Derek Thompson

Thank you.

Hi everybody, Derek here.

In December, my wife and I welcomed our second baby girl into the world.

I'm gonna be taking some time off, but we wanted to keep the pod going through the holidays.

So we're gonna be re-airing some of our favorite episodes from the last 12 months, a kind of best of compendium.

And this list includes interviews that really stuck with me and others that really stuck with you and you had lots of feedback and thoughts on, including this one.

I'll be back in the new year with fresh content, but until then, happy new year.

In the last few weeks, we've done several episodes on this show about obesity, GLP-1 drugs and nutrition science.

What we haven't talked about as much is the politics of food.

And today's guests say if you really want to understand why Americans are so unhealthy, you have to see that the problem is not just our willpower.

It's not just our food itself.

It's our food policies.

Why, for example, is it so easy for food companies to introduce additives to our food with so little scrutiny?

Because our laws make it easy.

Why is it so easy to sell supplements and vitamins with vague but big sounding promises in the label despite no evidence that they actually do anything?

Well, again, because our laws make it easy.

Why can food companies confuse consumers with ingredients or sell junk food to kids or even get tax deductions for advertising in a way that subsidizes junk food marketing to our children?

Again, because of our laws.

Now, some of this might sound like it's been ripped from the pages of Maha, the Make America Healthy Again movement that's associated with RFK Jr.

and the Trump administration.