This Food Thinker’s webinar will focus on the political stakes of food industry campaigns that treat public concerns about processed food as rooted in misinformation. It will illustrate how industry uses scientific authority to counter public worries and undermines policy action. Drawing upon the content of her recently published book ‘Real Food, Real Facts: Processed Food and the Politics of Knowledge’, Professor Charlotte Biltekoff will explore the assumptions behind industry-led communication campaigns and highlight how attempts to educate the public with scientific facts have resulted in an anti-political discourse. Consequently, the deeper societal issues surrounding food and health are overlooked and left unaddressed.

The talk will be followed by an online Q&A session.

Charlotte Biltekoff is Professor of American Studies and Food Science & Technology and Darrell Corti Endowed Professor in Food, Wine and Culture at the University of California, Davis, where she builds bridges between scientific and cultural approaches to questions about food and health. Her expertise centres on understanding where ideas about “good” and “bad” food come from and the social and cultural role they play. She is author of Real Food, Real Facts: Processed Food and the Politics of Knowledge (2024) and Eating Right in America: The Cultural Politics of Food and Health (2014). She was recently a Co-PI on the UC AFTeR Project, a multidisciplinary research project examining the Bay Area Agri-Food Tech sector.  Her research is interdisciplinary, and she frequently collaborates and communicates across disciplinary differences.  Learn more at www.charlottebiltekoff.com