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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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      Trump administration’s budget cuts endanger Meals on Wheels: ‘Life and death implications’

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      The Trump administration’s slashes to the Department of Health and Human Services is threatening Meals on Wheels, the popular program dedicated to combatting senior hunger and isolation. Despite decades of bipartisan support, Meals on Wheels now faces attacks from Republicans whose budget blueprint paves the way for deep cuts to nutrition and other social safety-net programs as a way to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy.It’s a move anti-hunger advocates and policy experts warn could have disastrous ramifications for the millions of older Americans who rely on the program to eat each day.“It’s not hyperbolic to say that we’re going to be leaving people hungry and that this literally has life and death implications,” said Nicole Jorwic, the chief of advocacy and campaigns at Caring Across Generations, a non-profit that advocates for ageing Americans, disabled people and their caregivers. “This is not just about a nice-to-have program. These programs are necessities in the lives of seniors all over this country.”While it is still unknown exactly what will be slashed, the blueprint sets the stage for the potential elimination of the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG), a key source of funding for local Meals on Wheels programs in 37 states, and serious cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) and Medicaid, which would increase food insecurity and hardship and steeply increase demand for Meals on Wheels services. The entire staff who oversaw SSBG have already been fired, according to reports.If Congress takes away SSBG funding and weakens other programs, seniors who rely on in-home deliveries or meals in community and senior centers to survive would receive less help as Meals on Wheels community providers would be forced to reduce services, add people to waitlists or turn seniors facing hunger away altogether. Some program operators who are already making tough choices about who to serve due to strained budgets and rising need have said it feels as though they are “playing God”.“We’re talking about lives here so it’s worrisome to me,” said Ellie Hollander, the president and CEO of Meals on Wheels America. “Some of our programs are already operating on razor-thin budgets and are pulling from their reserves. [If funding goes away], it could result in some programs having to close their doors.”In the US one in four Americans is over the age of 60 and nearly 13 million seniors are threatened by or experience hunger. Meals on Wheels America, a network of 5,000 community-based programs that feeds more than 2 million older Americans each year, has been a successful public-private partnership for more than 50 years. The Urban Institute estimates that the number of seniors in the US will more than double over the next 40 years.The Older Americans Act (OAA) nutrition program, which supports the health and wellbeing of seniors through nutrition services, is the network’s primary source of federal funding, covering 37% of what it takes to serve more than 250m meals each year. The exact mix of local, state, federal and private funding of Meals on Wheels’ thousands of on-the-ground community programs varies from provider to provider.Under the orders of the Elon Musk-led unofficial “department of government efficiency” (Doge) and the health and human services (HHS) secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, 20,000 people at HHS have lost their jobs in recent weeks, including at least 40% of the staff at the Administration for Community Living, which coordinates federal policy on ageing and disability. Since many of those staffers helped fulfill critical functions to serving older Americans through the OAA, some Meals on Wheels programs are worried about funding disbursements, reporting data and the loss of institutional knowledge and expertise.HHS has said it will reorganize the ACL into other HHS agencies, although how that would happen is unclear. The co-chairs of the Disability and Aging Collaborative, composed of 62 member organizations that focus in part on ageing and disability, said in a recent statement: “This disruptive change threatens to increase rates of institutionalization, homelessness and long-lasting economic hardships.”Since experiencing multiple strokes that left her cognitively impaired and at risk for falls, Dierdre Mayes has relied on Meals on Wheels Yolo County to deliver meals that are the 64-year-old’s primary source of nutrition. “I’m really thriving off of the meals I get,” said Mayes, a Woodland, California, resident who also receives $20 a month in food stamps, which she uses to purchase cases of water. “The best part about it is I don’t have to go anywhere to get them.” For Mayes and other homebound older Americans, the program is a lifeline.The uncertainty around Meals on Wheels’ future is causing stress for seniors who are worried about how federal cuts, layoffs and tariffs will impact their daily deliveries. The non-profit FeedMore WNY, which serves homebound older adults in New York’s Erie and Niagara counties, said they’ve been hearing from fearful older clients as word of other recent cuts circulated in the news.Catherine Shick, the public relations manager for FeedMore WNY, said they served 4,775 unique Meals on Wheels clients last year and that demand for their feeding programs increased by 16% from 2023 to 2024, a trend they expect to continue. “Any cut to any funding has a direct impact on the individuals who rely on us for food assistance and any cuts are coming at a time when we know that food insecurity is on the rise,” she said. “We need the continued support of all levels of government, as well as the community, to be able to fulfill our mission.”In addition to delivering healthy, nutritious food, Meals on Wheels drivers, who are primarily volunteers, provide a host of other valuable services: they can look for signs of cognitive or other health changes. They can also address safety hazards in the home or provide pet support services, as well as offer crucial social connections since drivers are often the only person a senior may see in a given day or week.Deliveries have been shown to help keep seniors healthy and in their own homes and communities and out of costly institutional settings. Republicans in the House and Senate have said their goal is to reduce federal spending, but experts say cutting programs that help fund organizations such as Meals on Wheels would instead increase federal spending for healthcare and long-term care expenses for older Americans.“If people can’t stay in their own homes, they’re going to be ‘high flyers’ in hospitals and admitted prematurely into nursing homes,” said Hollander, “all of which cost taxpayers billions of dollars annually versus providing Meals on Wheels for one year to a senior for the same cost of being in the hospital for one day or 10 days in a nursing home.”Experts agree that even before the cuts, Meals on Wheels has been underfunded. Advocates and researchers say OAA hasn’t kept up with the rapid growth of the senior population, rising food costs or inflation. One in three local programs already have waiting lists with many programs already feeling stretched to their limits. For more than 60% of Meals on Wheels providers across the country, federal funding represents half or more of their total revenue, underscoring the serious damage that could be done if cuts or policy changes are made in any capacity.“It feels like a continuous slew of attacks on the programs that seniors rely on to be safe, independent and healthy in their own homes,” said Jorwic of Caring Across Generations. “Everything from cuts to Meals on Wheels to cuts to Medicaid, all these things that are being proposed and actively worked on being implemented, are a real threat to the security of aging Americans.” More

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      in US Politics

      FDA suspends milk quality-control testing program after Trump layoffs

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      The Food and Drug Administration is suspending a quality-control program for testing fluid milk and other dairy products due to reduced capacity in its food safety and nutrition division, according to an internal email seen by Reuters.The suspension is another disruption to the nation’s food-safety programs after the termination and departure of 20,000 employees of the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the FDA, as part of Donald Trump’s effort to shrink the federal workforce.The FDA this month also suspended existing and developing programs that ensured accurate testing for bird flu in milk and cheese and pathogens like the parasite Cyclospora in other food products.Effective Monday, the agency suspended its proficiency testing program for grade “A” raw milk and finished products, according to the email sent in the morning from the FDA’s division of dairy safety and addressed to “Network Laboratories”.Grade “A” milk, or fluid milk, meets the highest sanitary standards.The testing program was suspended because FDA’s Moffett Center Proficiency Testing Laboratory, part of its division overseeing food safety, “is no longer able to provide laboratory support for proficiency testing and data analysis”, the email said.An HHS spokesperson said the laboratory had already been set to be decommissioned before the staff cuts and that though proficiency testing would be paused during the transition to a new laboratory, dairy product testing would continue.The Trump administration has proposed cutting $40bn from the agency.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe FDA’s proficiency testing programs ensure consistency and accuracy across the nation’s network of food safety laboratories. Laboratories also rely on those quality-control tests to meet standards for accreditation.“The FDA is actively evaluating alternative approaches for the upcoming fiscal year and will keep all participating laboratories informed as new information becomes available,” the email said. More

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      in US Politics

      From peppercorns to plastic forks: US businesses that rely on Chinese products reel from Trump tariffs

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      Chang Chang, a Sichuan restaurant in Washington DC, was already noticing that some of its business had dropped off after tens of thousands of federal workers living in the area lost their jobs. But the recent tariff rate hikes mark an even greater blow for the restaurant.Sichuan peppercorns, which create the signature numbing spice of the regional Chinese cuisine, along with other ingredients, face an at least 145% tariff after last week’s tit-for-tat trade battle between China and the United States. The steep rate is an existential threat for restaurants across the country that rely on specialty ingredients imported from China to craft the authentic flavors of their dishes, said operators who were blindsided.“We’re really worried,” said Jen Lin-Liu, the director of events for Chang Chang. The restaurant is part of the Peter Chang restaurant group that operates a dozen Sichuan restaurants across Washington, Virginia and Maryland.The restaurant group sources meats and vegetables from local farmers, including an Amish community in the Finger Lakes region that supplies its shiitake mushrooms and organic pork. Still, it is dependent on imported items such as fermented chili peppers and soy sauce, which give the dishes their unique taste.“Some of the products that we need just do not exist in the United States,” Lin-Liu said.The cost of other items is rising as well. “There are increases in any supply you can think of, from takeout boxes to printer paper to menu printing paper,” she said, adding that if the tariff rates stick, the price of a $20 dish may rise to $35 or $40.View image in fullscreenGeorge Chen, the chef who created Eight Tables, a fine-dining restaurant in San Francisco, said that while some of the items on his menu may be replaceable with options from Taiwan, it undermines the integrity he’s put into sourcing the unique ingredients for his dishes.“Replacements disrupt complex long-term relationships,” explained Chen. “It took me years to find the special spice vendors or the organic tea farmer in China from my many years living and working there.”Eight Tables is part of a larger marketplace called China Live, which includes a dining hall, a cold-drinks bar and a shop that sells wares including chopsticks, glass tea mugs and pots.“The area most concerning is our retail platform,” said Chen. For those items, “it’s not possible to re-order at the tariff rates”.For direct importers, like the Mala Market, an online shop, the tariffs on Chinese products threaten its entire business model. Sichuan peppercorns are popular on the site, but it also sells a number of items produced in their original region using traditional methods. The owner, Taylor Holliday, calls these “heritage products”, which include soy sauce handcrafted in Zhongba, fermented soybeans aged for three years in Sichuan and sesame paste stone-ground in Shandong.“These are products which have been made in that exact area for hundreds if not thousands of years,” said Holliday. “They have such a history, there’s no way these products can be made anywhere else.”While part of Holliday’s business supplies wholesale items to restaurants around the country, the majority of its orders are from home cooks.“A lot of our customers are people who have a cultural or emotional attachment to China,” Holliday said. “It’s more than just the food, it’s a cultural attachment to these products.”EMei, a Sichuan restaurant in Philadelphia, sources not only its peppercorns from China but also items such as chopsticks and plastic cutlery for takeout orders. Similar to many Chinese restaurants, delivery is a major part of the restaurant’s business.“So far, this is the main impact for us,” said Dan Tsao, the owner of EMei, who said the tariff hikes add about $1 to $1.50 to each delivery order.The tariffs may also create a supply issue for these items.“Importers are pausing more of their orders from China. They think 125% is crazy,” Tsao said.While the restaurant sources many of its ingredients from local farmers, it still relies on some imports from other countries. It orders broccoli from Mexico, shrimp from Ecuador and rice from Thailand. Rice is especially critical; the restaurant runs through a supply of about 200 pounds each night, Tsao said. Since Donald Trump’s “liberation day” announcement earlier this month, the price per pound has already risen more than 25%.View image in fullscreenThe frenetic nature of the tariff policy shifts has left owners and suppliers cautious about which steps to take and how to plan for the future.Tsao has plans to open two more restaurants later this year and has noticed some construction estimates for renovations rising. Most of the building materials come from China, too.“I’m hesitating now,” he said. The possibility of a recession while the prices of supplies and renovations keep going up may change his calculation. “There will be all these ripple effects on the system and there’s so much economic uncertainty,” he added.Holliday said she has one container of product already on the way from China that is scheduled to clear US customs in about five weeks, but will not raise prices until she is forced to.“I’m praying that something happens by then,” she said. But if it doesn’t, she’s resigned to paying the tariffs.“There’s no other way we can run our business,” she said. More

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      in US Politics

      ‘It’s going to be messy’: Americans on how Trump’s tariffs are shaping their spending

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      A few weeks ago, Dane began stocking up on “paper products”, “cases of paper towels, toilet paper”, “piddle-pads” for their shih-tzu, and his wife upgraded from an iPhone 8 to 14.The 73-year-old in South Carolina said the purchases – which were made to get ahead of Donald Trump’s trade policies – reminded him of the early weeks of the Covid pandemic, when he scrambled to buy masks, gloves and toilet paper.“It’s scary,” Dane said. “Prices are going to go up because of tariffs … It’s going to be messy.”While campaigning last year, Trump constantly touted his love of tariffs. But it was not until his so-called “liberation day” on 2 April – where the president announced sweeping duties on incoming goods, punishing competitors, allies and small and developing countries alike – that he spooked global financial markets and provoked fears of spiralling inflation and stagnant growth.Amid a US government bond sell-off, the president paused his most eye-watering tariffs for 90 days, apart from China, whose goods are set to be hit with a 145% levy.Hundreds of Americans got in touch with the Guardian to share how the uncertainty is affecting their consumption habits.Dane, who is retired, worked as an entrepreneur with his wife most of his career before later becoming an English teacher. He said he was a Republican in the 1980s but is fearful about how the US is “not going the right way” under Trump, and is unhappy with his “dystopian” policies towards global allies, the economy, education, scientific research and more.View image in fullscreenCurrently, Dane is on a trip to Paris and plans to bring home consumer goods potentially hit by 10% tariffs on European Union imports.“We’ll probably be getting tea, bringing back some cheese, some butter,” he said. “I would love to bring back eggs but that would be a disaster. I’d have scrambled eggs in my suitcase.”Amid tariff uncertainty, Heather, a 61-year-old college professor in Texas, said she and her husband can mostly weather food cost fluctuations, but brought forward the purchase of a new car “inanticipation of price hikes”.She said they owned a 14-year-old Mini Cooper, which ran on gas, that they planned to replace with a hybrid vehicle at some point. They decided to replace their car now to avoid potential inflation – and reduce expenditure on gas.“The economic instability of the Trump administration certainly gives one pause,” she said. “It’s just so much instability, chaos and [the] unknown.”It’s a similar story for Stefanie, a 56-year-old educator and former tech worker in Nevada, who bought a Toyota Tacoma to replace her old Jeep as well as converting some investments into cash.Stefanie began strategizing about being more resilient to tariffs as soon as Trump was elected.“The one thing I learned in the first administration is to believe him: he says bizarre things, and then he does bizarre things,” she said.She’s cutting back on subscriptions and future travel plans, while stockpiling kitchen staples such as rice, cooking oils, vinegar and flour and replacing worn-out clothes including shoes and jeans, “before inflation hits”.“The supply chain is so globalized that tariffs really hit everything,” Stefanie said.But for Ishaan*, a 51-year-old engineer in Texas, the economic picture means he is abstaining from major purchases.“Everyone I know has started tightening their belts,” he said. “I am cutting out unnecessary expenses, cancelled my gym membership, focusing on savings.”The focus for Ishaan, who fears higher prices and an economic slowdown, is to build up his savings in cash. He feels “scared to invest in any stocks or bonds right now” amid market volatility.Likewise for Jonathan*, a 70-year-old in New Jersey, the financial fallout from Trump’s trade wars means he has been forced to rule out planned purchases and strip consumption back to the essentials.Jonathan said his individual retirement account (IRA) was initially “decimated” – although it ticked up slightly after Trump paused his tariffs on Wednesday. He said it was currently down about 15%.That means cancelling plans to redo the carpet in his house and replace two old televisions, Jonathan said. “In short, we’ll buy only necessities and pay bills until this stupidity ends.”Russ a 35-year-old physicist in New Mexico, said the Trump administration’s policies were “causing me to think about what kinds of spending behavior I could have done without this whole time”.He has an eight-year-old phone and nine-year-old MacBook computer that still work fine, which he will not be replacing. The prospect of runaway price rises for consumer electronics, often from China, have led him to reconsider: “Do I really need this, or do I just want this?“I see these things as being as much toys as necessities,” he said. “Maybe I’ll just go back to a dumbphone or something like that – I fantasize sometimes about not getting all these notifications all the time, like the phones we had back in 2005. But maybe that’s a Luddite fantasy.”Russ said that he was already boycotting Amazon and Target – companies that many feel have aligned themselves with Trump’s agenda such as rolling back their own DEI schemes. He’s trying to shop more at local, independent shops rather than “everything stores”, which he notes is more expensive and time consuming but ultimately worth it.“As an American citizen and registered voter, nobody really cares what you think until November of every other year, you feel kind of voiceless,” he said. “You think, well, if dollars are the only tools we have any more, then damn it, I’m going to cast those votes and allocate my spending accordingly.”View image in fullscreenLikewise, small business owner Christine* said the disruption could cause a wider re-evaluation of US consumer habits.Amid the uncertainty, Christine, 41, stocked up on supplies for her Miami acupuncture business for two years, and bought her son’s fifth birthday present – a bike – early for July. But she said she had already noticed less demand for her work.More broadly, the prospect of inflationary tariffs is accelerating Christine’s reconsideration of how much “stuff” she needs. She’s recently attended “these lovely parties” where friends bring unwanted clothes and they “switch it all around” rather than buying fast fashion.“I really resent being drafted into this mad trade war,” Christine said, “but if there is a silver lining, maybe it’s that at least some people like me will question their unsustainable capitalistic practices.”*Some names have been changed. More

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      in Elections

      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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      in Elections

      Grocery Shoppers Will Feel the Tariffs First in Produce

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      Grocery shoppers are likely to feel the impact of the Trump administration’s sweeping new tariffs before April is over. And the first place they’ll feel it is in parts of the store where the inventory has to move fast.In the produce aisle, food analysts said Thursday, expect small price increases on everyday purchases like bananas from Guatemala and grapes from Peru, countries whose exports to the United States will incur 10 percent tariffs when the new fees go into effect on Saturday. A separate round of reciprocal tariffs on 57 countries will follow on Wednesday.The seafood counter may hold even worse surprises. Grocery stores sell a lot of shrimp from Vietnam, which President Trump hit with a 46 percent reciprocal tariff, and India, with a 26 percent reciprocal tariff.Soon, analysts say, price hikes will arrive for staples like sugar and coffee, which is already priced at a historic high. Specialty coffee beans might eventually cost consumers 10 percent to 35 percent more than before the tariffs, bean buyers predicted.Since the pandemic, grocery stores have been expanding their lines of lower-priced private-label products. Customers loved them as a way to navigate inflation, but tariffs will drive up costs.Coffee prices, which are already at historic highs, are likely to increase.Brandon Bell/Getty ImagesWe 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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      in US Politics

      RFK Jr says they are poisoning us, influencers call them unnatural – but what is the truth about seed oils?

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      It’s curious that something so bland could cause so much controversy. Most of us have a bottle of seed oil, normally called vegetable oil in the UK, in our kitchens – a nearly tasteless but very useful fat that has been a commonplace cooking ingredient for decades.And yet this previously unremarkable golden liquid has sparked online furore and vicious debate. Nutrition influencers on social media have described it as “toxic”, “inflammatory”, “unnatural” and the root cause of the obesity epidemic.The US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has caused controversy with his views on subjects from vaccines to fluoride in drinking water, has said the population is being “unknowingly poisoned” by seed oils and urged people to revert to “traditional” fats such as butter, lard and beef dripping for better health.Last month the Wall Street Journal reported that fast food chains were promoting their shift away from seed oils after Kennedy’s criticisms. He even made a televised visit to a branch of Steak ’n Shake to praise its decision to cook fries in beef tallow instead.So should we really be ditching our bottles of vegetable and sunflower oils and covering everything in lard?Seed oils have been in widespread use since about the 1950s and, as well as being used for home cooking, are also in many ultra-processed foods. They include rapeseed (known as canola in the US and generally labelled as vegetable oil in the UK), sunflower, soya bean, corn, grapeseed, rice bran, sesame and safflower. While you can buy cold-pressed seed oils, the most common production method involves using a solvent (normally hexane) to extract the oil from the plant. It is correct that hexane is a toxic substance, but it is almost entirely removed from the final product by the refining process – the EU allows a maximum residual limit of 1mg per kilo.The refining process includes bleaching and deodorising, both of which critics have jumped on to claim that seed oil is “unnatural” and therefore “bad”.Tom Sanders, emeritus professor of nutrition and dietetics at King’s College London, who has spent his career researching dietary fat and health, explains: “The processing actually takes out potentially toxic material.”Sarah Berry, professor of nutritional sciences at King’s, agrees: “The end product, in my opinion, is very safe to eat.”The next allegation against seed oils is that they are “inflammatory”. This assumption is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the science, says Berry.View image in fullscreenSeed oil critics claim that the type of omega-6 fatty acid present in them (called linoleic acid) can be inflammatory, whereas omega-3 – the other essential polyunsaturated fatty acid, found in foodstuffs such as oily fish, flaxseed and chia seeds – can reduce inflammation.“Because the enzymes used to convert omega-3 into anti-inflammatory chemicals are the same ones used to convert omega- 6, their argument is that having too much seed oil will mean the enzymes are stolen away from the omega-3,” says Berry.“This isn’t true. It’s true from a theoretical biochemical pathway. It’s true in mice upon unrealistic stimuli. But it is absolutely not true in humans.” In fact, randomised, controlled trials show that linoleic acid has either a neutral or, in most studies, an anti-inflammatory effect in humans.“The idea that linoleic acid is some sort of toxic thing is absolute nonsense,” says Sanders. “It’s an essential nutrient. Of the essential fatty acids it’s the most important one. If you’re deficient, it impairs immune function and platelet function doesn’t work.”It also has a potent cholesterol-lowering effect, says Berry, who is chief scientist at nutrition company Zoe. “It has been shown to reduce blood cholesterol significantly. Because of this and based on the current evidence I would say that not only are seed oils not bad for us, they are a healthy part of our diet.”Sanders attributes much of the decline in cardiovascular disease we’ve seen in the past 50 years to our increased consumption of seed oils. A few weeks ago, a study that followed 200,000 adults over 33 years found that those who replaced a tablespoon of butter a day with the same amount of plant-based oil such as soya bean or rapeseed had a 17% reduction in risk of death from all causes. The study, which was published in JAMA Internal Medicine also found a 17% reduction in risk of death from cancer.“Our study found that higher butter intake was associated with increased deaths from all causes and cancer, while higher intake of plant-based oils was associated with lower deaths from all causes, cancer and cardiovascular disease,” said lead study author Yu Zhang, a graduate student at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.Priya Tew, from Dietitian UK, says some of the confusion might have come from a 1960s study: “It showed men with heart disease had a higher intake of seed oils. But this was through margarines that also contain trans fats, which we know increase the risk of heart disease.”A similar logic applies to the argument that, as our intake of seed oils has risen – which it has more than 200-fold over the past 50 to 70 years – so too have our rates of chronic disease.“Association does not mean causality,” says Berry. “Think what else has changed; our food landscape is almost unrecognisable compared with 70 years ago. It’s estimated 60% of the seed oils we consume come from ultra-processed food which has many other chemicals that are unhealthy for us and processes that affect the healthfulness of the food.”In other words, it’s not the seed oil that’s the problem.Berry’s recent statements about seed oils have landed her in hot water. After appearing on a podcast explaining that seed oils are healthy, she received relentless hate mail, including being told she’s “the most hated scientist in America”.“It nearly got to the point where I was going to stop speaking out on the topic so I didn’t have to be subjected to such horrible comments and meanness. But then I thought, that’s exactly what they want. They want to shut down the real evidence, so it just galvanised me to speak out about it even more.”As always, with nutrition, it’s better to consider overall diet than to hyper-fixate on one ingredient. But these kind of messages don’t tend to get as much traction. “Human nature is such that we are more susceptible to risk and scare headlines,” Berry says. “They’re going to get more clicks than a balanced, boring nutrition scientist like myself saying seed oils are fine as part of a balanced diet.”Sanders says you don’t have to ditch your seed oils and you shouldn’t swap them for butter or lard. “The seed oil scare is all just gossip. It’s not based on any good science at all.” More

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      What to Know About Food Poisoning When Traveling

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      Whether you’re traveling off-the-beaten path or staying at a high-end resort, paying attention to how food is prepared and handled can help keep you safe.Two cases involving possible food poisoning among tourists have raised concerns about what travelers can do to prevent and treat food-borne illnesses — not just during off-the-beaten-path adventures, but in and around resorts.While the cause of the recent death of Miller Gardner, the 14-year-old son of the former New York Yankees outfielder Brett Gardner, has not been confirmed, Miller, along with other members of the Gardner family, is reported to have experienced gastrointestinal distress after eating a meal while on vacation in Costa Rica. And a lawsuit filed this year in Toronto in connection with the food poisoning-related deaths in 2023 of 8-year-old Stephen Gougeon and his mother, April, alleges, among other things, that the Dominican Republic resort where they stayed did not take sufficient care in food handling.In general, gastrointestinal illnesses among tourists — travelers’ diarrhea and food poisoning — is especially likely to occur in countries where the water supply is unsafe. But there are also many cases of food poisoning, and hundreds of deaths, in the United States every year, and these infections can occur anywhere there are lapses in how food is handled. Raw or undercooked meat, fish and shellfish can be contaminated, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s list of high-risk foods includes raw eggs and unpasteurized milk.Travel presents additional concerns. “People may be in places where the tap water is not necessarily safe, and they don’t have control over how food is prepared or handled,” said Dr. Adam Ratner, director of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital at NYU Langone in New York. “When you’re home, you have some control, and you have U.S. and local health department standards. It can be harder to assess safety somewhere else.”Ice made with unclean water may cause gastrointestinal problems because freezing, unlike boiling, does not kill most pathogens.Getty Images Parents should be especially vigilant. Babies and young children are vulnerable to dehydration, which is generally the most dangerous aspect of gastrointestinal illnesses; other groups at high risk include pregnant women, older people and anyone who is immunocompromised. But even younger adults and adolescents may not realize how serious the symptoms of food poisoning can be, and when it is important to get medical help.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