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    Robert Shapiro, Who Made NutraSweet a Household Name, Dies at 86

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    His promotion of the sugar substitute was a success. But later, as head of Monsanto, he faced blowback after the company rushed into genetically altered products.Robert B. Shapiro, a brash former law professor turned corporate executive who performed a marketing miracle by branding aspartame as the sugar substitute NutraSweet and making it a household name that consumers demanded in thousands of products, died on May 2 at his home in Chicago. He was 86.The cause was pancreatic cancer, his son James Shapiro said.Aspartame was invented by chemists at the pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle in Illinois in 1965 and approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in soft drinks in 1983, a year after Mr. Shapiro became chief executive and chairman of what the company was already calling its NutraSweet subsidiary.Unlike its chief rival, saccharin, which had dominated the market in the 25 years since it was approved, aspartame leaves no bitter aftertaste and wasn’t suspected of being linked to cancer. (In 2023, however, the World Health Organization identified aspartame, on the basis of “limited evidence,” as “possibly carcinogenic.”) It has virtually no calories and, despite its brand name, virtually no essential nutritional value.In 1985, Searle sold $700 million worth of aspartame, identified as NutraSweet by the tiny but distinctive red-and-white swirl logo that appeared on the packaging of food and drink products that appealed to dieters and other consumers who wanted to avoid sugar.As the chief executive of the division of G.D. Searle that made the sugar substitute NutraSweet, one commentator wrote, Mr. Shapiro “built a marketing campaign around that trademark, convincing consumers that NutraSweet (and no other company’s version of the very same sweetener) was the key to losing weight.”The NutraSweet Company“Shapiro built a marketing campaign around that trademark, convincing consumers that NutraSweet (and no other company’s version of the very same sweetener) was the key to losing weight,” Daniel Charles wrote in “Lords of the Harvest: Biotech, Big Money, and the Future of Food” (2001).We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Who Is Casey Means, Trump’s Pick for Surgeon General?

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      Dr. Means, President Trump’s new pick for surgeon general, has focused on the prevalence of chronic diseases and called on the government to scale back on childhood vaccines.President Trump said on Wednesday that he would nominate Casey Means, a Stanford-educated doctor turned critic of corporate influence on medicine and health, as surgeon general.Dr. Means, an ally of the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has described becoming disillusioned by establishment medicine. She rose to prominence last year after she and her brother, Calley Means, a White House health adviser and former food industry lobbyist, appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show.What is her field of medicine?Dr. Means, who trained as an otolaryngologist and head and neck surgeon, left surgery behind without finishing her training to practice so-called functional medicine, which focuses on addressing the root causes of disease. She published a diet and self-help book last year titled “Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health.” Before that, she had been best known for founding Levels, a company that offers subscribers wearable glucose monitors to track their health.She has focused on the prevalence of chronic diseases in the United States and has taken aim at obesity, diabetes and infertility, problems she has attributed to the use of chemicals and medications and Americans’ sedentary lifestyles.What has she said about vaccines?Dr. Means has echoed some of Mr. Kennedy’s skepticism of vaccines, calling on the new administration to study their “cumulative effects” and to weaken liability protections offered to vaccine makers as a way of encouraging them to develop new shots.“There is growing evidence that the total burden of the current extreme and growing vaccine schedule is causing health declines in vulnerable children,” she wrote in an October newsletter.Child health experts are adamantly opposed to trimming the list of recommended immunizations, warning that such changes would trigger outbreaks of deadly infectious diseases. And they have noted that the government makes available the safety data used to license vaccines and the safety data generated after they are put into use.What has she said about the food supply?Dr. Means has also pushed for a concerted campaign to pare back corporate-friendly policies related to the production and sale of food and medicine. For example, she has supported serving more nutritious meals in public schools, investigating the use of chemicals in American food, putting warning labels on ultra-processed foods, forbidding pharmaceutical companies from advertising directly to patients on television and reducing the influence of industry among drug and food regulators.“American health is getting destroyed,” she said at a Senate round table event on food and nutrition in September. “If the current trends continue, if the graphs continue in the way that they’re going, at best we’re going to face profound societal instability and decreased American competitiveness, and at worst, we’re going to be looking at a genocidal-level health collapse.” More

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      Some Teen Wellness Influencers Are Embracing Views in Line With the ‘MAHA’ Movement

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      The Instagram clip starts with a warning. “If you believe ‘ignorance is bliss,’” it says, “don’t watch this video.” As an influencer slices fruit on a cutting board, a series of provocative claims descend down the screen — about what she says is actually in peanut butter, vanilla flavoring and the rain, among other things.It’s the kind of post that has become common in the online wellness world, where prominent voices often express skepticism of the establishment and an openness to conspiracy theories.But what makes this influencer unusual is her age. She’s only 17, and a high school junior.Ava Noe, a teenager based in the Boston area, has amassed more than 25,000 Instagram followers while criticizing ultra-processed foods and promoting colostrum supplements, mouth tape and beef tallow. Her posts have suggested that iodized salt is “toxic” and described fluoride as “poison.” And her popularity on the platform — where she goes by @cleanlivingwithava — has earned her a paid partnership with a fluoride-free toothpaste company and affiliate work with other brands, including one that sells “non-toxic” skin care products.Ms. Noe, a self-described “crunchy teen,” is just one of a number of young influencers who appeal to other health-conscious kids their age. At times, their anti-establishment viewpoints fall in line with those of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, which has expressed skepticism of the scientific community and large food corporations.The teens’ videos, while at times factually questionable, highlight a desire among some to avoid the chronic illnesses and other conditions that have plagued their elders.Annika Zude, 16, was inspired to start her own health account on TikTok because of how bad ultra-processed foods made her feel, she said. Her father is also an online health influencer.Thalassa Raasch for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why We Let Fads Dictate What We Eat

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      For a few weeks last fall, I was eating a deflated rectangle made of cottage cheese, eggs and shredded Cheddar every day for lunch. When this unholy concoction first came out of the oven, it would seem so fluffy and filled with promise; warm and buttery yellow. By the time this egg bake made it to my plate, it fell into a sad lump. It always tasted fine; I’ve had much worse. But it’s certainly not what I would have chosen to eat regularly if I had not listened to the siren song of #proteinfluencers.Protein has been the hot macronutrient for a while now. Longtime readers may recall that I gently mocked my husband for his protein obsession back in 2023. He had been listening to health podcasts and social media posts, and various protein powders made their way into our pantry. In the two years since I wrote that piece, protein has become even more ubiquitous. This month, The Wall Street Journal noted that “In the year to Feb. 22, the fastest-growing grocery items were those with the most protein per serving — 25 grams or more, according to NielsenIQ data.” The extended Kardashian clan, who never met a trend they couldn’t capitalize on, is in the mix. Khloe Kardashian just announced a new line of protein popcorn called Khloud.Protein-forward diets are easy to market because they appeal to both men and women. Dieting in general is female coded, but men can focus on protein without feeling emasculated because body builders do it, and it comes in the form of literal red meat (hello beef tallow, my old friend) and gym-rat powders.In general, I try to eat in a way that makes me feel physically and mentally good. I thought that I had grown beyond fads and that I could not be swayed. I try to resist outside influences because I was raised on a steady diet of teen magazines and “America’s Next Top Model” and the fiction that celery is a negative calorie food. I don’t need to flood my brain with any more self-loathing nonsense.Still, I don’t want to be ignorant of ways to keep myself fully functional. I turned 43 this year. I’m competitive about my athletic prowess. I’m trying to get my fastest mile run under 7 minutes. I have been reading about how muscle mass starts to decline in your 30s — especially for women — and consuming enough protein is essential for building new muscle.I’m also not immune to social media, in part because it’s my job to analyze what is popular and how trends are sold to a captive audience. But I am also part of the audience.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Amid Tension Around H.H.S. Cuts, Kennedy Meets With Tribal Leader

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      At the very moment that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was set to take the stage, the governor of Gila River Indian Community was still standing at the podium, articulating his uneasiness around recent Trump administration moves.“Let me repeat that: We have spent a good part of this year providing education on why tribes have a political status that is not D.E.I.,” Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis said to a room of 1,200 people, who clapped and cheered.When it comes to cuts sought by what has been called the Department of Government Efficiency, “we need a scalpel and not a chain saw approach to making these changes,” he said. The Gila River Wild Horse Pass Resort and Casino in Chandler, Ariz., owned and operated by two tribes, was the latest stop on Mr. Kennedy’s Make American Healthy Again tour through three Southwestern states. Mr. Kennedy was set to host a “fireside chat” at the Tribal Self-Governance Conference, an event celebrating 50 years of tribal sovereignty under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act.The act, passed by Congress in 1975, marked a shift away from federal government control, so that Native communities could run their own programs based on their unique cultural needs.Mr. Kennedy has long expressed a particular zeal for improving tribal health, citing his family’s long history of advocacy, his childhood trips to American Indian reservations, and parts of his own environmental career.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Nutritionist Marion Nestle Meets Her Moment, At 88

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      On a dreary February afternoon in Westchester County, N.Y., the cooks, farmers, servers and other staff of the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture convened over a roast beef dinner to hear Marion Nestle hold forth on the state of food politics.Dr. Nestle, one of the country’s foremost experts on nutrition policy, was still trying to get her head around the political realignments of the prior months. After his win in November, Donald J. Trump selected Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run his federal health department. The partnership produced a new take on an old slogan, “Make America Healthy Again.” It also led the McDonald’s-loving Mr. Trump to publicly criticize the “industrial food complex.”The phrasing stood out to Dr. Nestle, a molecular biologist turned nutritionist who has spent decades pushing for stricter regulation of food additives and removing conflicts of interest from government health policy.“He sounds just like me when he talks!” Dr. Nestle, who describes herself as “firmly left-wing,” told the crowd, eliciting laughter. “How is that possible?”Dr. Nestle (pronounced NESS-ul) is not a name on the level of the chef Alice Waters or the food writer Michael Pollan. But among food activists and academics, she is considered one of the most influential framers of the modern food movement. She was among the first, in 2002, to lay the blame for America’s obesity epidemic at the feet of the food industry when she released “Food Politics,” a book of case studies illustrating how the industry manipulates government policy and the scientific establishment to its own ends.Dr. Nestle was 65 when the book came out, and she could have stopped then. Instead, she has been on a run ever since, publishing a dozen more books, globe-trotting to deliver speeches and serving as a go-to source for journalists. But only now, at 88, does she seem to be reaching her peak. For years, Dr. Nestle’s ideas placed her in food policy’s progressive camp. But today, fears about food additives and environmental toxins are rampant, and some of her longest held and most passionate beliefs — about topics like regenerative agriculture, school lunches and additives — are marching toward the bipartisan center.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      RFK Jr. to Kick Off MAHA Tour on Fighting Chronic Disease

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      After a second measles death in West Texas, the health secretary is expected to begin a tour through the Southwest to showcase nutrition legislation, among other priorities.A day after attending the funeral of an unvaccinated child who died of measles, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will kick off a tour through Southwestern states on Monday, spotlighting initiatives that emphasize nutrition and lifestyle choices as tools for combating disease.The Make America Healthy Again tour, which will take Mr. Kennedy through parts of Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, is intended to draw attention to some of the secretary’s common-ground interests, but the first day is scheduled to end with a highly contentious one: a news conference to highlight Utah’s new law that bans adding fluoride to public drinking water supplies.The tour comes as questions grow about the federal government’s response to a measles outbreak in West Texas that has spread to other states. The death of an unvaccinated 8-year-old girl there last week was the second confirmed fatality from measles in a decade in the United States. Mr. Kennedy attended the girl’s funeral on Sunday and met with her family before continuing to Utah.Mr. Kennedy’s staff said that over the course of three days, he planned to visit multiple health centers, including a medical school’s “teaching kitchen” to train students on managing chronic disease using dietary choices. He is scheduled to meet with leaders of Navajo Nation to discuss the cultural and logistical challenges of providing high-quality health care to tribal groups and to visit a charter school in New Mexico that “integrates healthy eating and physical fitness into its daily student life.”During his first months in office, Mr. Kennedy’s policies have been unfurled with great brouhaha, but the secretary himself has been relatively low profile, particularly for an official with his degree of fame. The White House has encouraged Mr. Kennedy to take a more public-facing approach to his role, but the timing of his first major push out in the country will require toeing a careful line around the most conspicuous issue on the table.Public health experts say the measles outbreak that has now infected nearly 500 people in West Texas is driven by low vaccination rates. Mr. Kennedy, who is famously skeptical of vaccine safety, shifted his rhetoric after the little girl’s funeral, posting on X: “The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      States Will Be Able to Bar Federal Food Benefit Recipients From Buying Soft Drinks, Kennedy Says

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      Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced on Friday that the Trump administration will begin allowing states to bar recipients of federal food assistance from using the money to pay for soft drinks — a core component of his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.Mr. Kennedy announced the change to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, in Martinsburg, W.Va., where he appeared with Gov. Patrick Morrissey, who recently signed legislation banning foods containing most artificial food dyes and two preservatives — the first state to do so.The health secretary is talking to 15 other governors about similar moves, according to Calley Means, a health food entrepreneur who recently joined the White House to help carry out Mr. Kennedy’s agenda. Mr. Kennedy told the audience in West Virginia that the food companies had used science to make their products addictive, just as tobacco firms had.“Food is medicine,” Mr. Kennedy told a group of teachers, children and parents in the gymnasium of a local school. He added: “It treats our health. It treats our mental health.”Mr. Kennedy’s appearance, with a Republican governor, speaks to a pronounced cultural change in the politics of food and health, as Republicans join the health secretary’s “make America healthy again” movement. But in a decidedly Republican twist, Mr. Morrissey also announced new “work, training and educational requirements” for SNAP participants.The governor also announced a new statewide exercise initiative, and said he intended to “start shedding a few pounds” himself.Mr. Morrisey announced he would seek the required waiver to bar soft drink purchases using SNAP, along with other initiatives intended to promote exercise and to encourage West Virginians to become healthier. The state has one of the highest obesity rates in the nation. He introduced Mr. Kennedy as one of “the most talked about, vilified men in America” and “a warrior for children.”Mr. Kennedy does not have authority over the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which falls under the Agriculture Department. But Mr. Means said that the agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, has agreed to grant the waivers. More

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      Joan Dye Gussow, Pioneer of Eating Locally, Is Dead at 96

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      An indefatigable gardener, she was concerned, a colleague said, with “all the things that have to happen for us to get our food.”Joan Dye Gussow, a nutritionist and educator who was often referred to as the matriarch of the “eat locally, think globally” food movement, died on Friday at her home in Piermont, N.Y., in Rockland County. She was 96.Her death, from congestive heart failure, was announced by Pamela A. Koch, an associate professor of nutrition education at Teachers College, Columbia University, where Ms. Gussow, a professor emeritus, had taught for more than half a century.Ms. Gussow was one of the first in her field to emphasize the connections between farming practices and consumers’ health. Her book “The Feeding Web: Issues in Nutritional Ecology” (1978) influenced the thinking of writers including Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver.“Nutrition is thought of as the science of what happens to food once it gets in our bodies — as Joan put it, ‘What happens after the swallow,’” Ms. Koch said in an interview.But Ms. Gussow beamed her gimlet-eyed attention on what happens before the swallow. “Her concern was with all the things that have to happen for us to get our food,” Ms. Koch said. “She was about seeing the big picture of food issues and sustainability.”Ms. Gussow, an indefatigable gardener and a tub-thumper for community gardens, began deploying the phrase “local food” after reviewing the statistics on the declining number of farmers in the United States. (Farm and ranch families made up less than 5 percent of the population in 1970 and less than 2 percent of the population in 2023.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More