Q: Why did you write this book?
A: I have a dramatic story to tell and feel passionate about it. After all, more people get sick and die of diet-related health problems than terrorist bombs in this country, yet we ignore the former and invest in the latter. We need to do both. When I looked at survey data, it was apparent that the public was following the number of grain servings recommended in the new food pyramid (1992), and it was having a dire affect, as I had predicted it would: massive and widespread obesity, skyrocketing rates of Type 2 diabetes even among children. I kept seeing the pyramid foisted on the public as a nutrition solution when I knew better than anyone that it was the food industry's solution, not that of professional nutritionists worried about the public's health. I also saw the pervasive changes in commercial foods undermining the nutritional adequacy of diets, especially those of children, teens, young and elderly adults who were eating fewer fruits and vegetables and more synthetic ingredients and additives dangerous to health.

Q: There are a lot of other people the media could interview about nutrition and dieting. What can you share about the topic that the others can't?
A: There are many nutritionists who say we need to eat differently--better and more simply, eating more fresh, local and whole foods. They have the message, but they don't know why the old food messages (eat everything in moderation; all food is good food, no matter how altered in processing) keep swinging back around into the limelight, despite rejection by most nutritionists and public health authorities. The reason these old, discredited messages keep coming back to haunt us is because they are promoted by global, multi-national companies aiming to control global food and agriculture, and their biggest profits from foods made of sugar, fat and refined flour. Nutrition in their view is just a marketing tool All this and more I learned working at the USDA, lobbied continuously by the major food trade groups, my work subject to their edits and revisions. Remember, "Ketchup is a vegetable?" I was there. I tell the story in my book. Today, the government-lobbyist revolving doors are as robust in agriculture as in all the other agencies under the present administration. The agency that released the new food pyramid in 2005 was led by a former vice president of the Pork Producers Association. Do you think he might have a slight bias about what's good to eat?

Q: What opinion, belief, advice, or information do you have which is "counter-intuitive" for most people?
A: My counter-intuitive advice about dieting and healthy eating follows ten simple guidelines, based on solid research--research that's been buried or neglected by USDA because it doesn't support the food industry's marketing objectives, which are to keep major food groups from taking a nosedive in the stock market because consumers are not buying them based on nutrition advice not to eat them. There are 50,000 foods in the average big box supermarket. We can only eat 14 or 15 foods daily. We have to prioritize based on nutrition and avoid the foods we can least afford for good health and good weights. Marketers don't want to hear that.