Today I had the pleasure of chatting with Dr. Susan Mayne, an adjunct professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health and former Director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN). If you’ve ever read a Nutrition Facts label, seen calorie counts on a menu, or heard about the push to reduce sodium or eliminate trans fats, you’ve seen the results of her work.
We talked about what it’s actually like inside the FDA, particularly within the food division. Dr. Mayne brought clarity and experience to a conversation that’s been clouded by confusion, distrust, and in some corners, active disinformation.
We also discussed the MAHA Commission’s report, and why its narrow fixation on ultra-processed foods, while ignoring decades of work on sodium, added sugar, food safety, and labeling, is misguided. Dr. Mayne emphasized the importance of a systemic approach to improving our food system while grounding nutrition policy in comprehensive scientific evidence, cautioning against approaches that overlook well-established research.
If you’re someone who cares about public health, nutrition, or simply wants to better understand how food policy gets made (or stalled), this conversation is worth your time.
And as always, thank you for being here. Independent, evidence-based conversations like this one are more important than ever.
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