Dariush Mazaffarian on the vicious cycle of unhealthy food.

https://www.youtube.com/live/8XI1MBo2duA?si=Y232wqKPeBHnQeYT  

Advance to 4h58m in the video

• We have a Vicious cycle in our food system.  We have crops that get processed into unhealthy foods, that cause diseases that suck money out of people’s pockets, suck money out of our economy, suck money out of employers (health care premiums), crush our federal budget (33% goes to health care spending now), and we have a vicious cycle, and then we have less money so we have to go to cheaper food, we get sicker, its bad for the farmers, bad for the food sector, bad for the food manufacturers, bad for everybody. 

• Food is Medicine is taking advantage of $5 Trillion (of taxes) that we are spending on health care in this country. Taking advantage of a little piece of that $5 trillion to pay for healthy food can actually turn that vicious cycle into a virtuous cycle where dollars are flowing to farmers, dollars are flowing to supermarkets, and dollars are flowing into the pockets of people who need them who are sick, making them healthier, reducing health care spending, putting more money back in the pocket, improving the federal budget and so on.   It is a really powerful potential concept.   

• Just this year, the federal government is going to spend $200 billion on direct medical care for diabetes, a disease that is entirely preventable through good nutrition.  (3x what we have spent on Ukraine since the beginning of the war)  So where is the war?  It is on our shores.  Americans are dying every week because of poor nutrition. That’s the battle we have to be fighting and focusing on.  

Dariush Mozaffarian is a cardiologist, public health scientist, and Director of the Food is Medicine Institute at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. He is Dean Emeritus and Jean Mayer Professor at the Friedman School, Professor of Medicine at Tufts School of Medicine, and attending physician in cardiology at Tufts Medical Center. He is a globally recognized leader in the science of nutrition, cardiometabolic diseases, policy, and Food is Medicine, aiming to create the evidence and translation for a food system that is nutritious, equitable, and sustainable.  Dr. Mozaffarian has authored nearly 600 scientific publications and is one of the top cited researchers in medicine.  He has served in numerous advisory roles, including currently serving on the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition, and his work has been featured in an array of media outlets. Thomson Reuters has named him as one of the World's Most Influential Scientific Minds.

Dr. Mozaffarian received his B.S. in biological sciences from Stanford University, M.D. from Columbia University, and Doctorate in Public Health from Harvard University; and clinical training in internal medicine at Stanford University and in cardiology at the University of Washington.  He is married, has three children, and actively trains as a Fourth Degree Black Belt in Taekwondo.