Tanya Mosley

Let's take a short break.

If you're just joining us, my guest is Marion Nessel, a longtime food policy scholar and author of What to Eat Now.

We'll continue our conversation after a short break.

This is Fresh Air.

This is Fresh Air, and today we're talking to Marion Nessel, a molecular biologist turned food policy advocate whose research and writing have shaped how Americans think about nutrition, marketing, and the power structures of the food industry.

Have you done any research or study on the sophistication of marketing to children today?

I have a 12-year-old, so they don't watch TV.

They're not in the same ways that I used to be marketed as a young person.

It's not the same anymore.

But they have their favorite YouTube celebrities or their games, their video games and gamers.

And are there any regulations about those spaces?

And have you done any research about that type of marketing?

You know, I know people always ask you, what do you eat?

But I actually think I want to ask a different question because I know that you've said that you're a total foodie who views food as one of life's greatest pleasures.

I mean, and we all eat.

But how do you maintain that joy while knowing everything that you know?

You have said something pretty astounding that's kind of been staying with me.

I've heard you say this a couple of times, that our food system is unfixable without a revolution.

What would that revolution look like?

I mean, you know, it seems so daunting when you say all of those things, especially at this moment in the political climate that we're in at this time.