I've always thought that the campaign against "ultra-processed" foods was mindless. What the heck does that even mean: the more things you do to food, the less healthy it is? New RCTs and analyses confirm that the stigma is meaningless (it's calories, fiber, & other causes, not "ultraprocessing") and even harmful: it encourages RFKj's MAHA quackery. I suspect that food researchers are subject to class bias: food that poor people like and can afford must be unhealthy. vox.com/future-perfect/49404…

Breaking: Folarin Balogun will be available to play in USA's Round of 16 match against Belgium on Monday, FIFA announced. The FIFA Disciplinary Committee has suspended the red card issued to the USA striker during their Round of 32 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina.

From @TheAthleticFC: Folarin Balogun will be available to play the USMNT’s round of 16 match against Belgium with his one-game red-card ban suspended. Multiple FIFA officials previously said that a team cannot appeal a red card or suspension. nyti.ms/44KXAvR

New ep: AMERICAN HISTORY MEGAPOD I asked three of my favorite historians to draft 1. the most overrated American ever 2. the under-heralded event that changed American history 3. the most underrated POTUS 4. the person or event that most students haven't heard of but should Guests: Stanford's Richard White, Yale's Beverly Gate, and UT-Austin's HW Brands Answers include: Andrew Carnegie; Richard Nixon and Chester A. Arthur; the Declaratory Act of 1766 and World War I; Tecumseh and Ona Judge youtube.com/watch?v=e0uxhmoL…

Today's article is an absurdly deep dive into what life was like in America 100 years ago, in 1926, on America's 150th Some favorite factoids about life in 1926: - Farming is collapsing: Agriculture’s employment share fell from 50% in 1870 to <25% in 1926. The price of cotton & corn fell 50% after WWI. percent. - Manufacturing productivity growth is insane: In 1910, it took ~15 hours to put together a Model T; by 1926, a new car rolls off an assembly line every 10 seconds. A vehicle that cost the avg worker two years’ wages before World War I cost 3 months’ earnings in 1926 - Americans are obsessed, obsessed, obsessed with cars: 1920s Kansas had more vehicles than France - The influence of flappers on fashion is quantifiable: The amount of fabric in the avg dress fell from 20 yards in 1910 to 7 yards in 1926 - Prohibition killed a lot of people: 12k people died in 1927 from drinking industrial alcohol that the feds had poisoned on purpose to discourage consumption—adjusted for population, that'd be the mortality equivalent of 36k people dying in 2026, which is roughly the number of car deaths - Sports were very different: No TV means no commercial breaks, and players were in a rush. In one doubleheader against the New York Yankees on September 26, 1926, the St. Louis Browns won 6–1 in 72 minutes and then won 6–2 in 55 minutes with a one-hour break in between - 1926 might have been the high-water mark for literacy in US history: The number of books published annually had doubled since the 1910s; magazine advertising revenues grew by 500% - All this change was driving ppl crazy: In Germany, where medical records were better, the number of patients registered in mental hospitals grew from 40,375 in 1870 to 220,881 in 1910. Over the same period, the share of patients admitted to general hospitals for illnesses of the nervous system rose from 44 to 60%. derekthompson.org/p/america-…

Today's article is an absurdly deep dive into what life was like in America 100 years ago, in 1926, on America's 150th Some favorite factoids about life in 1926: - Farming is collapsing: Agriculture’s employment share fell from 50% in 1870 to <25% in 1926. The price of cotton & corn fell 50% after WWI. percent. - Manufacturing productivity growth is insane: In 1910, it took ~15 hours to put together a Model T; by 1926, a new car rolls off an assembly line every 10 seconds. A vehicle that cost the avg worker two years’ wages before World War I cost 3 months’ earnings in 1926 - Americans are obsessed, obsessed, obsessed with cars: 1920s Kansas had more vehicles than France - The influence of flappers on fashion is quantifiable: The amount of fabric in the avg dress fell from 20 yards in 1910 to 7 yards in 1926 - Prohibition killed a lot of people: 12k people died in 1927 from drinking industrial alcohol that the feds had poisoned on purpose to discourage consumption—adjusted for population, that'd be the mortality equivalent of 36k people dying in 2026, which is roughly the number of car deaths - Sports were very different: No TV means no commercial breaks, and players were in a rush. In one doubleheader against the New York Yankees on September 26, 1926, the St. Louis Browns won 6–1 in 72 minutes and then won 6–2 in 55 minutes with a one-hour break in between - 1926 might have been the high-water mark for literacy in US history: The number of books published annually had doubled since the 1910s; magazine advertising revenues grew by 500% - All this change was driving ppl crazy: In Germany, where medical records were better, the number of patients registered in mental hospitals grew from 40,375 in 1870 to 220,881 in 1910. Over the same period, the share of patients admitted to general hospitals for illnesses of the nervous system rose from 44 to 60%. derekthompson.org/p/america-…

From today's piece on what life was like 100 years ago: Radio was an internet before the internet. For almost every anxiety we have about smartphones and online life today, social scientists rehearsed those fears in the 1920s cc @TheStalwart