There's been a LOT about why RFK Jr is a terrible pick, but I want to focus on something that is very concerning to me, but no one seems to be mentioning. He appeals to a widespread, common-sense idea that the problem with our food is that it has "lots of artificial ingredients". Get the artificial ingredients out — no chemical additives! no food dyes! no high fructose corn syrup! — and our health problems magically resolve. This is 100% incorrect, and fundamentally misunderstands the problems with our food system.

Here's the truth: If people keep eating large amounts of highly caloric foods made with organic sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup, colored with beet juice instead of Red No4, our health problems will remain precisely the same.

Now in a strange way, forcing manufacturers to use "natural" ingredients COULD improve our food system, but not in the way people think. It wouldn't make the food healthier, but it would make it MORE EXPENSIVE TO PRODUCE. And that would reduce consumption. Like a tax!

Unfortunately, RFK Jr. does not seem to understand that the problem with our food system is the UBIQUITOUS EXISTENCE OF CHEAP, CALORIE-DENSE, HIGHLY PALATABLE FOOD. That's it. That's the whole problem. It has precisely nothing to do with food dye or high fructose corn syrup.

Food manufacturers employ the very best in the business. If you focus on "artificial additives" they are going to spend millions on how to produce "natural" versions of the same food, at the same price point. *taps earpiece* What's that? You say they're already on it?

People want easy answers to complicated problems. We want to believe that Haagen-Dazs "Five" is the solution to our problems. Five simple natural ingredients! Free ice cream for everyone now that it's only got five natural ingredients, and sugar instead of corn syrup! That's not how it works. But someone like RFK Jr. encourages this simplistic, misguided approach.

At any rate, I've been on this beat for a decade. Here's a piece I wrote in 2015 that explains how these misconceptions work. For the fun TL;DR, scroll down to the bottom of the piece, where you can see the fake diet I invented, and click on how I exploited misconceptions to make it sound plausible. npr.org/sections/thesa…

This tweet is a perfect example of how RFK Jr. will encourage the kind of misunderstanding I'm talking about here. Is sugary cereal "healthier" than hamburgers? Well, I'll tell you this much — the reason sugary cereal is bad has nothing to do with the screenshot of chemically-sounding ingredients. x.com/issoHarrison/s…

The reason sugary cereal is bad — "worse" than hamburgers — is because it is easy to eat lots of it, it is calorie dense, it doesn't sate you, and it is extremely cheap! Not the f*ing ingredient list!

This thread blew up, so it has been impossible to respond to everybody. But one of the main objections I've seen is this: "Oh yeah? Then explain why I lose so much weight and feel so much better when I go to Europe?" The implication is that stricter European standards for food products make for foods that are healthier, sate you more quickly, etc. But is that the reason? Or is it possible there are other reasons? I happen to be familiar with this kind of argument because I heard it a lot when I was writing about gluten. People who were gluten-free in the US — notably not people with celiac disease — would say that in Europe they were able to eat bread with gluten, because it was [insert claim: organic, different gluten levels, whatever]. The truth is that in both cases, the answer to the mystery has nothing to do with the food. It has to do with the change in context.

I'll explain a little more: When people feel better going gluten-free, or lose weight on a new diet, there are two main factors that don't involve the specifics of the new diet: 1. They are paying more attention to what they eat and changing their habits. If you are eating unhealthfully, just doing those things will, unsurprisingly, improve your diet! You could go keto, or go vegan: As long as you are fundamentally changing your (previously unhealthy) diet, you're going to feel much better. 2. You feel empowered! The change makes you feel like you can do something. That you are doing something. That what was once hopeless is now possible. And that makes you feel really good. It's important!

So let's consider the "Why do I feel better / eat better in Europe?" question. Is it stricter European regulations on food ingredients? Well, there's another possibility: You're in a different context. You're not at your office, next to the vending machine. You don't have access to the same stores and restaurants. You have to fundamentally change up your (previously unhealthy) eating habits. And that is going to make you feel better! If you are consuming less calorie-dense food, less frequently, you'll also lose weight. Not only that, but often people are going to Europe on vacation. They're walking around! They're relaxed! They're not stress-eating from their fridge and their pantry, because they don't have a fridge or pantry and they're not stressed!

So what's more likely: The European standards for food create a miraculous new food environment in which, thanks to the stricter standards on ingredients, you simply get healthier and fitter? Or European portion size is smaller, you're on vacation, in a different context, and those changes lead to healthier eating habits. In my opinion, the choice between the two explanations is crystal clear.

@AlanLevinovitz Some Americans come to live in Europe: and a holiday wouldn’t be long enough for significant health changes in any case. Portions in Europe are MUCH smaller, and the amount of sugar and salt in many things is a lot lower. Those have to be big factors.