a Trailblazer Award from the IACP, and the Grand Dame Award from Les Dames d’Escoffier in 2018.
From 2008 to 2013, she wrote a monthly Food Matters column for the San Francisco Chronicle food section. She blogs daily (almost) at www.foodpolitics.com, and tweets @marionnestle (named by Time Magazine, Science Magazine, and The Guardian as among the top ten in health and science).  She currently has more than 140,000 Twitter followers.
Food started me on this journey. If it's not a major source of joy, community, and connection, the opportunity is there to make it so. Marion Nestle does it. She returned after recently launching her book Let's Ask Marion, which I consider her most accessible. I read What To Eat, around 500 pages, and loved it, but Let's Ask Marion is under 200, with quick chapters, though still comprehensive in covering her most important topics. Our conversation covers background not in the book of her and her co-author, Kerry Trueman, who researched the questions, asked them, and planned with Marion the book's structure and content. Since her first appearance on this podcast, I sat in on her class at NYU---one of the benefits of teaching there myself---so got to know her work and history in more depth. She helped found the field of food research. I was glad to get some of that personal touch at the end---the plants Marion grows and her attitude to them. She wrote in the book that her top consideration about food is that it's delicious. It's personal. We can grow it. I hope that connection to our food came out in our conversation and that we can increase it. Most Americans seem to view food, exercise, and the environment with horror, sources of guilt, shame, confusion, and uncertainty. Marion lives the opposite. I think I do too. Knowing all about food and our food systems may seem like work, but it leads to delicious joy, community, and connection.
Marion Nestle is a hero for me. Food may be the greatest interest that got me into acting on my environmental action. Avoiding packaged food emerged from avoiding fiber-removed foods, which emerged from reading Diet for a Small Planet in the 80s, which also motivated her. She, her books, and blog, Food Politics, are voices of sense in a crowded field. Her most recent book is The Unsavory Truth: How the Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat. I've read most of it and seeing her present on it led to meeting her in person. I recommend it. Her other books include What to Eat, Food Politics, Why Calories Count, Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda, and Safe Food. I've read about half of each of the first three, expecting to finish all, and recommend any to start---whether your interests include food, the environment, acting on your values, health, or nearly anything, really. There's a big overlap between food and the environment regarding leadership, which she and I talk about. This conversation covers the path toward leadership I expect many listeners are on, but that she has experience in since the 70s. Leadership often means starting with no obvious light at the end of the tunnel, only that you care about changing yourself and culture. I see her as a role model for acting in such situations, which probably feel familiar to listeners. I wanted to bring vision that perseverance pays off, to take the long view. We can all learn from her experience. Read the transcript.