Announcing "Food Intelligence"!

My first book, with scientist Kevin Hall, is out September 23

Dear friends,

I’m thrilled to announce that the book I co-authored with Kevin Hall is coming out September 23! It’s called Food Intelligence. We’ve been working on this project for years, so it’s great that we’ll be able to finally share it soon. For now, I’ll also share a bit about how the book came to be, and one of its key insights.

The backstory

As many of you know, I’ve been reporting on nutrition and obesity science for over a decade. Through that work, I got to know Kevin, a brilliant physicist (and lovely person) who stumbled into becoming one of the most important figures in nutrition science, thanks to his rigorous human studies testing popular claims of 21st century food and diet culture.

Kevin and I would often talk about fundamental questions related to nutrition: What is metabolism, anyway? What really controls eating behavior? How do different diets affect us? One day, many moons ago, we talked about a book we wished existed. No fads, no weight loss hacks, no fear-mongering — just the science of how food works in the body, how researchers figured it out, and what we still don’t know.

We thought such a book might equip people with the tools to better spot bunk when bunk was being presented to them.

But even more so, we felt the actual science of nutrition and metabolism was both under-appreciated and really cool.

I asked Kevin if he’d like to team up to write that book, and I’m grateful that he was up for the challenge. Co-writing was so fun and enriching (I’ll post on our process in the coming weeks). It was also filled with twists. The senior leadership at Kevin's former employer, the National Institutes of Health, did not want him to do the book. I had a couple of kids and moved countries twice in the process. But we persisted, and finally finished earlier this year. Food Intelligence is a comprehensive exploration of the elements of food, and how what we eat can both nourish and harm us. You can find more details and pre-order links here.

One key insight

This book takes readers on a journey through the history of science that unlocked what we know about nutrition, up to the present. You’ll learn about how protein was discovered, how carbs and fats fuel the body, and why vitamins are so critical to health. You’ll learn about the cutting-edge neuroscience of eating, the search for the “nutritional dark matter,” and what we know about the best diets for health. You’ll meet the scientists and patients whose contributions advanced our knowledge about food and metabolism. Along the way, we trace Kevin’s journey as he searches for the truth about what drives eating behavior, and my quest to answer a personal question: why do some of us wind up with diet-related diseases like obesity and diabetes while others remain unscathed?

Both Kevin and I arrive at the same conclusion: it’s the food environment. (By food environment, we mean not just the food that’s available and accessible in your home, office, school or neighborhood, but also the social, cultural, and economic forces that shape what you eat and what you can afford to eat.) Though we did not set out to write an argument book, or make a case for anything in particular, Food Intelligence culminates in what I think is the most powerful explanation of how environments interact with our biology to shape our bodies and what we eat. They are ultimately behind the rising rates of diet-related chronic diseases and only in fixing them can we reverse the devastating surges in diet-related diseases that we’ve seen in so many countries around the world.

This insight has clear implications not only for how we live our lives and think about ourselves — and the latest diet hack — but also for how we do everything from design obesity policies, to organize grocery stores, and cities. Of course, all of this is fully unpacked in the book, which I hope you’ll be able to read.

Best,

Julia

Ps. As usual, you can contact me here, or through my Twitter @juliaoftoronto, or Bluesky profiles.