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Food with Mark Bittman: Marion Nestle

Digesting the 2026 dietary guidelines.

Published February 5, 2026

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Photo: Peter Menzel

Marion Nestle is a friend of mine, and has been a mentor to me; she’s someone I’ve admired for almost as long as I’ve been writing about food.


Listen to Marion Nestle on Food with Mark Bittman

Marion studied and has a doctorate in molecular biology, but an interest in food led her to become probably the single most respected, important, and intelligent voice in food and nutrition and the policy around it in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. You can’t overestimate Marion’s importance in this field.

Today on Food, Marion and I chatted about our initial reactions to the new dietary guidelines: what’s good, what’s bad, and what’s disturbing. Plus: Is the current protein craze just a marketing scheme that’s done particularly well for the marketers, or should we all be jumping on the bandwagon?

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