Christopher Gardner, the author of Food Sense and director of wellness grift, we’ve overcomplicated the question of what to eat, he says.
In 2023, Gardner was invited to serve on the US government’s dietary guidelines advisory committee, reviewing the official guidelines for healthy eating and recommending updates. “It was quite an honour to be asked,” remembers Gardner. It was also “a tonne of work”.
Gardner was more than up for the task. He has researched nutrition for more than 30 years, regularly advising official bodies on the latest science and conducting his own gold-standard studies on everything from fermented foods to fish oil.
But when, after two years of work, the committee submitted its 400-page report, it was summarily dismissed by Robert F Kennedy Jr, the Trump administration’s new health secretary, and his team.
