What You're Eating (FoodPrint.org)

Maybe you’re concerned about climate change. Maybe you’re worried about how most livestock is raised in inhumane conditions. Or possibly you’re looking to make a change to your diet to be healthier. Whatever your reasons for eating less meat, whatever anyone’s reasons, it’s adding up to significant growth in what is now pretty universally being called “plant-based eating” — an umbrella term that includes everything from veganism to vegetarianism to flexitarianism to simply trying to eat a little less meat, dairy and eggs. But saying no to animal products and eating a diet rich in plants are not new ideas.

In this episode we speak with writer Alicia Kennedy about her new book, "No Meat Required: The Cultural History and Culinary Future of Plant-Based Eating" to learn more about how our vegetarian and vegan past can illuminate how we think about our plant-based future.

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Have you ever seen the word “natural” on a pack of hot dogs and wondered what it means? You’re not the only one. The words “natural” or “all natural” on food packaging have been vexing customers and regulators for years.

In this episode we look at those words, claims, seals and certifications that show up on your food packaging. What do they tell us and is what they tell us real? Who are those labels for: companies or consumers? In particular we were curious about the labels that seem to say a lot — like “natural” — but don’t actually have much rigor. We talk to a few experts, check out some food labels ourselves and try to sniff out the good labels from the bad.

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Fake meat companies promise that they are on track to replace factory farmed meat.  Is there any indication that this is happening? Or are they just a new revenue stream for tech investors and the biggest and most problematic meat companies — Purdue, Tyson, JBS — who are all now making alternative meats? We also cover how these products taste and what else we could be eating instead of an ultra-processed “fast food” product.

This is the second episode of a two-part look at fake meat. 

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There was a time when bacon was a “sometimes” food, occasionally paired with eggs at breakfast or in a summer sandwich with the season’s freshest tomatoes. But then, suddenly, bacon was everywhere, from fast food burgers to ice cream to scented candles. And while the peak might have passed, bacon has settled comfortably onto menus and into our home kitchens for much more than breakfast. 

In this episode we look at where bacon mania came from, and dig a little deeper into this beloved food and the industry behind it. We look at the realities of industrial pork production and how the world’s obsession with pork — bacon on everything! — contributes to the environmental degradation and hollowing out of rural communities in pork producing powerhouse states like Iowa, Missouri and North Carolina.

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For the conscious consumer, buying local products is a way to shorten that distance between us and what we eat or drink, and maybe even learn more about how it was produced by talking to the people who made it. But what about something like coffee, which doesn’t grow anywhere near those of us living in the continental United States? Do you know where your coffee comes from? And if you do know what country it comes from, maybe from the bag or canister you bought your beans in, do you know how it was grown? Or who grew it? Or how it transforms from a berry on a branch to the brown roasted “beans” you grind for your cup of Joe?

This episode features Dakota Graff, Director of Coffee at Onyx Coffee Lab; Bartholomew Jones, founder of CxffeeBlack; and Anna Canning, a coffee industry veteran who walks us through the many labels you might find on your bag of coffee.

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Annie’s, a subsidiary of General Mills, announced in 2020 that it was “going beyond organic” and “leading the packaged food industry toward regenerative agriculture” with pictures on the box of the farmers who had produced the ingredients with “regenerative” methods.

In this episode, we bring together two of our frequent guests on this podcast, Dr. Urvashi Rangan, and Patty Lovera, to help explain regenerative agriculture, its connection to climate, and why a boxed Mac and Cheese brand is committing itself to a set of agricultural practices, and wanting to tell its customers all about it. We also get into whether or not we can trust “green” commitments from big food companies and explore what we can look for, as consumers, to know whether a company’s claims can be backed up.

For our episode, The Big Problem of Food Waste  we interviewed Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino who co-founded mak-‘amham, an East Bay organization and restaurant focused on reviving and strengthening traditional Indigenous Ohlone foods and sharing them back with their communities, as well as educating the public about Ohlone culture through cuisine. The restaurant was originally housed in the courtyard of Berkeley’s University Press bookstore that shuttered a few months into the Coronavirus  pandemic. Now, two years later, Café Ohlone will be reopening on the UC Berkeley campus.

We were only able to share a small portion of our interview with Vincent and Louis for our food waste episode, but the full interview was so interesting and they were so engaging that we decided to run it in its entirety now, for our final episode of season one.

Cafe Ohlone will open in June, 2022 at UC Berkeley's Hearst Museum. "A portal of light and shadows, singing trees, a dry creek running along redwoods, a shellmound rising in a fragrant garden of abundance...  learn more about what Vincent and Louis are calling 'A love song to Ohlone culture'  at their website makamham.com

What You’re Eating is produced by me, Jerusha Klemperer,  Nathan Dalton and FoodPrint.org, which is a project of the GRACE Communications Foundation. Special thanks to Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino.  You can find us at www.FoodPrint.org where we have this podcast as well as articles, reports, a Food Label Guide and more. 

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Thanks so much for joining us for season one and if you like the podcast, please leave us a review on Apple, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

When refrigerators became commonplace in our kitchens, they changed the way we shopped, cooked and ate. But home refrigerators are just “the tip of the iceberg,” as they say — the last step in a long, cold, technologically impressive supply chain of refrigerated warehouses, trucks, trains, boats and planes that brings our produce, milk, meat and more from fields, factories and slaughterhouses to our supermarkets and homes. In this episode we talk about this cold chain with Nicola Twilley, host of the Gastropod podcast and author of the book Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves.

What You’re Eating is produced by Nathan Dalton and FoodPrint.org, which is a project of the GRACE Communications Foundation. You can find us at www.FoodPrint.org where we have this podcast as well as articles, reports, a Food Label Guide and more.

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For the longest time milk meant cow’s milk — usually whole but maybe skim or 1% depending on how old you are. But today, walk into some independent chains and if you don’t specify what kind of milk you want in your latte, you’ll get oat milk. You know, the stuff that mama oats feed their baby oats.  Or, at a Starbucks, or a neighborhood cafe, you might ask for a coffee with milk and have the barista say “what kind of milk?” And depending where you are, that list of possible answers could include almond, oat, pistachio, macadamia, soy…the list goes on and on. 

In today’s episode we explore the foodprints of the various options you have to make your coffee a little creamier. What are the production issues with each? What do you gain or lose by choosing one over the other? We talk to experts about dairy farming, almond farming, oat production and more— as well as coffee professionals who are shaping the landscape change in real time— all to help you get to the bottom of your coffee cup.

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For well over a century, the hot dog has been the quintessential dirt cheap, flavorful, all-American meal — a kind of meaty blank slate on which to slather your regional preferences, like slaw, chili, relish or onions. But can a person who cares about what they're eating and the impact their food has on the environment — and animals, and meatpacking workers — eat a hot dog in good conscience? How about four or five hot dogs…every day? In this episode, we speak to writer Jamie Loftus who did just that, all to tell us the story — good, bad and ugly — of this handheld feast. 

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The US wastes roughly 40% of the food it produces, much of it perfectly edible and nutritious. Food is lost or wasted for a variety of reasons, from the farm, to the store, to the restaurant, to our very own home kitchens, where each household is throwing away around 21% of the food it buys. 

In this episode we explain why food waste is a problem, touch on how some grocery stores, restaurants and food companies are working to fix the problem, and dig into some of the cultural reasons why our society treats food as disposable. Finally, we hit on how you can make changes in how you shop, cook and eat that will make a meaningful difference environmentally and economically.

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We’re back, this fall, with all new episodes to help you understand how your food gets to your plate, and see the full impact of the food system on animals, planet and people. We’ll continue to uncover problems with the industrial food system, and offer examples of more sustainable practices, as well as practical advice for how you can help create a better world, through the food that you buy and the system changes you push for.

Have you been wondering why people are drinking oat milk instead of cow’s milk?
Or curious how you’re supposed to choose which eggs to buy when there are so many to choose from?
Or frustrated by the amount of plastic packaging your food comes in?
Or wondering what labels to look for to know which food is best for the environment?

From practical conversations with farmers and chefs to discussions with policy experts on the barriers to a just and sustainable food system, What You're Eating covers everything from the why to the how.

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and follow along every other week for new episodes, and more answers to the questions you have about what you’re eating.

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Right now you can buy “plant-based” alternatives to burgers, bacon, and sausage anywhere from fast food chains to restaurants to grocery meat cases. The companies who make them say they are better for animals, the climate, and human health, too — that these products will drastically cut into meat consumption, curtail meat production and save us from the catastrophic effects of climate change. Are these products any different from the vegan products that preceded them? Are they actually good for us? And are they the best solution to our industrial agriculture problems?

We also examine what it means to compare these products with their industrial meat counterparts instead of comparing them to more sustainably produced meat, or to truly plant-based protein sources, like beans. 

This is part one of a two-part look at fake meat.

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The good food movement, when it has talked about fast food, has focused on what’s wrong with the industrialized system that produces the burgers and buns and fries, or sometimes the food’s negative health impacts. Occasionally, criticisms have noted the deep ties between McDonald’s and the Black community, sometimes blaming communities of color for making bad food choices, sometimes blaming the fast food industry for being predatory with its advertising or store locations.

But the relationship between fast food and Black America is way more complicated. As Dr. Marcia Chatelain explains in her Pulitzer Prize winning book, “Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America,” fast food restaurants have represented a business opportunity for Black franchisees, an employment opportunity for community residents, and a dining opportunity for Blacks who were excluded elsewhere. In today’s episode we talk with Dr. Chatelain about the history of that multifaceted relationship.

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Depending on who you are, your connection to salmon may be spiritual, cultural or just a matter of taste. If you live in the Pacific Northwest, you might be familiar with and appreciate wild salmon, but for the rest of us, our love of salmon avocado rolls reflects a love of farmed salmon. Because yes, most of what you’re eating is farmed, whether you realize it or not.

Today on What You’re Eating, we look at America's favorite fin fish, salmon, and dig a little deeper into where it comes from, what’s farmed, what’s wild, and why some people want you to care about that distinction at all. We get into the details of fish farming — of salmon, and other fish, too — and how it replicates some of the problems we see in land-based factory farms for animals like chicken and pigs. We also ask the experts where we can buy wild salmon, any labels to seek out, how to make it more affordable, and how best to cook it.

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Why does the oyster — amorphous, slimy, hidden in a shell that’s craggier and stranger than that of a scallop or a clam — capture so many food-lovers’ hearts? What exactly is an oyster? Why are most of the oysters we eat farmed? And why, unlike other farmed seafood, are they considered such a benefit to their environment? In this episode, we head to the farm — the oyster farm — and talk to various experts to understand more about this beloved and very sustainable bivalve.

This episode features Rowan Jacobsen, author of A Geography of Oysters: The Connoisseur's Guide to Oyster Eating in North America and The Essential Oyster: A Salty Appreciation of Taste and Temptation, Dr. Christopher Gobler, professor at Stony Brook University's School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, plus a visit to Hog Island Oyster Co. in Marshall, California. 

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If becoming a vegan ever sounded to you like a joy-less task — like you’d have to give up too much, that you’d miss meat too much, that you’d have to transform into an entirely different person — Matt Halteman has some advice. 

As he writes in his book, Hungry Beautiful Animals: The Joyful Case for Going Vegan:

"The destination of this journey is an inviting, empowering, and inclusive understanding of everyday vegan living that abandons the demoralizing goal of arriving once and for all at a perfected individual identity in favor of inspired but practical striving toward a global aspiration—to do what one enthusiastically can, within one's limits and always imperfectly—to live toward a truer, more beautiful, better vegan world. Instead of framing our individual efforts to go vegan unrealistically, in terms of the achievement of a one size fits all state of being, a so called cruelty free identity, we'll envision going vegan as a liberating journey of becoming that unfolds uniquely for every person based on what their individual and communal situations inspire and enable them to contribute."

What You’re Eating is produced by Nathan Dalton and FoodPrint.org, which is a project of the GRACE Communications Foundation. You can find us at www.FoodPrint.org where we have this podcast as well as articles, reports, a Food Label Guide and more.

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After the death of her grandfather, writer Brea Baker went looking to understand him and, through him, her lineage. In rebuilding and reckoning with her family tree, she pieced together a personal story that reflected the greater history of Black America. In this episode we talk to her about her book, Rooted: The American Legacy of Land Theft and the Modern Movement for Black Land Ownership, in which she clearly maps out the United States’ progression from slavery to Emancipation and Black land acquisition — followed almost immediately by a pattern of violent land theft and devastating loss. She makes plain this country’s racist history, ultimately connecting the dots to today’s persisting racial wealth gap.

What You’re Eating is produced by Nathan Dalton and FoodPrint.org, which is a project of the GRACE Communications Foundation. You can find us at www.FoodPrint.org where we have this podcast as well as articles, reports, a Food Label Guide and more.

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Single-use food packaging is one of our thorniest problems. We need a safe and convenient way to get food home from the store, and we need easy ways to eat and drink on the go. How can we do that in a way that does not create so much waste? How can we do it in a way that does not put our bodies at risk from the harmful chemicals and additives used in so much of that packaging?

In this episode we look at food packaging, with a focus on plastic, since there’s so much of it, and it’s the one with the most problems. We dig deep into plastic production and its connection to climate change. We talk to experts about how food packaging is problematic not just for the environment, but also for our health. Is there a solution? Is there a future that could exist that was not dominated — and polluted — by plastic?

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Americans love shrimp. And one of the exciting developments of the past 20 years or so is that shrimp has gotten really affordable. It used to be a luxury food in the form of shrimp cocktails served at a steakhouse or a fancy wedding. Something for special occasions, slightly out of reach.

Today, shrimp is the number one most popular seafood in America, and as the price point has come way down, it’s become a staple, not just of affordable restaurant chains offering all you can eat, but also in our homes. Every supermarket offers giant frozen bags of it, with the heads and shells already removed if you want, sometimes uncooked, sometimes already boiled or breaded and fried. And it’s sometimes as little as $6 per pound. In today’s episode we talk to experts to find out how and when shrimp became so cheap. And why.

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What do you know about a class of chemicals called PFAS? You can’t see them, and you can’t smell them, but they’re there, providing water-resistance and grease-proof protection to burger wrappers and pizza boxes. But PFAS are used for lots more than transporting takeout. They’re used by manufacturers in items ranging from raincoats to contact lenses to toilet paper.  And the chemicals don’t just stay in these products. When we dispose of them, they end up in our soils and waterways. And the fact that they don’t break down has earned them the name “forever chemicals.” In this episode we head to Maine to learn more about PFAS and how they have ended up in well water, on farms, in food, and ultimately in people’s bodies.

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The American bumblebee was once the most common bee species in the United States. Its numbers have declined by 90 percent in the last two decades. The problem is bigger than just the loss of an iconic species. Three-fourths of the food crops humans grow depend on pollinators – bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and more. Industrial monocultures sap the soil. Rampant chemical use poisons our water and our bodies. Reckless stewardship of the land wastes our precious resources. Buzzkill asks why we raise food this way – and how we can change things for the better.

Americans stepped up to do something about dying bees. But what if all those backyard colonies are making the problem worse? 

In Buzzkill’s premiere episode, host Teresa Cotsilos takes an in-depth look at whether raising domesticated bees, especially in cities, is harming the wild species we need to preserve biodiversity.

Buzzkill is a six-part series from the Food & Environment Reporting Network, hosted by FERN staff writer and producer Teresa Cotsilos. Listen to more episodes at thefern.org.

We love our pets — a lot. And there’s a booming business — around $136.8 billion worth of pet food, treats and more reflecting that deep love and connection. Of course, as our pets become more central to our families, we become more and more interested in feeding them well. Gone are the days when kibble and cans were the only foods on offer: Caring and concerned owners can now choose between a dizzying array of options, ranging from the familiar kibble and cans to monthly deliveries of human-grade prepared food and even home-cooked meals made from fresh ingredients. But is there any difference between any of these foods? Are the expensive ones worth it? And if you’re one of those people who thinks about your own food quite a bit, but hasn’t really thought about your pet’s food that much, should you bother trying to change?

This episode features Marion Nestle, professor emerita of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York university, Susan Thixton, a pet food consumer advocate and founder of truthaboutpetfood.com, Daisy Freund, vice president of farm animal welfare at the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), Jacqueline Prehogan, Chief Brand Officer and co-founder of Open Farm Pet Food, Matt Halteman, professor of philosophy at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan and author of Hungry Beautiful Animals: The Joyful Case for Going Vegan and Alicia Kennedy, a food and culture writer and author of No Meat Required: The Cultural History and Culinary Future of Plant-Based Eating.

What You’re Eating is produced by Nathan Dalton and FoodPrint.org, which is a project of the GRACE Communications Foundation. You can find us at www.FoodPrint.org where we have this podcast as well as articles, reports, a Food Label Guide and more.

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There are a lot of ways to raise animals for consumption — and while some would argue we shouldn’t be eating animals at all, others advocate rooting out the cruelest practices, the ones that cause the most suffering. But how do you measure cruelty? Do some animals deserve to suffer less than others because they’re especially cute or smart? And does your right to enjoy a fancy or delicious meal trump the right of an animal to not experience extreme cruelty? In this episode, we look at three controversial foods — veal, foie gras and octopus — and the campaigns launched by animal rights activists to stop their production and consumption. These foods and the animals they come from have a lot to teach us about the ethics of animal agriculture — and possibly about ourselves.

This episode features Daisy Freund, Vice President of Farm Animal Welfare at ASPCA; Cheryl Leahy, Executive Director of Animal Outlook; and Dr. Elena Lara, Senior Research and Public Affairs Advisor at Compassion in World Farming.

What You’re Eating is produced by Nathan Dalton and FoodPrint.org, which is a project of the GRACE Communications Foundation. You can find us at www.FoodPrint.org where we have this podcast as well as articles, reports, a Food Label Guide and more.

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So many home cooking food hacks start with a cheap rotisserie chicken — you know the one, $4.99 from Costco or maybe a touch more somewhere else. But why is that chicken so cheap? How was it raised and what’s even in it? What would it look like for farms to raise a chicken you could feel good about and how much would it cost? What would it taste like? Where can you find one of these chickens now? And why is it so hard to find them?

In this episode we talk to everyone from food policy experts to food label certifiers to farmers and chefs to dig into the economics, agriculture and taste of chicken.

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We can see the causes and effects of biodiversity loss all around us: only one variety of banana or pineapple for sale in every grocery store. Or the miles and miles or corn and soy you pass as you drive the roads of Iowa, Minnesota and  Illinois. Or the windshield effect: that there are far fewer dead insects on our windshields as we drive those country roads. Biodiversity refers to the awesome array of life on earth: everything from microbes to insects to plants to animals to entire ecosystems. We are right now in what’s being called “a biodiversity crisis”, in terms of the number of species we are losing and the increasing pace at which that loss is happening. The primary driver of species loss is our global agriculture system: in other words, the way we grow our food. And as we lose those varieties and breeds of animals and plants, we don’t just lose their genetics, we lose their unique tastes and flavors, too.

This episode features Preeti Simran Sethi, author of Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love; Ricardo Salvador, Director of the Food and Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists; Rowen White, a seed keeper, farmer, and founding member of the Indigenous Seed Keepers Network, a project of the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance; Ryan Nebeker, Research and Policy Analyst with FoodPrint; and Urvashi Rangan, Chief Scientist for FoodPrint.

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Vanilla and Chocolate — the two most beloved flavors in the world — have been linked since the beginning. Both products, the vanilla bean and the cacao pod, originated in Mexico, thousands of years ago, where Aztecs used vanilla to make the bitter cocoa powder in their sacred chocolate drink more palatable. Today these two flavors, in both natural and artificial form, dominate our dessert options, from ice cream scoops to the sweet snacks in grocery aisles. But both have complicated stories: long and hidden supply chains, an extraction of wealth from communities in the Global South, and all of the environmental and social problems that come from a system that leaves smallholder farmers in poverty. How can we reconcile our love of these essential flavors with their often problematic production? Can we hold large companies accountable?  And is it possible to produce vanilla and chocolate in a different and better way?

This episode features Jennifer Boggiss of Heilala Vanilla, Tim McCollum of Beyond Good, and Allie Brudney from Corporate Accountability Lab. 

What You’re Eating is produced by Nathan Dalton and FoodPrint.org, which is a project of the GRACE Communications Foundation. You can find us at www.FoodPrint.org where we have this podcast as well as articles, reports, a Food Label Guide and more.

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The proliferation of big box stores and giant supermarket chains has changed the face of grocery shopping, taking the place of many locally owned, independent stores and sending profits out to corporate headquarters. Recently, those stores have even started to offer a wide variety of natural and organic foods, threatening the unique contributions of natural food stores and co-op grocers. So, what happens to those places? If you can find organic milk and bulk granola at Kroger, what does the co-op offer that the big box and chain stores cannot? In today’s episode we look at two models of consumer cooperatives, options for buying your food that rely on a less extractive model, where profit stays in the community: co-op grocers and community supported agriculture.

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In the past decade, demand for eggs has grown, but the kind of eggs we are looking for has changed during that time, too. Consumers are eager to know if the chickens had enough space to move around. Were they cage-free? Free-range? Pasture-raised? Organic? In response to those questions about where those eggs come from and how those hens lived out their lives, egg cartons and the labels and claims on them are working overtime to tell us a story. On today’s episode we look at the many labels on your carton of eggs and dig into what they mean and what they definitely don’t mean.

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Suddenly, it feels like pistachios are everywhere. From Dubai chocolate to pistachio lattes, croissants, nut butters and more … For two years now, pistachio has appeared on several lists of upcoming food trends. How do these food and flavor trends start? How does a product — once mostly eaten by Middle Eastern Americans but stuck on the sidelines with everyone else — hit the mainstream? Do we plant more pistachios because they’ve become hugely popular? Or have they become hugely popular because we’re suddenly growing so many? On this episode, we hunt for the origins of a trend and try to tease out the implications of a food going viral.

This episode features Lena Derisavifard, founder of BiBi Baker in Brooklyn; Tom Philpott, senior research associate at the Center for a Livable Future at Johns Hopkins University and former food and agriculture correspondent for Mother Jones; and Errol Schweizer publisher and founder of the Checkout Grocery Update.

What You’re Eating is produced by Nathan Dalton and FoodPrint.org, which is a project of the GRACE Communications Foundation. You can find us at www.FoodPrint.org where we have this podcast as well as articles, reports, a Food Label Guide and more.

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And if you’re enjoying the podcast, consider leaving us a positive review.