Marion Nestle, the woman who challenges multinational food companies willing to pay for tame research

MARION NESTLE

A tough woman with a sweet smile. A distinguished academic who dares to challenge, without prejudice or resentment, the excessive power of American multinationals in the food sector. Marion Nestlé , born in 1936, has had a meteoric rise, after graduating in Microbiology from the University of California, Berkeley, to become the head of the Department of Food Sciences at New York University.

But from this very position, Marion, unlike many of her colleagues, instead of bowing to the interests of big business and protecting it with her scientific authority, has taken the stand on the side of consumers . And already in her first book , Food Politics , she denounced the negative effects of food advertising on our health. Starting with the black hole of obesity , which in the United States is a mass disease.

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SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ON THE NUTRITION OF MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS

But after the gray area of ​​advertising and marketing, Marion Nestlé is now focusing on another black hole of transparency between the market, consumers, and information. Namely, the way companies influence scientific research , steering it, through generous funding, exclusively toward the growth of their revenues and products. More than companies, these are industrial giants. Like Coca-Cola , which was caught red-handed for its ties, including a $1,5 million grant, to the Global Energy Balance Network (GEBN), a research institute specializing in obesity. In its research, funded by Coca-Cola, GEBN has always maintained that obesity was linked exclusively to physical exercise and not to diet, starting with sugary drinks like Coca-Cola. Once the soft drink scandal erupted, the multinational corporation had to apologize to its customers, and GEBN closed down.

NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF ADVERTISING

According to Nestlé, the real problem, the critical point of this mechanism, is not the fact that the research is funded by the industry. It's the way the results are interpreted and then marketed . Another example: multinational chocolate companies have funded research to demonstrate the benefits of this food, thanks to its high flavanol content. But when the research data were released to the market, the scientists themselves were careful not to add a detail to their interpretation: industrial chocolate contains abundant sugars and fats . And consumers, who often confess to "not knowing what to eat," have the right to know this detail.

( The images are taken from Marion Nestle 's Facebook page )

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