KDD Ultra-Processed-Food Re-engineering (Kuwaiti Danish Dairy Company)

Dr. Robert Lustig spent roughly three years with a five-person scientific advisory team taking the Kuwaiti Danish Dairy Company (KDD) — which Lustig calls “the Nestlé of the Middle East” — “down to the studs,” evaluating every ingredient, product, and manufacturing process against three precepts he calls the “Metabolic Matrix”: protect the liver, feed the gut, support the brain (published in Frontiers in Nutrition, March 2023). Any food satisfying all three, he says, counts as healthy regardless of its processing level.

Per Lustig’s account in a March 2026 interview: KDD re-engineered 18 of its 180 products (flavored milks, yogurts, ice cream) to be “metabolically healthy,” the reformulations were tested in clinical trials at the Dasman Diabetes Institute in Kuwait, and the products were put on the market with no loss in sales — Lustig says the public was not told about the reformulation. As of the 2026 interview, he said he was still working with KDD. The project is his flagship proof-of-concept for harm-reduction reformulation — changing the food rather than only asking people to avoid it.

Timeline

• March 2023: Lustig publishes the “Metabolic Matrix” framework — protect the liver, feed the gut, support the brain — in Frontiers in Nutrition.
• ~2023–2026: Lustig and a five-person scientific advisory team evaluate KDD’s ingredients, products, and processes against the Matrix.
• By early 2026: Per Lustig’s account, KDD has re-engineered 18 of its 180 products (flavored milks, yogurts, ice cream), tested them in clinical trials at the Dasman Diabetes Institute in Kuwait, and brought them to market with no loss in sales; Lustig says the reformulation was not disclosed to the public.
• March 2026: Lustig says he is still working with KDD.