Angry chef: Mad scientist, Cooking Every Day

Anthony Warner wants you to stop feeling guilty about what you put into your mouth

Anthony Warner, a professional chef and author behind the Angry Chef, is unapologetically pissed-off over half-baked theories about food and diet. But he is staunchly on the side of people like you and me, who are just trying to figure out what to have for dinner.

In a recent video interview, I talked with Warner about his work, and how he navigates the troubled sea between expressing outrage at pseudoscientific nonsense and sympathy for readers confused by the flood of contradictory information about food and diet. When asked how he feels about the furious character he created, he said:

“For anyone who knows me they think it’s rather funny that I developed this character of the Angry Chef because I’m not an angry, shouty sort of person.”

I would have to agree. In conversation, Warner’s expression is intense and quizzical, but certainly not irate. He speaks in rapid bursts, pausing to collect his thoughts, and then plunging on. Despite the slightly manic intensity, he comes across as your favorite prof – the one who challenged the class to think while making you laugh at their nerdy jokes.

Warner believes that food should be a source of joy, and that making and sharing it is central to our social and emotional well-being. He also a scientist – by training and temperament – who believes that science is crucial to our ability to solve big problems, like obesity and sustainability, and that it can help us make better decisions about what to eat and how to feed our families.

Instead of feeling guilty, he wants to help people think critically about simplistic food and diet claims. Sugar is toxic. Processed foods cause obesity. Local and organic foods are better for the planet. To break down the science and call out “nutritional woo,” he created a fact-finding super-hero, the Angry Chef. In the blog and books, Warner explores these questions and dozens more. The answers he provides aren’t simple, but he never talks down to his audience and always reminds us that food and hunger are causes that should unite and not divide us. As he says in his most recent book, Ending Hunger,

“Providing every person with enough food to live is the most important role of a civilized society… If people are hungry, there can be no science, music, art, poetry or progress.”

I first encountered the Angry Chef in 2016. I was flicking through a list of new food websites, expecting to be bored. Instead, I was riveted – and laughing out loud. Warner’s expletive-spewing alter-ego was a grotesque stick figure in checks and a toque waving a wooden spoon. Instead of the earnest and oh-so personal tone of voice common to most food blogs, there were a trio of characters: the exasperated, ranting Angry Chef himself; Captain Science, the voice of reason and expertise; and the plaintive voice of Warner’s inner everyman who interjected straight-man questions, along with requests for fewer statistics and another cup of tea.

The Angry Chef was Warner’s response to what he saw as the explosion of bogus food and nutrition advice being peddled by online health gurus and celebrities. He wanted to debunk the idea that either eating or excluding certain foods can have miraculous effects on health or the environment. The kind of thinking behind diets like DASH (don’t eat fat) and paleo (eat nothing but fat), and the exaggerated claims about the health benefits of “superfoods” like kale and goji berries.

Warner says that the idea that certain foods can have direct “impacts on health is almost entirely not true, except for people with allergies. You can write on the back of an envelope what we know [about diet] that’s useful. The rest of it is speculation. “

He uses his larger-than-life online persona “to get people to pay attention to the more serious, more complex, more nuanced science.” He says, “You need to [help people] find it more interesting, more entertaining. And I think the character of the Angry Chef did that.”

By taking aim at health gurus who he felt were spreading misinformation, including Gwyneth Paltrow and her mega health and lifestyle brand, Goop, the blog drew attention and created controversy. The controversy gave Warner a platform. His ideas were reported in major UK newspapers, and he began writing a column for the New Scientist. This gave him experience researching and writing about the food issues he thought people should understand – and that were rife with false or contradictory information.

Based on this success, he has written three books in rapid succession. The first, The Angry Chef (2017), focuses more narrowly on fad diets and misinformation about food and health. The second, The Truth About Fat (2019) addresses obesity, arguing that there is no evidence that restrictive diets work, and that our misperceptions about the causes of obesity create shame and miss important contributors like poverty and stress. In his most recent book, Ending Hunger (2021), he takes the reader through complex questions around how to improve the sustainability of food production, without letting millions starve, or depriving farmers of their livelihoods and ways of life.

Over the course of these books, Warner’s tone has changed – some might say matured. Starting out as a potty-mouthed critic of online crazes, he has become a serious campaigner for science and science education.

“I’m not just interested in science because it applies to food. I’m interested in science because it’s humanity’s greatest achievement.”

Taking education about food and nutrition seriously is important, Warner believes, because it’s a place where science touches people’s daily lives. He points out that some of the same people who have spread misinformation about food have also promoted misinformation about COVID-19, like those claiming that a low-carb diet and vigorous exercise are better protection against the disease than vaccines. “If you let this stuff get through [and say] – it’s just diet, its just food. It’s not. It’s really important that we help people navigate the world, understand what’s true and what’s not.”

At the same time, Warner displays a real sense of empathy for human foibles. He is angry for us, not at us. Along with facts and figures, his books and blog take time out to explain how our love of simple stories can lead us to jump to conclusions about what foods are good for us or good for the planet. His mission as the Angry Chef is to help us understand these errors, not because he thinks people are foolish and misguided, but because he thinks that charlatans take advantage of our desire for appealing stories to trick or mislead us. “People would rather hear that gluten is the devil instead of a more nuanced, true message.” So, he says, if you can teach people critical thinking “they won’t buy these messages. By explaining about pseudoscience you can get through that there are better ways of eating than they’re being told.”

Above all, Warner sympathizes with everyday people struggling to provide healthy, responsible, and tasty meals for themselves and their families. At the end of his new book, he reminds us that whatever we eat tonight, the meal should be a source of pleasure and community, not guilt. Misinformation about food, he says, makes people lose “their sense of pleasure and happiness around food. That upsets me. It takes away what food is about. Making us more socially connected.” If I can help people remember that “it’s the best thing my writing can do.”