Chapter 5: Co-opting Nutrition Professionals

The interactions between industry and academia are unavoidable; the only way to minimize corruption is total disclosure of alliances. I believe it’s possible to run a kosher experiment with corporate funding, as long as the methods and conclusions are subject to peer reviews. Most of this chapter outlined the difficulties I’d already known about when maintaining fairness amid corporate backing.

There was one exception to this: I was quite surprised by the segment about the ADA. I don’t think Nestle is upset enough about the subject of the ADA’s ties to industry. As a nutritionist, I’ve always considered the ADA to be the stronghold of nutritional knowledge. It is the responsibility of these professional organizations to give the best advice to Americans, and this is not possible from an organization that maintains “there is no such thing as a good or bad food.” In order for the ADA’s food recommendations to hold any credibility with me, they would need to start a firm, “eat less” line of campaigns.