Garrett Broad

Totally agree with @jandutkiewicz.bsky.social that we should stop demonizing industrial food.

Demonize crap food, by all means! But not all industrial, or even ultra-processed food is crap, and some crap has only ingredients your grandmother would recognize.

I didn't know Dan personally but felt like I knew Dan pretty well. His knowledge of offbeat Philly sports culture minutiae was unmatched, and his hoagie mouth landed like ASMR in my ears. He will be missed.

This line graph illustrates the percentage change in agency staff levels from the previous year for nine major U.S. federal scientific and health organizations between the fiscal years 2016 and 2025. The agencies tracked include the CDC, Department of Energy, EPA, FDA, NASA, NIH, NIST, NOAA, and NSF. For the majority of the timeline between 2016 and 2023, the agencies show relatively stable fluctuations, generally staying within a range of +5% to -5% change per year. However, there is a dramatic and uniform plummet starting in the 2024–25 period. Every agency depicted shows a sharp downward trajectory, with staffing losses ranging from approximately -15% to over -25%. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows the most significant decline, dropping to roughly -26%, while the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) shows the least severe but still substantial drop at approximately -15%.

This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again.

www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

"Slashing regulations, firing federal workers, and wrecking the basic capacities of government officials to do their jobs guarantees the bad government it purports to fix and creates the conditions for the fraud and corruption that tough-talking politicians pretend to abhor."

Quick little exchange here about one of the changes bsky.app/profile/wait...

The 2005 MyPyramid was then followed by MyPlate, which had pretty similar portions as this New Food Pyramid. The shift is mostly rhetorical + meatier. myplate-prod.azureedge.us/sites/defaul...

America's New Dietary Guidelines The Dietary Guidelines for Americans reset U.S. nutrition policy by restoring science, common sense, and real food as the foundation of national health.

Worth noting that the "Food Pyramid" with grains at the base has not been part of the Dietary Guidelines since 2005 (despite what the admin's flashy new site seems to imply)! realfood.gov

Despite the characteristic bluster from the Trump/RFK admin, the new dietary guidelines are really not that different from the last 20+ years. Biggest shift is definitely more positive emphasis on meat and full-fat dairy. But otherwise pretty status quo...

Married a Buffalonian so will be "outside" at the Eagles/Bills game next week. If I still have fingers and toes hope to drop by for some crab fries.

Urban Foragers Are Mapping Edible Plants Around the World The nonprofit Falling Fruit’s interactive, crowdsourced map helps communities find food-bearing plants in cities around the world.

Since launching in 2013, Falling Fruit has mapped over 4,000 different species of edible mushrooms and plants across almost 2 million publicly accessible foraging spots in cities around the world. @gracehussain.bsky.social reports:

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buff.ly/IrWLrrX

Nova group 4 is a broad range of products that vary widely in composition, processing, and nutrient profiles. Some UPFs (eg, yoghurts, breakfast cereals, and packaged breads) might be superior than others (eg, soft drinks, cookies, and reconstituted meat products). However, within each category of food, the composition and processing characteristics of ultra-processed versions make them inferior to their non-ultra-processed counterparts. For instance, ultra-processed yoghurts—often made from skimmed milk powder, modified starches, sugar or non-sugar sweeteners, emulsifiers, flavourings, and colourings—are inferior to plain yoghurts with fresh fruits. Ultra-processed breakfast cereals, made from sugar, extruded starches, and additives, are inferior to minimally processed steel-cut oats. Ultra-processed wholewheat breads, made with refined flour, added bran and germ, and emulsifiers, are inferior to processed breads made with wholewheat flour and without emulsifiers. Soft drinks are clearly less healthy than water or pasteurised, 100% fruit juices; cookies less healthy than fruits and nuts; and reconstituted meat products less healthy than freshly prepared meat dishes. Possible exceptions—such as ultra-processed infant formulas compared with minimally processed cow's milk (although not human milk), or ultra-processed plant-based burgers compared with processed meat burgers (though not processed tofu or tempeh)—do not invalidate the general rule that ultra-processed versions of foods are inferior to their non-ultra-processed counterparts. This rule is what supports the hypotheses that the displacement of dietary patterns based on Nova groups 1–3 by the ultra-processed pattern is linked to worsening diet quality and an increased risk of multiple diseases.

Included in that definition is a note that there are possible exceptions to the claim that all UPFs are inferior to their non-UPF counterparts, noting the examples of infant formula and plant-based meats. It concludes that these exceptions don't "invalidate the general rule." Why not? Because.

Ultra-processed foods and human health: the main thesis and the evidence This first paper in a three-part Lancet Series combines narrative and systematic reviews with original analyses and meta-analyses to assess three hypotheses concerning a dietary pattern based on ultra...

A new article in The Lancet on ultra-processed foods summarizes the main thesis and evidence regarding effects on health. The definition of UPFs is 736 words long. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

The UPF literature is a mess. bsky.app/profile/garr...

The concept of "ultra-processed foods" (UPFs) was supposed to IMPROVE conversations about food systems, nutrition, & the environment. I wrote about why that has NOT been the case -- for the 25th anniversary issue of @gastronomica. 1/ online.ucpress.edu/gastronomica...

"At no other point in human history could someone opt for the meat of their choice for three meals every day, without getting any blood on their own hands, and then post about it on social media to claim they are living like their ancestors."

Read more here and feel free to reach out if you need help accessing the paper. 9/9 online.ucpress.edu/gastronomica...

But efforts to make food systems healthy need to be based in 1) good nutritional evidence, 2) good environmental evidence, and 3) realistic social contexts. To this point, the UPF/NOVA frameworks are not cutting it. 8/

It can be hard to argue against the UPF concept without sounding like a shill for processed foods. To be clear, we should be supporting efforts to help people eat minimally processed whole foods! And the food industry has done some bad stuff to get people hooked on junk food! 7/

Just as important, the rhetoric of the anti-UPF brigade is deeply alarmist, often disconnected and elitist, and frequently selling you something. In the case of RFK Jr/MAHA, it's also a distraction from the ways they are undermining effective public health approaches. 6/

The idea that UPFs are uniquely bad for the environment is upended by the fact that lots of animal-sourced foods with demonstrably poor environmental impacts are granted a non-UPF halo while lots of environmentally sound plant-based foods are deemed destructive UPFs. 5/

The NOVA system is just not good! The categories are confusing and unreliable. Some UPFs are actually good for you. Some non-UPFs are clearly unhealthy. Evidence connecting UPFs to poor health is mostly explained by a few categories -- especially sugar-sweetened beverages. 4/

But as UPFs have permeated nutritional discourse, it's proven to be just as reductionist as its predecessors -- just in different ways. Now, whether a food is "good" or "bad" gets decided by its place within the 4 categories of NOVA. But here's the problem... 3/

When I first learned about UPFs and the NOVA system, I was optimistic. I agree that the "goodness" of a food should not JUST be about its nutritional composition. Reductionism can be bad! We should consider food's impacts on culture and ecology too! 2/

The concept of "ultra-processed foods" (UPFs) was supposed to IMPROVE conversations about food systems, nutrition, & the environment. I wrote about why that has NOT been the case -- for the 25th anniversary issue of @gastronomica. 1/ online.ucpress.edu/gastronomica...

If it comes down to late-breaking undecideds, I think Ciattarelli will be the next governor. At the very least, he comes across as authentically FROM HERE, whereas she seems like she was made in a lab by highly-paid Democratic consultants. I hope I'm wrong...

Prediction markets have Sherrill at around 85% to win NJ governor, but I gotta say it feels much more like a toss-up/lean Ciattarelli based on my unscientific observational drives through South Jersey. Absolutely no enthusiasm for Sherrill...

A useful rejoinder to the Consumer Reports study on lead in protein powders...

No, your protein powder isn’t poisoning you New testing finds two-thirds of popular protein powders exceed lead limits — especially plant-based brands. What you need to know before your next scoop — and why the reality is different.

You may have read that your protein supplements are giving you lead poisoning. That's not the case. If you want to have protein shakes, that's fine. But whether you need to and whether they're safely regulated is a different story. My latest for @vox.com.

www.vox.com/future-perfe...

Also, they don't report the primary registered outcome (sperm DNA methylation, which they say they will report in a future paper), and they don't say why.

And it doesn't seem to occur to them that sat fat, sugar, and fiber, rather than processing, might be the issue.

HT @garrettbroad.bsky.social