This week on Straight, No Chaser, Katy Keiffer is joined in the studio by guest co-host Dr. Marion Nestle! Dr. Nestle is Paulette Goddard Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, which she chaired from 1988-2003. She is also Professor of Sociology at NYU and Visiting Professor of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell. Katy and Dr. Nestle are talking sugar with Cristin Couzens, a senior consultant at the University of Colorado Center for Health Administration and an instructor at the University of Washington School of Dentistry. Hear about Cristin's experiences digging up the dirt of the sugar industry! Find out how the sugar business has attempted to hide the facts and abscond responsibility from the increase of Type 2 diabetes. How do sponsored studies alter scientific progress? Tune in to hear Dr. Nestle talk about some poorly-controlled scientific studies involving pomegranates, and learn just how many studies are influenced by outside corporate money. This program has been sponsored by S. Wallace Edwards & Sons.

"I'm all for suggesting that people cut down on the sources of sugars in their diet, especially through soft drinks because soft drinks have no redeeming nutritional value at all... The body is not equipped to handle that amount of sugar." [32:15] -- Dr. Marion Nestle on Straight, No Chaser

Mara Trachtenberg, a fine art photographer, constructed a series of fantastical 4×5 photos images for “A Decadent World” with sugar as her sculptural medium. Feeding off an early fascination with food, from her Nana’s eastern-European Jewish kitchen (blintzes, latkes, kasha and kugel), to her father’s garden, Mara’s documented slaughterhouses to explore the connection between animal and human, life and death, and in the same vein, been rapt with Food Network’s Ace of Cakes, the plasticity of sugar, and our societal relationship between the culture of food and the nature of food.

Erica highlights the benefits of caramelizing sugar, and talks about why she loves Easter candy so much.