Experts Weigh in On Classifying Food as ‘Healthy’ or ‘Unhealthy’: New at Reason

Is orange juice healthy? Unhealthy? What about butter, steak, hamburgers, turkey, bacon, beer, wine, soda, wheat bread, white bread, peanut butter, and coconut oil?

Earlier this week, the New York Times‘s Upshot blog released the results of a survey of consumers and nutritionists that asked about their respective perceptions of whether dozens of foods are healthy or unhealthy. Those perceptions often differ markedly. And it’s not clear whose opinions, if anyone’s, is “right”—or even if there’s such thing as a right answer.

Fascinated by the study—at a time when more and more government bodies seek to write rules based on what foods they believe are or are not objectively “healthy”—Baylen Linniken asked a diverse handful of experts from various food-related fields to respond to four questions about the quality of the survey, any surprises they saw in the responses of those surveyed, and the overall lessons they feel the survey conveys.

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