Dr. Sarah Berry
speaker
566 appearances
3 recordings
3 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard 18 Dec
Dr. Sarah Berry’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Dec 2025 with 1.
Appearances
I think that. I can't comment on their motivations for profit. I don't think I'm informed enough to comment on that. But I do believe that the food industry needs to work with academia in order to solve the problem of the kind of foods that are out there. We need impact from government, though, as well. We need impact from policymakers. We need to go back to grassroots.
We need to be educating our children how to cook. We need to be giving... healthy school meals. We need to be educating them in schools. What is a healthy meal? What isn't a healthy meal? What is a healthy food? But I think that something that's so important is this current state of fear, I think.
I think we're in a perilous state at the moment of there are some people making a lot of noise in the media about scientists working with industry, how any research funded by industry is therefore dangerous. Bias. It's corrupt. Can't be trusted. That's certainly not my experience. It's not what I have ever seen from any other colleagues taking money from food industry in order to do studies.
We as nutrition scientists need to do studies. We need to run clinical trials in order to look at how we can improve their food to make it healthier. The amount of funding we get from independent government bodies is tiny. To get funding, the amount of time we have to spend as academics writing grants to be rejected and rejected because the government invests so little in nutrition research.
We need to be able to get funding to be able to run studies to answer important questions. The money and the experience I've had from those around me when we receive funding from research, when we receive funding from industry... There is very limited involvement that they are allowed to have with what we do. And the university ensure that. We conduct the research. We do the analysis.
We publish the paper. The industry funders cannot get involved in that process. So I still see it as independent. Now, there is discussion about are they setting the agenda of that research? You know, there's something we could talk about for days and days. But I think this narrative that's out there that just because a study is being funded by the food industry is biased is wrong.
And I think it's unhelpful. And it's putting these exposes that certain media personalities are putting forward. that if an academic has taken money from a food industry, that therefore they cannot be advising us on food, they cannot be trusted for their research. I think that that's a real problem for us as nutrition scientists because it's creating a time of fear.
And that's why I think all three have to work together. Government need to take big responsibility now.
But I think that there has to be an acceptance that academics, scientists, can work with food industry and it doesn't mean that we're corrupt or our results are biased in any way.
Do you know what I believe? I believe that life can be simple. That actually all that matters is that... you have good relationships, that you're finding joy in life and that we shouldn't overcomplicate things. And if on my gravestone I have written, Sarah was a nice person, I would be very happy with that. But a lot of the clever people I interact with, I think,
wouldn't agree that that's necessarily a good achievement in life. But I see that as a great achievement.
I am.
I don't know, because the people that I care about, I don't think are egotistical. I think we live in a society, certainly in a society where we're mixing with successful people, where there is a lot of ambition, where there is a lot of emphasis put on your achievements, where there's a lot of striving for the next goal, striving for the next achievement.
And maybe it's having had four years where I took a career break, where I was caring for my mum. And together with the rest of my family, we looked after my mum. We kept her at home through a degenerative neurological condition.
And seeing someone change, seeing someone lose the power to talk, lose the power to eat, lose the power to interact, lose the power to do everything that we take for granted. I think has enabled me to not sweat the small stuff. It's enabled me to find joy in most things, pleasure in most things, and not strive for things that maybe in the past I would have.
I think it's given me a perspective. Now, don't get me wrong. You know, I was nervous before coming on here, so I sweated about that. And, you know, I'm not saying that I'm always, like, horizontally laid back by any means. But I think it's given me a perspective on what matters to me.
And what matters to me and I think the greatest achievement in my whole life has been actually not becoming professor, which I'm incredibly proud of. I'm from a working class family. You know, I was the first person in our family to ever go to university. My mum and dad didn't have the privilege of staying at school beyond 14. And, I mean, it saddens me that they hadn't seen this success.
It saddens me very much. And whilst the pride I felt yesterday at the ceremony was phenomenal, actually what I'm most proud of is the four years that I cared for my mum. And to me, that's what matters. And so that's why when I'm with lots of smart people and I think they're doing amazing things... I don't have the same perspective sometimes. I probably don't care as much as long as I'm having fun.
And do you know what? And I think I said this at the beginning. I'm so privileged. I get to do my hobby every day. I love what I do. I'm not doing this necessarily because I'm such a selfless person that I want to improve everyone's health. Yes, if that's a byproduct, great. But I get up and I love what I do. I'm so excited by the science that we do.
And what drives me to do it is having been through that situation of realising how delicate life is. So just seize the moment. Enjoy what you're doing at that point in time.
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