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What we still don't know about ultra-processed foods with Julia Belluz & Kevin Hall
Description
The American diet has become dominated by ultra-processed foods, but it’s taken a while for scientists to even begin to understand what this really means for our health.
One of the researchers at the cutting edge of our nascent understanding is Kevin Hall. A physicist by training, Hall spent 21 years at NIH becoming the country's foremost nutrition scientist before resigning from the agency in 2025.
Julia Belluz is an award-winning health journalist and contributing opinion writer at the New York Times who has done some of the best reporting on nutrition and obesity anywhere.
Together, they wrote Food Intelligence — an Economist Book of the Year. It's one of the most honest and nuanced books about food and nutrition I've read in a long time, and this conversation reflects that.
Highlights:
– Kevin's landmark 2019 NIH clinical trial: how it was designed, what it found, and why it was so controversial
– Why nutrition science is so underfunded — and how that created a vacuum filled by industry, influencers, and ideology
– The MAHA paradox: a movement with the right rhetoric (sometimes) but lacking serious investment in the science to back it up
– What the continuous glucose monitor and biohacking craze gets wrong
– How food environments (not willpower) drive what we eat, and what changing them would actually require
– Kevin's firsthand account of being censored as a government scientist and why he ultimately left NIH after 21 years
– What systemic change could actually look like: SNAP reform, marketing restrictions, and making healthy food genuinely competitive
Where to find Kevin Hall & Julia Belluz:
Check out their book Food Intelligence
Kevin Hall’s website
Follow him on Instagram
Julia Belluz’s website
Follow her on Instagram
Mentioned in this episode:
Kevin Hall's 2019 ultra-processed foods clinical trial — Cell Metabolism
How Washington Keeps America Sick and Fat — Helena's 2019 Politico investigation on nutrition research underfunding
Kevin Hall's departure from NIH — CNN
Stay in touch:
Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix.
Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube.
Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.co
Check out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with