Pollan Accuses Food Industry of Deliberately Destroying Evidence Like Tobacco Companies

What was said

"The documents are being destroyed now. Whereas their mistake in cigarettes was all these documents existed and were subpoenaed, and we saw that they were lying when they said, 'No, cigarettes are not addictive and don't cause cancer.' I think that's gonna be a lot harder to find with food."

Michael Pollan alleges food companies learned from tobacco industry mistakes and are actively destroying internal documents that would prove intentional manipulation of consumers. He notes many are the same companies that diversified from tobacco in the 1970s-80s, suggesting institutional knowledge transfer of deceptive practices. This claim directly parallels Big Food to Big Tobacco.