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THE fortified chocolate milk Fifth Quarter Fresh helps 鈥渉igh school football players improve their cognitive and motor function鈥� even after experiencing concussion鈥�, said a University of Maryland press release in 2015.

The release referred to a poorly designed, unpublished study, the results of which most scientists would consider statistically insignificant. The study was initiated and part-funded by the makers of鈥� Fifth Quarter Fresh.

This is no isolated case of marketing disguised as nutrition science but one of the examples in Unsavory Truth, where best-selling author and academic Marion Nestle unpicks the ways food and drinks firms use researchers to manipulate science, influence policy and boost sales. She cites many examples, notably food giant Mars funding over 150 studies on the supposed health benefits of chocolate and its components.

Unsurprisingly, industry-backed nutrition studies are much more likely to produce results favourable to the backers. While such research can be done with independence and integrity, it usually isn鈥檛, says Nestle.

Using and abusing science is far from unique to 鈥渂ig food鈥�. It was a tobacco industry tactic to fight health concerns over its products, copied by the likes of big pharma.

Food company-funded studies, says Nestle, often highlight the non-existent health benefits of ingredients by failing to control for the other possible causes of the upside they are claiming. Such trials often lack randomisation or appropriate comparisons. They can give a positive spin to results showing no effect, and fail to publish negative results.

Away from research in industry, academics with financial ties to the sector often regard the idea that they favour their sponsors as an attack on their integrity. And yet, Nestle writes, psychologists have shown that there are 鈥渦nintentional, unconscious and unrecognised鈥� effects on scientists from gifts and funding.

鈥淣estle is on stronger ground when outlining the corporate capture of nutrition science鈥�

Industry-funded studies are published in leading nutrition journals. Nestle disagrees with the idea that simply giving conflicts of interests deals with them.

Big food also funds professional bodies, explains Nestle, including the American Society for Nutrition, which has taken industry-friendly positions on processed foods. The industry has links to the International Life Science Institute, which calls itself a but questioned limits on added sugar.

Nestle is on stronger ground when outlining the corporate capture of nutrition science than when she proposes solutions to it. These become a tussle between her optimist and pessimist selves. The best way to avoid conflicts of interest is to refuse corporate cash, she writes, however she recognises this is hard, as competition for public funds is fierce. She likes a colleague鈥檚 idea of a 鈥淛ournal for Industry-Funded Research鈥� for all corporate-backed studies, but won鈥檛 hold her breath.

Above all, Nestle wants research wrested out of corporate hands. Her ultimate solution is for it to be funded through a tax payable by all food and drinks companies. Again, she knows the prospect of this happening in the US is zero. You sense despair as she writes that other compromises may be worth trying 鈥渋f anyone鈥� can come up with a good one鈥�.

Yet Nestle pulls herself up off the canvas to issue a final call. Journalists must make it clear when research is industry funded. Or actually read the studies they cover. Consumers need to know health benefits are more likely to be linked to than caused by single foods. Voters must tell politicians that vendors of unhealthy foods and drinks make bad advisers. If we don鈥檛 demand healthier, more sustainable, ethical food, Nestle asks, who will?

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淓ating our way to hell鈥�