I recently had a chance to ask EPA's Region 2 Administrator about the drastic cuts to his agency, which he brushed off as mostly eliminating programs that were not aligned with their core mission. He came across as a talented and effective bullshitter, which seems to be the main job requirement.

Crazy idea -- what if we decided not to base our farm economy on growing soybeans for the global animal feed market, and instead focused on growing FOOD FOR PEOPLE.

RFK Jr's right-hand man Calley Means asks the ominous rhetorical question -- why is the Amish cancer rate so low? Meanwhile, the answer is LITERALLY THE NEXT LINE OF THE PAPER'S ABSTRACT -- it's mostly a product of tobacco abstinence.

Honestly this should just be the new HHS motto: "The saddest display of a lack of evidence, rumors, recycling old myths, lousy advice, outright lies and dangerous advice we have ever witnessed by anyone in authority in the world claiming to know anything about science."

Oh wow Casey Means is making a shitload of wellness industry money and not just doing it out of the kindness of her pure heart who knew

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/16/h...

🚨 NEW: Climate change is already causing 30,000 deaths per year - a global annual economic loss of $100-350B USD - but the true damage is probably 10x higher. Out TODAY in Nature Climate Change: the first systematic look at the science of "health impact attribution" 🔓 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Unpopular opinion: Hate crime laws are bad, too.

Would be great if my public transit system didn't have to get bailed out by a freaking gambling company instead of getting properly funded by the state and local government.

Another success story as the president works to make America covered in pig shit again.

A tremendous amount of science and societal progress is going out the window fast, *AI included.* Another daily tragedy.

➡️ We need you to spread the word outside of our science bubble.

"NSF terminates funding for its main meteorology focused AI institute" open.substack.com/pub/balanced...

There’s a persistent myth that new solar farms don’t really help tackle climate change because panels are “made with coal” and “never pay back” their carbon debt.

This is simply false.

- UN: solar ~8x cleaner than gas, ~19x than coal per kWh
- panels repay CO2 in 4 months; save 57x over life

And it's a pretty simple mechanism, not some great mystery hidden inside UPFs. They tasted better and were delivered in a more appealing and convenient way, so people ate a bit more.

I mention those in the thread. As this table shows, all those markers showed improvements on BOTH diets, but more on the MPF diet. I would never deny that MPFs have benefits! Just asserting that not all UPFs are terrible, as the current panic insists.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

So much of the UPF debate is about finding some secret ingredient that makes them inherently bad -- emulsifiers? something about the food matrix? additives? But I really think it's much simpler -- the food industry has worked hard to make packaged foods tasty, appealing and convenient. It works!

Certainly agree. Transforming the food environment to make the healthiest choices as easy as possible should be a primary goal, alongside making the easiest options as healthy as possible. All while trying to not make people feel like shit for sometimes feeding their kid a treat (UPF or otherwise)

Yes I much prefer this study to many others that p-hack for associations between self-report UPF consumption and a long list of negative health outcomes. This is the kind of rigorous work we need -- and I expect it will keep giving us these kinds of muddled findings, because nutrition is muddled!

Ultra-processed foods are THE debate in nutrition right now, so you'd figure a new randomized control trial on UPFs would get lots of attention. But this study in Nature Medicine has only gotten modest coverage -- probably because it's findings are not so scary. THREAD
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

UPFs are not all bad -- some are healthy, some can be made healthier than they are, and some should be avoided (but also, don't freak out if you have "bad" UPFs sometimes too). Also, let's focus on getting people to LOVE the TASTE of minimally processed foods, and make it EASY for them to eat them!

Big picture -- this study supports what we already know. A diet heavy in minimally processed foods is going to be generally good for you. But it also supports what we should be saying too but are often accused of shilling for Big Food if we do...

So much of the UPF debate is about finding some secret ingredient that makes them inherently bad -- emulsifiers? something about the food matrix? additives? But I really think it's much simpler -- the food industry has worked hard to make packaged foods tasty, appealing and convenient. It works!

Here's an example of some of the meals on the MPF diet and UPF diets. I would probably enjoy those overnight oats but might be done after half a bowl, especially if I've got to get to work. On the other hand, I could pound a few of those oat and fruit bars at home and then take another for the road.

Why did people eat more UPF foods? They claimed to enjoy both diets the same (just like in @kevinh-phd.bsky.social's RCT). But when it came to flavor/taste and delivery/preparation, UPFs scored higher. In other words: PEOPLE EAT MORE WHEN FOOD IS TASTY, LOOKS GOOD, AND IS CONVENIENT/EASY TO EAT.

What's going on? Study participants could eat as much as they wanted of the provided foods. Compared to baseline, people ate about 5-600 fewer calories on the MPF diet, but about 250-300 fewer calories on the UPF diet. That helps explain the weight loss for both, and a bit more for MPF.

One of the few headlines came from @nytimes.com: "Avoiding Ultraprocessed Foods Might Double Weight Loss." Technically true but also not helpful -- again, people lost weight on BOTH diets, "double" was the difference between 1 & 2 pounds, and few other health changes! www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/w...