Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, September 8, 1971, a consumer activist by the name of Esther Peterson, reached

out to the giant supermarket chain and kicked off the first ever nutrition label initiative.

Peterson persuaded the supermarket to put information on labels that it's pretty common now

you'll recognize this, for instance, disclose what seafood had been previously frozen or compare calories and

proteins and add sell-by dates to perishable products but a lot of this was not

done at the time. Eventually these labels would be everywhere would come to be regulated and

required but also as I think we all know continue to be very confusing and

maybe even intentionally misleading at times so this is our chance to talk about

the roots of the nutrition label and how it fits into larger questions of food and health policy.

Here as always, Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there.

Hello Jody. Hey there. And our special guest for this episode is

Zach Follick, Associate Professor of History of Technology at Auburn University,

and author of the forthcoming book from label to

table regulating food in America in the information age.

Zach, thank you for joining us.

Congratulations on the forthcoming book.

It's all done, right?

Yes, it's done.

Yes.

Ready to go.

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