Screaming into the void as I listen. It’s like they enter the maze and get half way to the end, and forget they were in a maze. The fact that min wage is still $7.50 and Americans are barely surviving and working two and three jobs with no health insurance…no time or money to buy or cook healthy foods, being at the other end of the maze is so infuriating. While they are touting their “natural supplements” making money off the ignorant is still capitalism. I have so many more screaming thoughts but great episode y’all! If there are grammatical errors, it’s simply because I’m clutching my phone so tightly my knuckles are white.
I was so glad to hear Naomi Klein included as her scholarship is essential reading. One of the aspects of MAHA that I haven't seen is the anger at fossil fuel companies, which, of course, gave Trump nearly 450m to influence the 2024 election. Fossil fuel companies actually DO lower our fertility through air pollution, microplastics, endocrine disrupting petrochemicals and the fertilizers and pesticides we use on our food. I lecture on the reproductive harms of fossil-fuel petrochemicals, both on fertility and on pregnancy. Last week as part of our group OBGYNs for Sustainable Future, I interviewed the nation's premiere expert on the intersection of petrochemicals and women's health, fertility and pregnancy. Here's a great intro video to her work at UCSF https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwjX9E_9zII, and my interview with her as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D3VvnzKqAk. She is also spearheading a new Center to End Corporate Harm https://prhe.ucsf.edu/center-end-corporate-harm. She and her colleagues are bringing *actual* science to the fight to end corporations from poisoning our lives and the lives of every living being on this finite planet.
Big picture, you all are spot on. In the weeds a bit about GMOs (from someone who previously worked in agricultural research), but there are only a handful of crops grown and/or sold in the US that are considered GMO (soy, cotton, corn, canola, and sugar beet are the big ones). There is no GMO wheat on the market in the US last time I checked for example! The same goes for many fruits and vegetables. They are bred but not through the same processes and are, therefore, not considered GMOs.
The GMOs we have disproportionately do not benefit the consumer directly (they aren't making the food better tasting or more nutritious); rather, they benefit the agrochemical companies and reduce the need for manual labor on farms. There is mass consolidation in the food/pharma industry. Bayer (maker of Asprin and many other over-the-counter and prescription medications as well as seeds and pesticides) bought Monsanto several years ago. This is disconcerting for so many reasons. As companies like this get bigger, they are pulling out of public research because they 'can do their own research (seen it first hand),' there is less accountability and transparency. Though that doesn't mean GMOs are inherently bad, I can understand people's fear and mistrust!
Thank you for this comment. While I completely agree that MAHA moms are largely focusing on the wrong thing (personal, individual health impacts), I was a little uncomfortable with the cavalier approach to GMOs and pesticides in this episode. Full disclosure, my family owns and operates a small organic vegetable farm. As the comment above states, GMOs are not as ubiquitous as was presented. And while the personal health impacts may not be significant (so far), the impact on the agricultural economy (which was mentioned briefly) is real. Farmers in the developing world in particular, are impacted when they cannot save their seeds which may have been cross-pollinated with GMO seeds. Similarly, while pesticides may be safe for individuals eating the fruits and vegetables, the health effects on the farm workers and the greater environment are devastating. These are some of the reasons we farm organically. I think this is in fact the point of the episode: that MAHA is focusing on personal health where the systemic/community issues are the bigger (real?) problem. But, I do think we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that, at least with respect to agriculture, some of these issues are real, when we consider “health” in a broad community/global/climate sense. (i.e., I wouldn’t want listeners to walk away thinking everything is just hunky dory when it comes to GMOs and pesticides)
Also, we produce more than enough food to feed the world - it’s a political/distribution problem. It is an open question whether we need GMOs to feed everyone.
And on a final note, as an organic farming family, I have been devastated to see my community co-opted by the MAHA movement.
Thanks for sharing this additional insight — I tried to make it clear in my description of pesticides vs. GMOs that they are different things; that pesticide use is being (and should be) monitored/addressed as an occupational hazard, but I can see why the way it was included within the broader dismissal of the idea that GMOs are hazardous to our health could’ve seemed like I was brushing off both. I think your point about the larger question of community health for the environment and our farmers is 100% valid.
Thanks so much for this comment and additional insight! The sources that I read (and linked in the post, if you wanted to check them out) said genetic modification was extremely prolific/that up to 90% of our food supply is genetically modified at this point, though not necessarily in a lab. (They used the examples of apples and bananas as food that has been genetically modified over hundreds of years to become what they are now.) From what I could tell, they were using “genetically modified” to describe all of these foods, lab-related or otherwise, so it’s totally possible my nomenclature in describing them was off.
Sorry, adding one clarifying piece here (because I am *not* an agriculture researcher) — that a majority of our food supply contains at least *some* ingredients that are genetically modified in some way. I don’t remember exactly what I said in the episode, but it’s definitely possible I overstated it — my big picture takeaway was that (a) genetically modified foods are incredibly common, (b) over time, it tends to make food more affordable, and (c) there is nothing inherently dangerous about consuming a food that has been genetically modified, so demonizing genetically modified foods misses the forest for the trees. All that said, the issues of private ownership/climate & environmental concerns/corporate consolidation and regulatory capture are all still completely legitimate pieces of this puzzle, so definitely don’t want to imply it’s all on the up & up
We've been genetically modifying plants since agriculture was created! The GMO label is especially confusing and misleading. That one cost study of GMO labeling you pulled showed organic milk that was labeled GMO cost more even though organic is inherently GMO free!
Plant breeding is a fascinating topic. Recommend the book The Wizard and the Prophet if anyone wants to read some of the history!
To piggyback on this helpful comment — I’d like to add an additional perspective for consideration re GMOs, which is that growing genetically modified commodity crops is detrimental to biodiversity in the sense that those plants typically have little to no ecological value for pollinating insects (or for herbivorous insects as well, I believe, though I could be wrong); that favoring GMOs in an agribusiness model contributes to the decline (with the potential for extinction) of diverse, adaptable, bioculturally valuable heirloom crops; and that habitat loss and ecosystem destruction are inevitable in a food system that favors monocultures.
Caro mentioned something about the potato famine — something along the lines of, GMOs would have been helpful then, but please note that the famine was caused by an over-reliance on a single crop in the wake of disrupted traditional foodways that were inherently more diverse.
Great episode though, which I will share widely, especially with people in my life who have drunk the seed oil kool-aid :X
Thanks so much for adding this insight — it totally tracks for me that there would be a legitimate reason to be skeptical and/or want to proceed with more caution w/r/t genetically modifying crops for ecological reasons, and that it would have absolutely nothing to do with the concerns the MAHA camp is raising lmao
Absolutely, even though a lot of them supposedly love "nature" but are totally okay with deregulation that will result in mass harm?!?!? MAKE IT MAKE SENSE
Came here to say this too, that there are a very limited number of actual GMO foods on the market. The messaging around them makes them sound ubiquitous and that every giant strawberry is a GMO but it's just flat out false. Was bummed to hear Katie say they're everywhere.
Also just going to add my personal bias that I'm in favor of GMOs generally and think there's much potential for good there, except that good will be overtaken by capitalism, as in the examples from others about seed saving and industry
I wanted to share something similar. There's a huge difference between GMO commodity crops (field corn, soybeans and sugar beets) and fruits and vegetables that we might find on our table. The promotion of non-GMO foods was rooted in so much more than just individual human health and avoiding pesticides, and the way it's been co-opted over the last 10 to 15 years, is disheartening.
Commodity crops, which are grown on the majority of the farmland in this country, are not edible in their raw form and HAVE TO be processed for humans to be able to eat them. I think it's like a third of the field corn grown in the U.S. is used for animal feed (even though most animals, especially cows, don't digest corn feed very well), a third is processed info food that humans can consume, and a third is exported. The majority of agricultural subsidies also go to supporting these commodity crops and without those subsidies, most grain farmers would not make a profit. Most, if not all, of the commodity GMO seeds are also modified in a way where farmers are not able to save their seeds from year to year and thus get trapped in the cycle of buying seeds, pesticides, and herbicides from one of the agribusiness conglomerates. And as one other commenter mentioned, these are patented so when the wind blows some seed from a GMO crop field to a non-GMO crop field, the non-GMO farmer can be sued! Fun fact, Cargill, one of the major multinational agribusiness conglomerates, is the largest privately held company in the U.S.
Farmers who grow actual fruits and vegetables get very little support from the government. The lack of subsidies is also probably why farmworkers are often migrants and continue to being paid very little and have few work protections!
I say all of this because, as it was noted in the episode, the MAHA focus is on the individual rather than on systems or corporate money in politics. Once you start looking a level or two up from the individual, the MAHA argument just falls apart. They have to keep buying into the individualism narrative to keep supporting the corporate-loving deregulating party!
The systemic side of the food system issues that MAHA conveniently ignores:
-The continual push for deregulation by corporations means that laws related to the environment, food safety, and agricultural and food production workers rarely get improved and are often weakened. For example, ever since the USDA certified organic standard was introduced in the 1990s, there's been a push to weaken it, so corporate food producers can capitalize on the price margin that the organic label creates without abandoning many of their large-scale practices.
-The food and agriculture sector have also gone through massive consolidation over the last three to four decades that's made our food system really fragile, something we saw in 2020 in the first several months of the pandemic.
-Free trade has also weakened our standards and ability to regulate foods because trade treaties and agreements supersede any local, state or national laws. A law requiring country-of-origin-labeling (COOL) for meat was passed in the 2002 Farm Bill, and it took 10+ years to implement because of the pushback and resistance from agribusiness. When the law finally went into effect in 2013, it was pretty quickly challenged by Canada and Mexico that it created unfair trade barriers (re: NAFTA) and in 2014, the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled that COOL violated global trade rules. You know who loves free trade and has pushed for more free trade agreements? Multinational corporations because agribusiness relies heavily on exporting grain, meat, and dairy since we overproduce it!
-As I already mentioned, the majority of agricultural subsidies go to grain farmers for growing commodity crops like corn and soybeans and to support crop insurance. Fruit and vegetable growers have few opportunities for subsidies. If there is an extreme weather event during the growing season, such as drought, flooding, hail, etc., non-commodity crop growers do not have the same kind of crop insurance or disaster relief as there is for corn and soybean grower counterparts.
-Speaking of extreme weather, our food system is fucked because of climate change. If those MAHA mamas really cared about our health, they would be speaking loudly about doing something about slowing the effects of climate change, climate adaptation for our food system, soil health, water preservation and pollinators. The California Central Valley, where over half of the domestically-raised fruits, vegetables, and nuts come from, is highly dependent on the Colorado River Basin, which has already been impacted by climate change, fights over water rights, and the fact that it's helping to support large populations in naturally dry areas. Now you have more massive dairies setting up operations in the Central Valley and dairy operations require a lot of water, meaning that the Colorado River is being strained even more. And this is the area of California that Devin Nunes represented, and Kevin McCarthy represents!
I guess Im not the science genius MAHA moms are because I’m still struggling to understand how eating well and getting enough sleep makes you automatically immune from airborne illnesses. You would think they would be the most pro-mask bunch out there if they were really dedicated to never being sick.
This would assume they believe in germ theory, but many do not. The Children’s Health Defense (RFK’s “charity”) website references horseshit “research” that talks about there being tons of evidence that germ theory is dead, even though they don’t provide any of that evidence
I think the tradwife fantasy of everyone having their own farm and living off their own land and what they created you guys talk about around the 2 hour mark really actually reflects the individualism/personal responsibility mind disease of the right (and the center left). These people desperately want to be proven superior to others because they can sustain their own life but the current global market and global food system and bare bones social programs give people who “havent earned it” a fighting chance. Science has helped us create a world where there really is enough to feed everyone and they haaaate that because then they have to like actually do something meaningful with their lives to feel special instead of feeling special because they’ve convinced themselves they earned the privilege to eat and have a home.
Katie, did you know that Monsanto (and other biotech firms with proprietary seeds) can sue farmers who did not plant their seeds but had the misfortune of being upwind of a farm that uses Monsanto seeds?
My husband was born in and grew up overseas and moved to the US at age 16. He’s made comments in passing over the years on how things like soda/Coke is extremely American and known in other parts of the world as a status symbol when you drink it. Apparently a lot of South Asians/Middle Easterners believe drinking soda makes you appear rich. Funny how certain Americans (lol) view it as “low class.”
Loved this episode and I appreciate how the two of you are able to articulate and vocalize how I feel; I’m just not as good with words and to hear the two of you riff just makes me feel so sane and validated. Thank you for your work. It’s so important.
Melissa, thank you so much for listening and sharing this — another perfect example of something i was feeling as i researched, particularly when i read about kids dying in Congo of undernutrition and immune system “amnesia” after getting the measles because they aren’t vaccinated: all of the conspiracy-minded thinking and complaining about things like food dyes is symptomatic of a privilege unknown to 95% of human beings
God, you’re just exactly right. We live in Fort Worth and the way being anti-vax is so goddamned TRENDY right now is gross and alarming. My husband nearly died of malaria while a child in Pakistan because they didn’t have access to vaccines. His parents picked him up and moved him to Saudi where vaccines were readily available (another story for another day - how MOST Americans don’t realize the difference between South Asians and Middle Easterners; they only see *brown skin*) - and this was just in the 1990’s, not in the 1930’s. They completely started their lives over to get their son vaccinated. And … living in the Middle East during the 90’s was … not fun politically.
As my grumpy father-in-law says often, “White Americans have everything and value nothing but money and power.”
Melissa, there was a line in The White Lotus this week that your father-in-law could have written.
I was screaming (in my head) about the anti-vax interview where they are saying we don’t have those diseases anymore so (basically) we don’t need to keep vaccinating to prevent them. They also said- we don’t have measles anymore. I did a checks notes and noticed the several measles outbreaks around the country. Completely maddening.
I’m also following a new person on Threads who used to be anti-vax and has now caught all her kids up. I feel like that’s a ray of hope until I listen to their panel (and realize that RFK Jr. is HHS Secretary 🫠) and am so frustrated that more people will roll down that hill before coming back to the schedule.
The "breast is best" to MAHA pipeline is strong for young white women as new moms. Also, it's the first time you think about vaccines and mom groups push an alternative vaccination schedule or no vaccines (bc autism obviously).
I think it starts even earlier than that. The amount of shame directed towards mothers who chose anything other than a home birth or AT LEAST natural childbirth was overwhelming. I felt so targeted by woo woo discourse that getting an epidural and adhering to the recommended vaccination schedule felt like a radical act. From the time you even start thinking about getting pregnant, there is a tidal wave of medical distrust that comes at you from (white) mom influencers.
It’s terrible! The way they shame moms. Febrile seizures? Did you give your baby Tylenol? Are they vaccinated? Well that’s your fault mom. You hurt your baby. Editing to say: these women will shame you for vaccinating your baby.
The wild thing about the GMO debate is if you know anything about genetic modification (I took 1 genetics class), then you know bioengineering food has predictable and controlled outcomes because only the relevant genes are modified. This is not the case through other methods of genetic modification (think your Punnet squares for hybridization).
Also, the jig was up when the Non-GMO Project sold their label to a salt company. Salt, NaCl aka Sodium Chloride, doesn’t have genes because ITS NOT A FUCKING ORGANISM.
I’m only halfway done, but I’m both filled with rage at how pervasive these myths are and so happy at how easily Katie debunked them. As a scientist-in-training, well done!
Can we have an entire special discussion of Doppelgänger? That book blew my mind but I don’t know anyone else who read it to discuss it with and now that we are besties … 👀
The story behind the 1994 Dietary and Supplement Health and Education Act? Would you be surprised to know that Orrin Hatch (R-UT and Mormon) led the way on getting this passed? Utah has a huge number of MLM, essential oil and supplement companies. Hatch paved the way for this epic combination of grift to go unregulated.
I thought Orrin Hatch would cinch the title of Utah senator who is basically a caricature of an evil self-interested politician but then Mike Lee was like “hold my non-beer” and really went full send.
I feel like Lee is so embarrassing but he's not smart enough to get much legislation passed. Hatch did so much. He was smart and calculating. Actually, Lee was the guy who introduced the fake electors plot to trump. Maybe he ties with Hatch for me.
This would be a fascinating deep dive. UT/ID is up their eyeballs in MLM and supplements. A supplement company sponsored my high school cross country team! 🫣
We just had a PD day in our district where the keynote speaker was a guy who had spent the previous 3 months on tour as the warm-up comedian for Tucker Carlson. He is the CEO of a supplement company which he advertised in the middle of his keynote address err, comedy routine. Most pointless PD day ever.
Wow, so a session of owning the libs for capitalism = PD?
My Mom is on an Utah school board and has been fighting an uphill battle against policies of pure spite towards anything that isn’t far right. She’s a Nikki Haley fan, so she isn’t even liberal, but at least she’s anti-maga.
Ufff. I clerked for the appellate courts in UT (Mike Lee’s brother was there, dude really loves a dictionary definition) and loved my time in SLC more than expected. I debated staying but the weird laws were quirky and kinda funny as a quasi-tourist but seemed exhausting and maddening as a forever thing. Glad my time pre-dated politics being so divisive because it was such a lovely group and happy memories but I doubt it’s the same now.
Jumping in here to add Jessica Knurick PhD and RDN who focuses on moms and baby feeding but has expanded to more generalized nutrition education thanks to MAHA (love when she calls out “grocery store walkers” who are always trying to fear monger about baby formula and lack basic scientific knowledge that sugar is a key ingredient in breast milk and babies who can’t have lactose need a sugar substitute). She now has a substack.
And yes to Dr. Andrea Love! Her substack is ImmunoLogic and so good!
She’s one of the best! Also love Dr. Andrea Love for food science + infectious disease info, Dr. Rubin and Laughter in Light(LiL) for infectious diseases
The absolute glee of seeing that this is 3 hours 🤩🤩
Same!! Honestly, I wish every episode was this long! 😂😻
My brain is screaming *in Parker posey white lotus southern accent* — GOV-ERN-MENT SUB-SID-IZED KE-TO DI-ET, PIP-ER!!! NOOO!
Laughed out loud and will be repeating this on a loop for the rest of the day, ty
HHAHAHHAAHHAHA
Screaming into the void as I listen. It’s like they enter the maze and get half way to the end, and forget they were in a maze. The fact that min wage is still $7.50 and Americans are barely surviving and working two and three jobs with no health insurance…no time or money to buy or cook healthy foods, being at the other end of the maze is so infuriating. While they are touting their “natural supplements” making money off the ignorant is still capitalism. I have so many more screaming thoughts but great episode y’all! If there are grammatical errors, it’s simply because I’m clutching my phone so tightly my knuckles are white.
So happy you’re enjoying it enough to rage-comment in the middle of it, truly. I felt like i was losing my mind while researching this one
High five for keeping your sanity. Truly.
I was so glad to hear Naomi Klein included as her scholarship is essential reading. One of the aspects of MAHA that I haven't seen is the anger at fossil fuel companies, which, of course, gave Trump nearly 450m to influence the 2024 election. Fossil fuel companies actually DO lower our fertility through air pollution, microplastics, endocrine disrupting petrochemicals and the fertilizers and pesticides we use on our food. I lecture on the reproductive harms of fossil-fuel petrochemicals, both on fertility and on pregnancy. Last week as part of our group OBGYNs for Sustainable Future, I interviewed the nation's premiere expert on the intersection of petrochemicals and women's health, fertility and pregnancy. Here's a great intro video to her work at UCSF https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwjX9E_9zII, and my interview with her as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D3VvnzKqAk. She is also spearheading a new Center to End Corporate Harm https://prhe.ucsf.edu/center-end-corporate-harm. She and her colleagues are bringing *actual* science to the fight to end corporations from poisoning our lives and the lives of every living being on this finite planet.
acknowledging the role of fossil fuel companies would require them to confront climate science, though, and that's definitely not on the agenda LOL
Big picture, you all are spot on. In the weeds a bit about GMOs (from someone who previously worked in agricultural research), but there are only a handful of crops grown and/or sold in the US that are considered GMO (soy, cotton, corn, canola, and sugar beet are the big ones). There is no GMO wheat on the market in the US last time I checked for example! The same goes for many fruits and vegetables. They are bred but not through the same processes and are, therefore, not considered GMOs.
The GMOs we have disproportionately do not benefit the consumer directly (they aren't making the food better tasting or more nutritious); rather, they benefit the agrochemical companies and reduce the need for manual labor on farms. There is mass consolidation in the food/pharma industry. Bayer (maker of Asprin and many other over-the-counter and prescription medications as well as seeds and pesticides) bought Monsanto several years ago. This is disconcerting for so many reasons. As companies like this get bigger, they are pulling out of public research because they 'can do their own research (seen it first hand),' there is less accountability and transparency. Though that doesn't mean GMOs are inherently bad, I can understand people's fear and mistrust!
Thank you for this comment. While I completely agree that MAHA moms are largely focusing on the wrong thing (personal, individual health impacts), I was a little uncomfortable with the cavalier approach to GMOs and pesticides in this episode. Full disclosure, my family owns and operates a small organic vegetable farm. As the comment above states, GMOs are not as ubiquitous as was presented. And while the personal health impacts may not be significant (so far), the impact on the agricultural economy (which was mentioned briefly) is real. Farmers in the developing world in particular, are impacted when they cannot save their seeds which may have been cross-pollinated with GMO seeds. Similarly, while pesticides may be safe for individuals eating the fruits and vegetables, the health effects on the farm workers and the greater environment are devastating. These are some of the reasons we farm organically. I think this is in fact the point of the episode: that MAHA is focusing on personal health where the systemic/community issues are the bigger (real?) problem. But, I do think we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that, at least with respect to agriculture, some of these issues are real, when we consider “health” in a broad community/global/climate sense. (i.e., I wouldn’t want listeners to walk away thinking everything is just hunky dory when it comes to GMOs and pesticides)
Also, we produce more than enough food to feed the world - it’s a political/distribution problem. It is an open question whether we need GMOs to feed everyone.
And on a final note, as an organic farming family, I have been devastated to see my community co-opted by the MAHA movement.
Thanks for sharing this additional insight — I tried to make it clear in my description of pesticides vs. GMOs that they are different things; that pesticide use is being (and should be) monitored/addressed as an occupational hazard, but I can see why the way it was included within the broader dismissal of the idea that GMOs are hazardous to our health could’ve seemed like I was brushing off both. I think your point about the larger question of community health for the environment and our farmers is 100% valid.
THIS 1000%!
Thanks so much for this comment and additional insight! The sources that I read (and linked in the post, if you wanted to check them out) said genetic modification was extremely prolific/that up to 90% of our food supply is genetically modified at this point, though not necessarily in a lab. (They used the examples of apples and bananas as food that has been genetically modified over hundreds of years to become what they are now.) From what I could tell, they were using “genetically modified” to describe all of these foods, lab-related or otherwise, so it’s totally possible my nomenclature in describing them was off.
Sorry, adding one clarifying piece here (because I am *not* an agriculture researcher) — that a majority of our food supply contains at least *some* ingredients that are genetically modified in some way. I don’t remember exactly what I said in the episode, but it’s definitely possible I overstated it — my big picture takeaway was that (a) genetically modified foods are incredibly common, (b) over time, it tends to make food more affordable, and (c) there is nothing inherently dangerous about consuming a food that has been genetically modified, so demonizing genetically modified foods misses the forest for the trees. All that said, the issues of private ownership/climate & environmental concerns/corporate consolidation and regulatory capture are all still completely legitimate pieces of this puzzle, so definitely don’t want to imply it’s all on the up & up
We've been genetically modifying plants since agriculture was created! The GMO label is especially confusing and misleading. That one cost study of GMO labeling you pulled showed organic milk that was labeled GMO cost more even though organic is inherently GMO free!
Plant breeding is a fascinating topic. Recommend the book The Wizard and the Prophet if anyone wants to read some of the history!
thanks so much for adding your insight & expertise here! Really appreciate you filling in these gaps
To piggyback on this helpful comment — I’d like to add an additional perspective for consideration re GMOs, which is that growing genetically modified commodity crops is detrimental to biodiversity in the sense that those plants typically have little to no ecological value for pollinating insects (or for herbivorous insects as well, I believe, though I could be wrong); that favoring GMOs in an agribusiness model contributes to the decline (with the potential for extinction) of diverse, adaptable, bioculturally valuable heirloom crops; and that habitat loss and ecosystem destruction are inevitable in a food system that favors monocultures.
Caro mentioned something about the potato famine — something along the lines of, GMOs would have been helpful then, but please note that the famine was caused by an over-reliance on a single crop in the wake of disrupted traditional foodways that were inherently more diverse.
Great episode though, which I will share widely, especially with people in my life who have drunk the seed oil kool-aid :X
Thanks so much for adding this insight — it totally tracks for me that there would be a legitimate reason to be skeptical and/or want to proceed with more caution w/r/t genetically modifying crops for ecological reasons, and that it would have absolutely nothing to do with the concerns the MAHA camp is raising lmao
Absolutely, even though a lot of them supposedly love "nature" but are totally okay with deregulation that will result in mass harm?!?!? MAKE IT MAKE SENSE
Came here to say this too, that there are a very limited number of actual GMO foods on the market. The messaging around them makes them sound ubiquitous and that every giant strawberry is a GMO but it's just flat out false. Was bummed to hear Katie say they're everywhere.
Also just going to add my personal bias that I'm in favor of GMOs generally and think there's much potential for good there, except that good will be overtaken by capitalism, as in the examples from others about seed saving and industry
I really appreciate this insight, as I do think it becomes a bit too easy to brush off people’s safety concerns in these broader conversations.
I wanted to share something similar. There's a huge difference between GMO commodity crops (field corn, soybeans and sugar beets) and fruits and vegetables that we might find on our table. The promotion of non-GMO foods was rooted in so much more than just individual human health and avoiding pesticides, and the way it's been co-opted over the last 10 to 15 years, is disheartening.
Commodity crops, which are grown on the majority of the farmland in this country, are not edible in their raw form and HAVE TO be processed for humans to be able to eat them. I think it's like a third of the field corn grown in the U.S. is used for animal feed (even though most animals, especially cows, don't digest corn feed very well), a third is processed info food that humans can consume, and a third is exported. The majority of agricultural subsidies also go to supporting these commodity crops and without those subsidies, most grain farmers would not make a profit. Most, if not all, of the commodity GMO seeds are also modified in a way where farmers are not able to save their seeds from year to year and thus get trapped in the cycle of buying seeds, pesticides, and herbicides from one of the agribusiness conglomerates. And as one other commenter mentioned, these are patented so when the wind blows some seed from a GMO crop field to a non-GMO crop field, the non-GMO farmer can be sued! Fun fact, Cargill, one of the major multinational agribusiness conglomerates, is the largest privately held company in the U.S.
Farmers who grow actual fruits and vegetables get very little support from the government. The lack of subsidies is also probably why farmworkers are often migrants and continue to being paid very little and have few work protections!
I say all of this because, as it was noted in the episode, the MAHA focus is on the individual rather than on systems or corporate money in politics. Once you start looking a level or two up from the individual, the MAHA argument just falls apart. They have to keep buying into the individualism narrative to keep supporting the corporate-loving deregulating party!
The systemic side of the food system issues that MAHA conveniently ignores:
-The continual push for deregulation by corporations means that laws related to the environment, food safety, and agricultural and food production workers rarely get improved and are often weakened. For example, ever since the USDA certified organic standard was introduced in the 1990s, there's been a push to weaken it, so corporate food producers can capitalize on the price margin that the organic label creates without abandoning many of their large-scale practices.
-The food and agriculture sector have also gone through massive consolidation over the last three to four decades that's made our food system really fragile, something we saw in 2020 in the first several months of the pandemic.
-Free trade has also weakened our standards and ability to regulate foods because trade treaties and agreements supersede any local, state or national laws. A law requiring country-of-origin-labeling (COOL) for meat was passed in the 2002 Farm Bill, and it took 10+ years to implement because of the pushback and resistance from agribusiness. When the law finally went into effect in 2013, it was pretty quickly challenged by Canada and Mexico that it created unfair trade barriers (re: NAFTA) and in 2014, the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled that COOL violated global trade rules. You know who loves free trade and has pushed for more free trade agreements? Multinational corporations because agribusiness relies heavily on exporting grain, meat, and dairy since we overproduce it!
-As I already mentioned, the majority of agricultural subsidies go to grain farmers for growing commodity crops like corn and soybeans and to support crop insurance. Fruit and vegetable growers have few opportunities for subsidies. If there is an extreme weather event during the growing season, such as drought, flooding, hail, etc., non-commodity crop growers do not have the same kind of crop insurance or disaster relief as there is for corn and soybean grower counterparts.
-Speaking of extreme weather, our food system is fucked because of climate change. If those MAHA mamas really cared about our health, they would be speaking loudly about doing something about slowing the effects of climate change, climate adaptation for our food system, soil health, water preservation and pollinators. The California Central Valley, where over half of the domestically-raised fruits, vegetables, and nuts come from, is highly dependent on the Colorado River Basin, which has already been impacted by climate change, fights over water rights, and the fact that it's helping to support large populations in naturally dry areas. Now you have more massive dairies setting up operations in the Central Valley and dairy operations require a lot of water, meaning that the Colorado River is being strained even more. And this is the area of California that Devin Nunes represented, and Kevin McCarthy represents!
The water situation in California is CRAZY. Gotta reccomend another book, The Dreamt Land, which is all about the history of it!
I guess Im not the science genius MAHA moms are because I’m still struggling to understand how eating well and getting enough sleep makes you automatically immune from airborne illnesses. You would think they would be the most pro-mask bunch out there if they were really dedicated to never being sick.
This would assume they believe in germ theory, but many do not. The Children’s Health Defense (RFK’s “charity”) website references horseshit “research” that talks about there being tons of evidence that germ theory is dead, even though they don’t provide any of that evidence
Also thinking about the book “Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women White Feminists Forgot” which discusses food equity issues very well
i thought about that book a lot while i was writing this outline. a great rec
I think the tradwife fantasy of everyone having their own farm and living off their own land and what they created you guys talk about around the 2 hour mark really actually reflects the individualism/personal responsibility mind disease of the right (and the center left). These people desperately want to be proven superior to others because they can sustain their own life but the current global market and global food system and bare bones social programs give people who “havent earned it” a fighting chance. Science has helped us create a world where there really is enough to feed everyone and they haaaate that because then they have to like actually do something meaningful with their lives to feel special instead of feeling special because they’ve convinced themselves they earned the privilege to eat and have a home.
Katie, did you know that Monsanto (and other biotech firms with proprietary seeds) can sue farmers who did not plant their seeds but had the misfortune of being upwind of a farm that uses Monsanto seeds?
good! i love it here!
My husband was born in and grew up overseas and moved to the US at age 16. He’s made comments in passing over the years on how things like soda/Coke is extremely American and known in other parts of the world as a status symbol when you drink it. Apparently a lot of South Asians/Middle Easterners believe drinking soda makes you appear rich. Funny how certain Americans (lol) view it as “low class.”
Loved this episode and I appreciate how the two of you are able to articulate and vocalize how I feel; I’m just not as good with words and to hear the two of you riff just makes me feel so sane and validated. Thank you for your work. It’s so important.
Melissa, thank you so much for listening and sharing this — another perfect example of something i was feeling as i researched, particularly when i read about kids dying in Congo of undernutrition and immune system “amnesia” after getting the measles because they aren’t vaccinated: all of the conspiracy-minded thinking and complaining about things like food dyes is symptomatic of a privilege unknown to 95% of human beings
God, you’re just exactly right. We live in Fort Worth and the way being anti-vax is so goddamned TRENDY right now is gross and alarming. My husband nearly died of malaria while a child in Pakistan because they didn’t have access to vaccines. His parents picked him up and moved him to Saudi where vaccines were readily available (another story for another day - how MOST Americans don’t realize the difference between South Asians and Middle Easterners; they only see *brown skin*) - and this was just in the 1990’s, not in the 1930’s. They completely started their lives over to get their son vaccinated. And … living in the Middle East during the 90’s was … not fun politically.
As my grumpy father-in-law says often, “White Americans have everything and value nothing but money and power.”
Melissa, there was a line in The White Lotus this week that your father-in-law could have written.
I was screaming (in my head) about the anti-vax interview where they are saying we don’t have those diseases anymore so (basically) we don’t need to keep vaccinating to prevent them. They also said- we don’t have measles anymore. I did a checks notes and noticed the several measles outbreaks around the country. Completely maddening.
I’m also following a new person on Threads who used to be anti-vax and has now caught all her kids up. I feel like that’s a ray of hope until I listen to their panel (and realize that RFK Jr. is HHS Secretary 🫠) and am so frustrated that more people will roll down that hill before coming back to the schedule.
Excellent insight
The "breast is best" to MAHA pipeline is strong for young white women as new moms. Also, it's the first time you think about vaccines and mom groups push an alternative vaccination schedule or no vaccines (bc autism obviously).
I think it starts even earlier than that. The amount of shame directed towards mothers who chose anything other than a home birth or AT LEAST natural childbirth was overwhelming. I felt so targeted by woo woo discourse that getting an epidural and adhering to the recommended vaccination schedule felt like a radical act. From the time you even start thinking about getting pregnant, there is a tidal wave of medical distrust that comes at you from (white) mom influencers.
It’s terrible! The way they shame moms. Febrile seizures? Did you give your baby Tylenol? Are they vaccinated? Well that’s your fault mom. You hurt your baby. Editing to say: these women will shame you for vaccinating your baby.
The wild thing about the GMO debate is if you know anything about genetic modification (I took 1 genetics class), then you know bioengineering food has predictable and controlled outcomes because only the relevant genes are modified. This is not the case through other methods of genetic modification (think your Punnet squares for hybridization).
Also, the jig was up when the Non-GMO Project sold their label to a salt company. Salt, NaCl aka Sodium Chloride, doesn’t have genes because ITS NOT A FUCKING ORGANISM.
I’m only halfway done, but I’m both filled with rage at how pervasive these myths are and so happy at how easily Katie debunked them. As a scientist-in-training, well done!
Haha thank you so much — I am very obviously not a scientist so I was doing my best to make sense of all the reports, etc. Glad to hear you approve!
Can we have an entire special discussion of Doppelgänger? That book blew my mind but I don’t know anyone else who read it to discuss it with and now that we are besties … 👀
HAHA we should try to get Naomi to join us for a live!
omg dream come true!!
The story behind the 1994 Dietary and Supplement Health and Education Act? Would you be surprised to know that Orrin Hatch (R-UT and Mormon) led the way on getting this passed? Utah has a huge number of MLM, essential oil and supplement companies. Hatch paved the way for this epic combination of grift to go unregulated.
apparently utah is the supplement capital of the country. who knew! (everyone)
I thought Orrin Hatch would cinch the title of Utah senator who is basically a caricature of an evil self-interested politician but then Mike Lee was like “hold my non-beer” and really went full send.
I feel like Lee is so embarrassing but he's not smart enough to get much legislation passed. Hatch did so much. He was smart and calculating. Actually, Lee was the guy who introduced the fake electors plot to trump. Maybe he ties with Hatch for me.
This would be a fascinating deep dive. UT/ID is up their eyeballs in MLM and supplements. A supplement company sponsored my high school cross country team! 🫣
We just had a PD day in our district where the keynote speaker was a guy who had spent the previous 3 months on tour as the warm-up comedian for Tucker Carlson. He is the CEO of a supplement company which he advertised in the middle of his keynote address err, comedy routine. Most pointless PD day ever.
Wow, so a session of owning the libs for capitalism = PD?
My Mom is on an Utah school board and has been fighting an uphill battle against policies of pure spite towards anything that isn’t far right. She’s a Nikki Haley fan, so she isn’t even liberal, but at least she’s anti-maga.
Ufff. I clerked for the appellate courts in UT (Mike Lee’s brother was there, dude really loves a dictionary definition) and loved my time in SLC more than expected. I debated staying but the weird laws were quirky and kinda funny as a quasi-tourist but seemed exhausting and maddening as a forever thing. Glad my time pre-dated politics being so divisive because it was such a lovely group and happy memories but I doubt it’s the same now.
Props to your mom for fighting that good fight.
I love this account for debunking all of the “health influencer” claims
https://www.instagram.com/foodsciencebabe?igsh=MTJzNDJ0NHRiOWQ2NA==
these debunking accounts are putting the entire country on their backs right now
Jumping in here to add Jessica Knurick PhD and RDN who focuses on moms and baby feeding but has expanded to more generalized nutrition education thanks to MAHA (love when she calls out “grocery store walkers” who are always trying to fear monger about baby formula and lack basic scientific knowledge that sugar is a key ingredient in breast milk and babies who can’t have lactose need a sugar substitute). She now has a substack.
And yes to Dr. Andrea Love! Her substack is ImmunoLogic and so good!
She’s one of the best! Also love Dr. Andrea Love for food science + infectious disease info, Dr. Rubin and Laughter in Light(LiL) for infectious diseases
THREE HOURS god bless you both. I am so excited.