Backstory: What you eat is her beat

As she makes her way through the store, nothing is safe from Nestle's wrath: "natural" pork, "fat-free" cooking spray, "100 percent" fruit juice all receiving poor marks for misleading labels. Even organic cereals fall prey to her watchful eye. "Notice that the healthy ones are up top and the junky ones are down here," she says, pointing to their positioning on an eye-level shelf.

***

Born on the East Coast but raised in Los Angeles, Nestle didn't start her career by raising a ruckus at the produce rack. After earning her PhD in molecular biology in 1968, she took a job conducting post doctorate research at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass. But the time- consuming work proved too difficult with two small children, so she switched to a teaching track. After Brandeis, she spent 10 years at the University of California, San Francisco, as associate dean at the School of Medicine.

She was the managing editor of the first and only report on nutrition and health by the US Surgeon General's office, and has worked as a dietary guideline adviser for the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Agriculture, and the American Cancer Society.

But it wasn't until about four years ago, after she published her first book, "Food Politics," that Nestle solidified her role as a leading nutritionist and gadfly. Her book detailed how big companies use lobbyists to influence the food policies set by the US government. She followed up with "Safe Foods." This past semester Nestle took a leave from NYU to teach at her alma mater, UC Berkeley.

While her books have garnered praise and publishing awards, they've also made her a popular target. A couple years ago, The Sugar Association threatened her with a libel suit over comments she made during a radio interview about the sugar content in popular soda drinks. The Center for Consumer Freedom maintains a regular profile of Nestle on a website that describes her as a socialist whose only interest is pushing an anticorporate agenda, such as a tax on junk food. "This notion that we can't control what we eat is ridiculous," says Justin Wilson of the CCF.

But others laud her common sense and courage. During her stint at Berkeley, she hosted a series of lectures on food politics. At the final event, people crammed into a small auditorium. Many sat in the aisles. Afterward, dozens lined up to have her autograph books. "I think she is fabulous and has some guts to get out there," says Mary Granley, a nurse from Oakland, Calif. "She says what a lot of people are thinking."

Part of Nestle's appeal, clearly, is her delivery. She is confident in her arguments, but spices her broadsides with humor. On one subject, though, she's deadly serious - the marketing of junk food to children. By one estimate, companies now spend $15 billion a year pitching foods to kids.

As she walks down the aisle, Nestle points to a box of fruit chews, a popular snack food. At this store, at least two dozen choices are placed at the eye level of a small child. Most claim to be made with real fruit juice, but dig deeper into just one label, says Nestle, and the ingredient list reveals a different story - a lot of sugar. "Why would you feed this to your child?" she asks.

She believes consumers are so inundated with conflicting reports on health and nutrition that they can't sift through it all. She does have a few simple rules for navigating a store, though: "People shouldn't spend their time worrying whether one junky breakfast cereal is better than another. Don't shop the center aisles, and don't buy things with long ingredient lists."

Page: 1 | 2