Dr. Christopher Gardner is a nutrition scientist focused on what foods to eat and what foods to avoid for optimal health, as well as the forces that can successfully motivate people to improve their food and beverage behaviors. His recent research interests include: “stealth nutrition,” which focuses on shifting diets through the integration of non-health related approaches, like the connection between food and climate change; institutional food; and the microbiome.
Christopher Gardner: “I would say the biggest thing for me is humility. I am a nutrition scientist. I understand the mechanism. You should eat that. [But] there is the business aspect, the marketing aspect, the legal aspect, the policy aspect, the cultural aspect, the historical aspect, the storytelling aspect… The humility to recognize how many other disciplines and factors are tugging at people's tongues and hearts and brains, has really been the greatest learning experience for me.”
00:00 Intro to Dr. Gardner
01:03 How nutrition research becomes a Netflix documentary
04:22 Using humor to inspire retention
06:09 The road from philosophy to nutrition science
07:20 The dissonance with access to nutrition information
09:21 Food & Society: External motivators and behavior change
14:51 Why institutions have a powerful role in food systems transformation
16:55 The "instead of what" and "with what" approach to behavior change
21:26 The complex nature of food choice
25:50 How “stealth nutrition” influences choice
29:34 Embracing humility and creative storytelling in science communication
32:18 Takeaways for changemakers
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*The views expressed by the guests in this podcast don't necessarily represent the host’s views, nor those of his employer.
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