Speaker 1: When the pandemic first hit and we realized it was
Speaker 1: spreading like wildfire and everybody was starting to get stay
Speaker 1: at home orders. I was telling folks, Listen, things might
Speaker 1: get hot of hand. You probably need to stock up
Speaker 1: on groceries because I think everybody's gonna lose it and
Speaker 1: everybody's gonna hit the grocery store and buy up everything.
Speaker 2: So, yes, prepare yourself.
Speaker 1: That's what I told my parents, my friends, my sisters,
Speaker 1: everybody same.
Speaker 3: Same. If you listened to LAB twenty three, we kind
Speaker 3: of knew some things were in the pipeline, yes, and
Speaker 3: so I think based on that, I really tried to say, Okay,
Speaker 3: what do I need from the grocery store, But bruh,
Speaker 3: the grocery store basically turned into supermarket suite.
Speaker 1: Yes, people were buying everything toilet paper, paper, towels. I
Speaker 1: didn't see that for months and months and months. So
Speaker 1: I felt lucky that we had stocked up before everything
Speaker 1: started getting crazy. But then there was also just food missing. Yes,
Speaker 1: there was no flower, there was no chicken. I remember
Speaker 1: you being very upset about bacon. Bacon is very important
Speaker 1: to me. I just want to be clear about that.
Speaker 1: And when I got to the grocery store, there was none,
Speaker 1: and I almost had a full blown meltdown in the
Speaker 1: grocery store. I was like, excuse me, sir, is there
Speaker 1: any more on the bot and it was like, no,
Speaker 1: there isn't any more in the back.
Speaker 2: We're in a pandemic.
Speaker 3: Girl.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, right, try to try to, try to, try,
Speaker 2: try to.
Speaker 3: It's really crazy because depending on where you lived, different
Speaker 3: people were saying different things were missing, and it was
Speaker 3: almost like overnight, something that you love could become a
Speaker 3: high value item in this supermarket suite. Everybody's going forward,
Speaker 3: They're all put it in their carts, and by the
Speaker 3: time you get there, it is no more.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: So we reached out to y'all because we wanted to
Speaker 1: hear from you and know what your experience was being
Speaker 1: in the grocery store during the pandemic and what items
Speaker 1: you noticed that were gone.
Speaker 5: So I've been going to grocery stores trying to find
Speaker 5: ginger beer and I've found so many stores in Durham,
Speaker 5: and for some odd reason, ginger beer be off the
Speaker 5: shelf as well as flower and fish fries.
Speaker 6: They's a pepperoni shortage period, but I try to use
Speaker 6: turkey pepperoni, and that's not available. Chickpea flour hasn't really
Speaker 6: been there for a while. At Trader Joe's, they didn't
Speaker 6: have nutritional yeats.
Speaker 7: I'm Latino and kind of my go to. I met
Speaker 7: Keffadilla with the side of beans, and I went to
Speaker 7: my grocery store and there were literally like no beans
Speaker 7: other than red kidney beans, and they were like absolutely
Speaker 7: no corn or flower dorothias.
Speaker 5: It's really interesting to me that if I go to
Speaker 5: what I perceived to be a more affluent neighborhood, there
Speaker 5: is always cleaning supplies.
Speaker 1: It kind of blew my mind some of the things
Speaker 1: I didn't notice that where they were gone.
Speaker 3: Y'all were eating a lot of beans. Somebody said, canned beans,
Speaker 3: frozen beans. I don't even think I buy frozen beans.
Speaker 3: Somebody else said, what are you doing with all the lagoons?
Speaker 3: There were no lentils. Did you at least have a
Speaker 3: good recipe.
Speaker 1: I won't struggle in this because I don't eat none
Speaker 1: of that. But y'all also said that y'all were missing
Speaker 1: chicken red meat.
Speaker 3: That's where you're gonna get, my friends.
Speaker 2: Even the imitation meat was going off the shelves.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So some of the people that listen to the show
Speaker 1: are vegan or vegetarian, and they were like, all of
Speaker 1: my vegan.
Speaker 2: Staples were gone.
Speaker 1: All the meat eaters came and were like, well, if
Speaker 1: I can't get ground beef, might as well get this
Speaker 1: beyond meat over here.
Speaker 3: But I was also surprised by some of the stuff
Speaker 3: that I found. Yeah, you know, our friend from grad
Speaker 3: school to Mika said she couldn't find soy sauce.
Speaker 2: Right, what are y'all doing?
Speaker 3: What are you doing with the soy sauce?
Speaker 1: It's so salty you only need a little bit, right,
Speaker 1: Are y'all going for the low sodium soy sauce or
Speaker 1: regular soy sauce?
Speaker 2: I'm very confused by this. And then another.
Speaker 3: Person said, for breeze, what's happening?
Speaker 1: Y'all know that for breeze isn't a disinfectant, right, It
Speaker 1: just makes the air smell good?
Speaker 3: Do you have stinky roommates?
Speaker 1: And because y'all are going to be at home, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say it's that and that y'all didn't think it
Speaker 1: was disinfectant.
Speaker 3: Some of y'all also said all the struggle foods were missing,
Speaker 3: frozen pizza, instant noodles, Kraft mac and cheese. If you
Speaker 3: bind a deluxe box, that big blue box, that's not Struggle.
Speaker 3: I just want to point that out. I'm TT and
Speaker 3: I'm Zachiah and from Spotify.
Speaker 4: This is Dope Labs.
Speaker 3: All right. So those first few weeks of the pandemic,
Speaker 3: that felt crazy to see all that stuff missing from
Speaker 3: the grocery store. I was shot, But many weeks on
Speaker 3: down the road, the grocery store still wasn't fully stopped.
Speaker 3: There was like no meat, and I remember people saying, Oh,
Speaker 3: we're gonna have a meat shortage. But then I was
Speaker 3: seeing on the news that people were throwing away chicken
Speaker 3: wings because there was no acc tournament. I don't know
Speaker 3: how real that was. I just was seeing all this
Speaker 3: conflicting messaging, like people were saying there's no food in
Speaker 3: these areas. But then I saw people duffing potatoes in Idaho.
Speaker 3: I didn't understand how that worked.
Speaker 1: All right, most of us are completely in the dark
Speaker 1: about where this food comes from and how there could
Speaker 1: be a shortage. When in America, that's one of the
Speaker 1: things that folks are always saying, like, oh, we have
Speaker 1: so much food waste. We have so much food waste,
Speaker 1: so much food that we're wasting it.
Speaker 3: And that brings us to today's topic. We're going to
Speaker 3: talk all about food systems.
Speaker 1: Let's jump into the recitation. So what do we know?
Speaker 1: I know that there is huge infrastructure put in place
Speaker 1: to make sure that folks can get to food, But
Speaker 1: I feel like I don't know much more. We said
Speaker 1: food systems, What does that actually mean?
Speaker 4: Is a kid? You know?
Speaker 3: I mean when I think about food systems, I think
Speaker 3: about like the regulation of food. But I don't know
Speaker 3: who is the food system president? Like who's in charge
Speaker 3: of making sure that there's bacon at your a grocery store?
Speaker 3: Who's responsible for that?
Speaker 2: Is the government in charge?
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: We've got a lot of questions. So what do we
Speaker 2: want to know?
Speaker 3: I want to know, first of all, what is a
Speaker 3: food system. I'm interested in how our food systems and
Speaker 3: their ability to get us different types of food affects
Speaker 3: like your ability to have a nutritious meal. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: who's able to access nutritious meals, especially during a pandemic
Speaker 3: when we're experiencing shortages.
Speaker 1: What type of government assistance is available for people that
Speaker 1: are struggling with food insecurity during the pandemic, and what
Speaker 1: exactly is food insecurity? Who falls into that category. I'm
Speaker 1: also interested when the food was missing, that felt scary, Right,
Speaker 1: that's a weakness of our food system. But there were
Speaker 1: some things that I felt like we always saw and
Speaker 1: those are some strengths.
Speaker 3: But I don't know what's driving those things. What makes
Speaker 3: some things disappear quicker than others.
Speaker 1: How are farmers impacted by the pandemic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, let's get to the bottom of this and
Speaker 3: jump into the dissection.
Speaker 1: Our guest for today's lab is doctor Marie Spiker.
Speaker 8: My name is Marie Spiker. I am a registered dietitian
Speaker 8: and I'm an assistant professor at the University of Washington
Speaker 8: School of Public Health.
Speaker 3: Doctor Spiker studies the connections between food systems, nutrition, and
Speaker 3: public health, and we wanted her help understanding how the
Speaker 3: food we eat gets from the farm onto our plate.
Speaker 8: When we talk about the food system, the big picture side,
Speaker 8: it's everything from farm to fork to flush.
Speaker 1: Farm to fork to flush. Let's break that down. Let's
Speaker 1: start with the farm.
Speaker 3: So when we think about how food is produced, you know, plants, animals,
Speaker 3: marine environments, all of that is part of that farm part.
Speaker 1: And then after the food is produced, you have to
Speaker 1: distribute it. It has to get to the stores for
Speaker 1: us to purchase it, so it has to be sorted, clean, packaged,
Speaker 1: and then shipped.
Speaker 3: And we really have to consider what's going on in
Speaker 3: the places where we are interacting with food, so food environments.
Speaker 3: This could be cafeterias, grocery stores, farmers markets, all kinds
Speaker 3: of places.
Speaker 1: Depending on those food environments, it dictates our food choices.
Speaker 3: You also have to ask is the food you want available,
Speaker 3: Even if it's available, is it affordable? All that leads
Speaker 3: us to the fork.
Speaker 8: And then we get to the consumption part of the
Speaker 8: food system, where we eating food, and there's all these
Speaker 8: considerations around our own knowledge, our preferences, our cultural norms
Speaker 8: and values, and how food actually interacts with our individual biology.
Speaker 2: Finally, there's the flush.
Speaker 3: Flush refers to the ways that human waste products can
Speaker 3: be recycled back into the environment, as well as the
Speaker 3: ways we waste food throughout the supply chain, whether that's
Speaker 3: at the farm level or just things we dispose of
Speaker 3: in our own households as consumers.
Speaker 1: And the EPA put out an estimate for twenty ten
Speaker 1: that said that thirty one percent of the food supply
Speaker 1: was lost to waste. Doctor Spiker says, about a quarter
Speaker 1: of our global population has agriculture livelihoods, so they work
Speaker 1: in industries that provide food. So that's about a quarter
Speaker 1: of people on Earth that have a hand in producing
Speaker 1: the food that we eat.
Speaker 8: And you can also think of all the workers in between,
Speaker 8: so you know, from the person who might do marketing
Speaker 8: at a food company to the person who's delivering the
Speaker 8: food to your doorstep.
Speaker 3: I was looking at some stats and it was saying
Speaker 3: that farmers account for one percent of the population in
Speaker 3: the United States, and almost twenty eight percent of the
Speaker 3: farmers are between the ages of fifty five to sixty four.
Speaker 3: I don't know if that's representative of the population. Are
Speaker 3: young folks getting into farming?
Speaker 2: I have no idea.
Speaker 3: It's easy to think about food shortages, especially on the
Speaker 3: heels of this pandemic, and this prompted us to really
Speaker 3: learn more about the food supply chains in the United
Speaker 3: States and how COVID nineteen specifically has affected our supply chains.
Speaker 1: You know we didn't talk about was the flower Yes,
Speaker 1: that's right. Everybody was trying to make bread. Everybody was
Speaker 1: trying to do sour though, and I just stumbled upon
Speaker 1: bread TikTok where they're making bread on TikTok and showing
Speaker 1: how they do it.
Speaker 2: That's a lot of work. I don't think I'll be
Speaker 2: doing that.
Speaker 3: No, I'm here for the whole loaf. Many of us
Speaker 3: had this experience together. But we also know that pre
Speaker 3: COVID there are many people in this country who don't
Speaker 3: have enough food, and at the same time, we had
Speaker 3: incredible food waste. And I think it makes you ask
Speaker 3: this question of like, how do these two things exist together?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: It doesn't make sense. How can you have one and
Speaker 1: the other happening at the exact same time.
Speaker 3: And so I think we want to know what causes
Speaker 3: these shortages and surpluses.
Speaker 8: So if we want to take like the thirty thousand
Speaker 8: foot view of the US food system, the big picture
Speaker 8: is that we have the privilege of a very safe
Speaker 8: and abundant food supplying overall, and that may not be
Speaker 8: the case when food is flying off the shelves due
Speaker 8: to panic buying related to the pandemic or natural disasters.
Speaker 8: And that's also not the case for many families who
Speaker 8: are under resourced or who live in underserved communities. But
Speaker 8: by and large, our food supply in the US is
Speaker 8: one that really benefits from efficiency and from economies of scale.
Speaker 3: Economy of scale is based on this understanding that there
Speaker 3: are certain fixed costs related to production. That means the
Speaker 3: price of certain things required for production don't change no
Speaker 3: matter how much you make. So for example, this can
Speaker 3: be labor, equipment, and even rent for land.
Speaker 1: Other costs vary like seed, fertilizer, and chemicals, and the
Speaker 1: price can change depending on the market.
Speaker 3: So I'm farmer Zakia and I'm growing carrots. The machinery
Speaker 3: I need to till the land, the taxes on my property,
Speaker 3: the machinery I need to sort carrots. The price of
Speaker 3: those things don't change. Those are fixed costs that I
Speaker 3: have to consider when I'm determining how much it costs
Speaker 3: for each carrot.
Speaker 1: But if Zakiyah increases the number of carrots that she produces,
Speaker 1: she can easily lower her total cost per unit, allowing
Speaker 1: her to increase profits and making the total cost for
Speaker 1: the product lower.
Speaker 3: So let's just do a quick example. If it's one
Speaker 3: thousand dollars, is my total fixed costs? If I produce
Speaker 3: a thousand carrots, that's a dollar carrot. But if I
Speaker 3: produce five thousand carrots, my fixed cost per carrot goes
Speaker 3: down to twenty cent per care.
Speaker 1: So this economy of scale allows us to produce a
Speaker 1: lot and at a less expensive price, and that means
Speaker 1: that Americans have access to less expensive food.
Speaker 8: So in the US we're actually one of the few countries.
Speaker 8: We're on average, we spend less than ten percent of
Speaker 8: our household income on food, and there are countries, by contrasts,
Speaker 8: where people might spend upwards of forty or fifty percent
Speaker 8: of their income on food.
Speaker 3: But more food at a lower cost brings us to
Speaker 3: another consideration, and that's nutrition. Just because some food is
Speaker 3: affordable doesn't mean it's the kind of food we need
Speaker 3: to stay healthy.
Speaker 8: When of the drawbacks of our food system is that
Speaker 8: while we are efficient food producers, the foods we produce
Speaker 8: don't necessarily align with our nutritional goals.
Speaker 1: I don't know if y'all remember, but the key I'm
Speaker 1: sure you remember because we're of the same age group.
Speaker 1: As soon as I start thinking of nutrition goals and
Speaker 1: what I should be eaten, I think of the food pyramid.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, I remember the food pyramid. The whole base
Speaker 3: was like wheat, grains and bread.
Speaker 1: I cannot They're like everybody needs to eat a ten
Speaker 1: foot hogie yes dinner every night.
Speaker 3: And you remember the very tip of that triangle. It
Speaker 3: was like all the stuff you love, oil, vinegar, fats.
Speaker 3: It was like, is this where the potato chips go?
Speaker 2: But did you.
Speaker 1: Know that the food pyramid is no longer Like it's wrong,
Speaker 1: Like we're not supposed to go buy it anymore.
Speaker 3: What do you mean is wrong? I'm still building my
Speaker 3: meals based on that food pyramid.
Speaker 1: That food pyramid was canceled back in two thousand and five.
Speaker 1: So the original food pyramid that we all know it
Speaker 1: started in nineteen ninety two. Then by two thousand and
Speaker 1: five they said, okay, this isn't right, so they changed it.
Speaker 1: So then the USDA in twenty eleven came up with
Speaker 1: this thing called my plate, and the vegetables and grains
Speaker 1: take up the largest sections on the plate.
Speaker 3: So that's a lot of fruits and vegetables, and doctor
Speaker 3: Spiker says the United States isn't currently producing enough for
Speaker 3: everyone to get the recommended amount all.
Speaker 8: The fruits and vegetables that we have in the US.
Speaker 8: When you combine what we grow and what we import,
Speaker 8: it averages out to about a cup and a half
Speaker 8: per person per day, which falls short of the recommendation,
Speaker 8: which is around two and a half cups per person
Speaker 8: per day. So if everyone in America decided that's starting tomorrow,
Speaker 8: we're all gonna do our five a day fruits and vegetables,
Speaker 8: we wouldn't actually have enough fruits and vegetables in the
Speaker 8: food supply to support that.
Speaker 3: I'm not trying to cause a panic, but I also
Speaker 3: don't want to downplay this. I mean, what are we
Speaker 3: supposed to do? Take time?
Speaker 1: Yeah, like Monday and Wednesday and Friday, the fruits and
Speaker 1: vegetables are for me, and then Tuesdays and Thursdays and Saturdays,
Speaker 1: you got them. I guess we can't all be healthy
Speaker 1: at once.
Speaker 3: So how can we get enough fruits and vegetables here
Speaker 3: to meet our nutritional goals? In the US.
Speaker 8: If we wanted to close that fruit and veggie gap,
Speaker 8: and we wanted to do it through domestic production, we
Speaker 8: we actually need to devote another thirteen million acre to
Speaker 8: fruit and vegetable production, which is easier said than done,
Speaker 8: because not all of our land is suitable for growing
Speaker 8: horticultural crops.
Speaker 3: How big is an acre, Well, one acre is forty
Speaker 3: three thousand, five hundred and sixty square feet, and that
Speaker 3: means nothing to me. Football field with his end zones
Speaker 3: is about one point three acres, So we're basically talking
Speaker 3: about ten million football fields of fruits and veggies.
Speaker 1: Where are we going to get thirteen million acres? That's
Speaker 1: almost the size of West Virginia.
Speaker 3: And even if we capture that much land for fruits
Speaker 3: and vegetables, we still got to space it out. We
Speaker 3: don't want one massive farm in West Virginia. And that's
Speaker 3: for a few reasons.
Speaker 1: Why do we see so much of some foods but
Speaker 1: not of others? Doctor Spiker explains that this is due
Speaker 1: to consolidation, which is another drawback of our safe, abundant
Speaker 1: food system.
Speaker 8: So a really good example of this is the way
Speaker 8: we've consolidated meat packing plants. So in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 8: the top four company with the meatpacking plants for beef
Speaker 8: controlled about a quarter of the overall market share, and
Speaker 8: today the top four companies control over eighty percent of
Speaker 8: the market share. We also have dramatically fewer meat packing
Speaker 8: plants than ever before, and so any given farmer or
Speaker 8: rancher has fewer options about where they can sell their product.
Speaker 8: And this kind of consolidation creates a supply chain vulnerability.
Speaker 3: That's a monopoly. They're talking about Time Warner, Cable and
Speaker 3: all these other people. He's talking about. TikTok. You need
Speaker 3: to figure out what's going on with the beef. Ye'ah
Speaker 3: worried about the wrong folks. So this means we have
Speaker 3: big farms that are producing crops more efficiently and giving
Speaker 3: us this abundant food supply. But what happens to those
Speaker 3: systems in the wake of a pandemic.
Speaker 8: So on one side of the coin, when the system
Speaker 8: is working as intended, we have this abundance of affordable
Speaker 8: meat coming through. But on the other side of the coin,
Speaker 8: that same system can actually be quite easily streamed in
Speaker 8: the face of even slight changes in the workforce or
Speaker 8: economics incentives or something else. And the pandemic, of course,
Speaker 8: introduced not just slight changes, but major changes.
Speaker 1: Even when a big storm is coming, you know how
Speaker 1: everybody rushes to the store and buys up all the
Speaker 1: bread and milk and eggs. I don't know what they're
Speaker 1: doing just making French toast. I think that's the only
Speaker 1: thing you can make with bread, milk, and eggs.
Speaker 3: But I guess that makes me wonder, like what can
Speaker 3: we do as consumers to alleviate some of that burden.
Speaker 8: Well, the challenge is like there's so much interplay between
Speaker 8: the supply and demand, and so when I talk to farmers,
Speaker 8: they say, we would love to grow more fruits and vegetables,
Speaker 8: but the market is not there. And so you can't
Speaker 8: underestimate the power that we have as consumers. And when
Speaker 8: there is something that we want a certain food or
Speaker 8: a way that it's produced, the food system has the
Speaker 8: way of responding to that. It's actually quite responsive.
Speaker 1: Absolutely every time a new food trend pops up, it's
Speaker 1: all over the place in every grocery store. Yes, when
Speaker 1: celery juice became the thing that everybody wanted to have
Speaker 1: a glass of celery juice every day, first of all,
Speaker 1: it's nasty. You're not gonna convince me otherwise. I know
Speaker 1: it's nasty. I can see y'all choking that stuff down.
Speaker 1: But there was a lot more celery in the grocery stores.
Speaker 1: But I also felt like I saw a different effect
Speaker 1: with like kale and collar greens. First of all, that
Speaker 1: used to be like forty nine to fifty pound. Now
Speaker 1: I want to get a bunch of kale, it's two
Speaker 1: ninety nine, and I'm like, you know, it's gonna cook
Speaker 1: down to half a cup.
Speaker 3: That's one servant.
Speaker 1: That's so true. That stuff never and doesn't keep its
Speaker 1: same size. Same thing with all the different types of milk,
Speaker 1: almond milk, oat milk, hemp milk.
Speaker 2: All these different types of milk.
Speaker 1: Everybody is ditching the cows milk and going over to
Speaker 1: these alternative milks, and so now I see them everywhere,
Speaker 1: and so that's so interesting though, right when we consider
Speaker 1: this sponsor food market, it still feels like it's responsible
Speaker 1: in some ways, but it's got some cogs, some some
Speaker 1: slow places in other areas. Right when the pandemic first hit,
Speaker 1: I was looking for any type of can't meet. Now,
Speaker 1: normally you won't catch a girl. I mean, I'll go
Speaker 1: with the you know, salmon and stuff like that. But
Speaker 1: I was like, I guess I better get these cans
Speaker 1: of corn, beef hash. I don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: And when you think about it, how can there be
Speaker 1: food waste and food shortages at the same time. Is
Speaker 1: all of this because of the pandemic too.
Speaker 8: You might have seen headlines about dairy farmer's jumping milk.
Speaker 8: So if we want to unpack this and look at
Speaker 8: what's going on, So when the pandemic started, we really
Speaker 8: radically changed where we're consuming food, so less in restaurants
Speaker 8: and then more at home. And a lot of the
Speaker 8: dairy that's in the food system actually gets to us
Speaker 8: through restaurants.
Speaker 1: So the demand for dairy might have stayed the same
Speaker 1: throughout the pandemic, but now it's being funneled primarily to
Speaker 1: grocery stores instead of restaurants.
Speaker 8: And so what happened is we've got dairy farmers who
Speaker 8: found themselves with the same amount of milk that they
Speaker 8: need to sell because the cows are producing milk, but
Speaker 8: fewer companies and supply chain stakeholders were able to accept it.
Speaker 8: So the milk is being produced, but there just wasn't
Speaker 8: anywhere for it to go in the supply chain.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of changes that have to happen just
Speaker 1: for people to buy a gallon of milk. Even milk
Speaker 1: cartons are produced by a separate company somebody's got to
Speaker 1: supply those.
Speaker 3: The food system is so much more than just the
Speaker 3: food itself. These wrappers, containers, dividers.
Speaker 1: They're all being made by a separate business. And once
Speaker 1: the demand goes down and they can't put out as
Speaker 1: much product, then all of these businesses, even the people
Speaker 1: who are putting it on the trucks and the trucks
Speaker 1: that take it to the store for you to purchase,
Speaker 1: I would imagine that they're feeling it as well.
Speaker 8: There are so many people involved, and that transition just
Speaker 8: can't take place overnight.
Speaker 3: We're going to take a but first we want you
Speaker 3: to confess now that you know how responsive the food
Speaker 3: market is. What have you helped force into our grocery stores.
Speaker 3: If you're listening on Spotify, take the poll below to
Speaker 3: let us know what food trend bandwagons you jumped on.
Speaker 3: And then we're going to talk more about how the
Speaker 3: pandemic has affected our food systems and food insecurity for
Speaker 3: so many Americans. When we come back.
Speaker 1: We're back now that we've learned all about food systems
Speaker 1: and some of the issues with food supply chains in
Speaker 1: the United States, we want to know what's the state
Speaker 1: of food insecurity. With so many people losing their jobs,
Speaker 1: how has the pandemic magnified this insecurity or loss.
Speaker 8: So in twenty nineteen, before the pandemic, about eleven or
Speaker 8: twelve percent of families in the US for food and
Speaker 8: secure during at least part of the year.
Speaker 2: That's a lot of people.
Speaker 1: The number of households in the United States is about
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty eight million, and that means about
Speaker 1: eleven to twelve percent is about fourteen million households.
Speaker 3: And when you consider there's about not two point six
Speaker 3: people in each household, that's thirty six million people. More
Speaker 3: than thirty six million. We asked doctor Spiker what it
Speaker 3: meant to be food insecure? How is it measured?
Speaker 8: And we measure this by asking families about whether they
Speaker 8: have enough food. So, for example, we might ask in
Speaker 8: the past month, have you eaten less food than you
Speaker 8: felt that you should because there wasn't enough money for food?
Speaker 8: Or did you find, you know, anyone in your family
Speaker 8: find themselves skipping meals or eating meals that weren't balanced
Speaker 8: again because there wasn't money for food.
Speaker 3: And then how has COVID changed the levels of food
Speaker 3: and security?
Speaker 8: It's really unprecedented rates. So the nationwide data from April
Speaker 8: estimated that about thirty five percent of households, so at
Speaker 8: least one child we're experiencing food in security in April,
Speaker 8: so that's just a substantial increase, really unprecedented.
Speaker 1: That's a huge jump. That's almost three times the twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen levels. This makes me think about the unemployment rate
Speaker 1: that jump from three point five percent in February of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty to fourteen point seven percent in April of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. If people aren't getting paychecks, how exactly are
Speaker 1: they supposed to put food on the table. We talked
Speaker 1: about this in Lab twenty nine The Roof is on Fire,
Speaker 1: so make sure you check out that episode two if
Speaker 1: you haven't already.
Speaker 3: That is a really good point to tie in TT
Speaker 3: and we have to consider not just what's happened in
Speaker 3: the pandemic, but also the low income families who were
Speaker 3: already struggling pre COVID. Their rate of food and security
Speaker 3: is even higher.
Speaker 8: There was a survey fielded exclusively among low income households,
Speaker 8: and that survey found that almost half of them were
Speaker 8: food insecure, so about forty four percent. So when we
Speaker 8: talk about the pandemic sascerbating rates of food and security.
Speaker 8: It has less to do with disruptions in the supply chain,
Speaker 8: whether the shelves are empty or not, and more to
Speaker 8: deal with the overall economic impacts that families are feeling
Speaker 8: as a result of job loss and other disruptions.
Speaker 1: For real, the system, it's the system, the system, the system.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I sound crazy like it's the man,
Speaker 1: it's the man's fault. But for real, it always comes
Speaker 1: back to systemic structural barriers. And this is why it's
Speaker 1: so important to think about food through the system's lens.
Speaker 3: And like we said earlier this season, we know COVID
Speaker 3: nineteen disproportionately affects black and brown communities, so they're more
Speaker 3: likely to work in at risk industries like service or
Speaker 3: have underlying conditions. You layer those barriers on top of
Speaker 3: food and the food and security perfect storm.
Speaker 8: We know that the disparities that we see in nutritional
Speaker 8: outcomes are due to deep structural inequities, including poverty, including
Speaker 8: systemic racism. So we know that to be the case,
Speaker 8: but finding a path forward is quite challenging because we
Speaker 8: came into it saying I want to improve nutrition, and
Speaker 8: now suddenly it's like the task is now. We need
Speaker 8: to fix our deep seated structural inequities.
Speaker 1: This is a huge issue. First things. First, food is
Speaker 1: a basic need for survival. When we think about people
Speaker 1: just trying to survive on this planet, access to food
Speaker 1: is the first thing that they need. Beyond that, it's
Speaker 1: so important for health and development. People are already experiencing
Speaker 1: high levels of stress working from home, dealing with kids
Speaker 1: at home, and we talk a lot about that in
Speaker 1: the last Lab Life Avalanche. So check that out, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people can't even access the food they
Speaker 1: need to support all of these higher level needs.
Speaker 3: So let's just talk about families with kids. So for
Speaker 3: kids in low income families, often they're getting about two
Speaker 3: of their three major meals at school right and without
Speaker 3: that support, school's not in session. What impact does this
Speaker 3: have on their development?
Speaker 8: You're totally right that good nutrition is so essential for
Speaker 8: children's development. It's essential for their physical development, it's important
Speaker 8: for their cognitive development. So are they getting all the
Speaker 8: micro nutrients they need and all the fatty acids for
Speaker 8: their brains to really be working optimally, And it's also
Speaker 8: important for social development. Food insecurity it's about the quantity
Speaker 8: of food. Does your household have enough? But it's also
Speaker 8: about the anxiety related to food, and that's something that
Speaker 8: a lot of people can relate to. You know, how
Speaker 8: does that feeling of anxiety around am I going to
Speaker 8: have enough food? Or is it the food that I want?
Speaker 8: Or is it food that I can acquire with dignity?
Speaker 8: Those things are so powerful.
Speaker 3: This makes me think about food banks. You know a
Speaker 3: lot of these food banks and goods all the time,
Speaker 3: which is great, can goods versus nothing is great? But
Speaker 3: also they're high in sodium. You know, there's all these
Speaker 3: other considerations. What about perishables, lots of preservatives. I think
Speaker 3: the other thing that I've noticed because I wanted to
Speaker 3: help out, there's a great organization in our area called
Speaker 3: Martha's Table. But there's like certain hours where you can
Speaker 3: get food or drop food off. And it just makes
Speaker 3: me think, like, what if you're not available during that time?
Speaker 3: What if you're working and there's lines at these food banks?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there's so much demand, Like so you have
Speaker 1: to give probably your whole day to get to a
Speaker 1: food bank, and then they still may not be able
Speaker 1: to help you. It's such a crazy time and thinking
Speaker 1: about all this stuff. It just really gives you a
Speaker 1: perspective on all the levels of insecurity that are being
Speaker 1: activated right now.
Speaker 3: It just ties right back to that episode on Burnout,
Speaker 3: right this constant insecurity and worry about what will you have?
Speaker 3: What will you do? And a lot of times people
Speaker 3: think burnout is about something that's more luxurious, like oh,
Speaker 3: I'm tired of typing, but it can be I'm tired
Speaker 3: of trying to figure out where my next meal is
Speaker 3: going to come from or how I'm going to feed
Speaker 3: my child. That can weigh on you, and it can
Speaker 3: have physical effects. It's about the basics too, So what
Speaker 3: resources are even available for people experiencing food and security today?
Speaker 8: We have SNAP, which is our food stamps. There were
Speaker 8: like earlier versions of federal benefits to help lift families
Speaker 8: out of poverty, give them some money to help close
Speaker 8: the gap and get the foods that they need. Even
Speaker 8: those early versions of our federal food as systems had
Speaker 8: all these restrictions like you could spend this food, but
Speaker 8: you couldn't spend it on seasonings, And it was sort
Speaker 8: of this idea that we don't want you buying any
Speaker 8: luxury purchases with the money that we've given you, as
Speaker 8: if people choosing the foods they want with dignity it's
Speaker 8: a luxury, when it's not a luxury, that's just basic
Speaker 8: human decency.
Speaker 1: Be able to use the assistance money that they get
Speaker 1: from whatever organization or the government to buy whatever they
Speaker 1: want for themselves and their family.
Speaker 3: Yeah, nobody should be policing what's in somebody shopping cart.
Speaker 3: If I want to buy scallops, that's my business.
Speaker 1: You should be able to do whatever you want to
Speaker 1: with that money, to be able to feed your family
Speaker 1: the way you want to feed your family. It's like,
Speaker 1: just because you get government assistance doesn't mean that you
Speaker 1: need to get poor nutrition.
Speaker 3: I think one of the major things I remember about
Speaker 3: preparing for the pandemic and food for the pandemic is said,
Speaker 3: this is a stressful time. You should always make sure
Speaker 3: you don't just get the basics, but also get comfort items. Now,
Speaker 3: why would we say this to everybody else and turn
Speaker 3: around to look at our most vulnerable groups and say, oh,
Speaker 3: everybody gets a comfort item but not you.
Speaker 1: Food is so much more than what we put into
Speaker 1: our bodies. It's about family, It's about culture and community,
Speaker 1: and everyone deserves to have access to those things.
Speaker 8: Right, like being able to seek and choose the foods
Speaker 8: you want with dignity should be seen as so core.
Speaker 8: But that kind of argument from one hundred years ago
Speaker 8: about ooh or people using their federal benefits to buy
Speaker 8: you know, seasonings, carries over today into oohor people using
Speaker 8: their Snap to buy what was it in the headlines
Speaker 8: a couple of years ago it was like steak and lobster.
Speaker 8: People having all these conversations, should you be able to
Speaker 8: buy steak and lobster with Snap? And so it's tough
Speaker 8: to move that lever of financial security because we have
Speaker 8: a lot of hangups about that that we need as
Speaker 8: a country. We really need to do some work to
Speaker 8: figure out those hangups about why we have such a
Speaker 8: hard time supporting people lifting people out of poverty in
Speaker 8: a in a dignified way that really respects them.
Speaker 3: That dignity is so crucial to creating a better, more
Speaker 3: just food system. There's so much shame when it comes
Speaker 3: to food in general, whether it's about having food stamps
Speaker 3: or shaming people for they do or don't eat. I
Speaker 3: saw you got shamed recently.
Speaker 1: Yes, oh, my goodness. So I don't drink cow's milk,
Speaker 1: and I have really been missing milk a lot, and
Speaker 1: so I said, okay, let me try and figure out
Speaker 1: some of these milk alternatives, see what they're hitting for.
Speaker 1: So I grabbed some almond milk and it changed everything.
Speaker 1: I love almond milk, and so I posted on my
Speaker 1: Instagram and my Instagram story saying, how you know almond
Speaker 1: milk has changed my life?
Speaker 2: I will put almond milk on everything.
Speaker 1: And then I was getting comments like, but am I
Speaker 1: it's so bad for the environment, Oh my god?
Speaker 2: And I was like shell anyways, like what now? What now?
Speaker 2: What's the problem?
Speaker 6: Now?
Speaker 3: Is here we go? You can never do enough? Does
Speaker 3: it matter that you reduce your carbon foot pride from
Speaker 3: what it takes to raise a cow and to sustain
Speaker 3: it to now an almond?
Speaker 4: But you did?
Speaker 3: You chose the wrong nut?
Speaker 1: Like you should drink oat milk. I'm like, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: sure you will find something wrong with oat milk too.
Speaker 3: And sustainability is important to me as a consumer. But
Speaker 3: I'm like, it's hard to navigate around avoid this eat
Speaker 3: that this is bad for water, this is bad for
Speaker 3: co two? How am I supposed to figure it out exactly.
Speaker 1: So we ask doctor Spiker, what can we do as
Speaker 1: consumers to help contribute to a more sustainable food system.
Speaker 8: I think an important message for the public is that
Speaker 8: we need to reframe the way we think about sustainability
Speaker 8: and shift it from an individual frame to a system's frame.
Speaker 8: So sustainability shouldn't be something that you buy. It shouldn't
Speaker 8: be an issue of you know, I'm a consumer with
Speaker 8: a lot of formal education and money, and I'm going
Speaker 8: to seek out the products that are label in a
Speaker 8: branded is sustainable for myself.
Speaker 3: And that's a great point. Sustainability shouldn't only be for
Speaker 3: rich people, otherwise it's not sustainable. And the other thing is,
Speaker 3: in some cases it's above me, is bigger than the consumer,
Speaker 3: is deeper than rep.
Speaker 8: One example is, you know, if as a country, if
Speaker 8: everyone like dial back their average per capita meat consumption,
Speaker 8: I don't think you would see fewer cows. I think
Speaker 8: what you would see is the same number of cows
Speaker 8: producing the same footprint. And I think you would just
Speaker 8: see a dramatically expanded export market. I think they would
Speaker 8: just find a market for that elsewhere.
Speaker 1: Because of the relationship between supply and demand. Someone else
Speaker 1: in the world is going to consume that meat.
Speaker 8: It's not like there's a direct align between what's on
Speaker 8: my plate and what's being produced. Oftentimes it's a lot
Speaker 8: more convoluted. And so again, if we go back to okay,
Speaker 8: maybe the whole goal with the cows is like we
Speaker 8: want to rein in our emissions, then okay, that's opens
Speaker 8: up a different kind of conversation about how we do that.
Speaker 3: We ask doctor Spiker to break down the relationship between
Speaker 3: individual choices and systems share When it comes to sustainability.
Speaker 8: There's this really important interplay between the individual level and
Speaker 8: the system's level. Systems change doesn't just happen on its own.
Speaker 8: We're not going to wake up one day and suddenly
Speaker 8: the food system is more sustainable. Systems change usually happens
Speaker 8: through some critical mass of pressure that comes from somewhere,
Speaker 8: and sometimes that pressure comes from regulatory frameworks. Sometimes that
Speaker 8: pressure is a positive pressure because the financial incentives are
Speaker 8: lined up in the right way so that the financially
Speaker 8: viable thing is also the more sustainable thing.
Speaker 1: So maybe if enough of us demand more sustainable food products,
Speaker 1: we'll create that market and it'll be a win win
Speaker 1: for producers and consumers. Like the examples we were talking
Speaker 1: about earlier.
Speaker 8: As individuals, our choices actually do have a lot of
Speaker 8: power in catalyzing systems level change. But I don't want
Speaker 8: people to get so wrapped up in thinking about their
Speaker 8: individual footprint and their individual choices and should have I
Speaker 8: this for that, that we forget about the big picture
Speaker 8: of how do we create a system that's more sustainable
Speaker 8: for everyone, not just more sustainable for me.
Speaker 3: This really feels like wearing masks. Yes, it's more than
Speaker 3: just one person exactly. You got to protect the whole community,
Speaker 3: to keep the most vulnerable people safe. And how can
Speaker 3: we create systems where everyone has access to nutrition and
Speaker 3: health at all times, but especially in times of an emergency.
Speaker 8: I think a more powerful question for individuals, it's not
Speaker 8: you know which things should I consume A or be,
Speaker 8: but it's do I need A or B?
Speaker 3: How could I.
Speaker 8: Consume less overall? And how can we shift from always
Speaker 8: wanting more and more to maybe I just want enough.
Speaker 3: That's it for Lab thirty three, but we have so
Speaker 3: much more for you to dig into on our website.
Speaker 3: Check us out at Dope Labs podcast dot com.
Speaker 2: On our website.
Speaker 1: You can find a cheat sheet for today's lab, along
Speaker 1: with a ton of other links and resources in the show.
Speaker 3: Notes, and if you want to stay in the note
Speaker 3: with Dope Labs, don't forget to sign up for our
Speaker 3: newsletter on our site too special.
Speaker 1: Thanks to our guest expert, doctor Marie Spiker.
Speaker 3: You can find her on Twitter at Marie Spiker and
Speaker 3: even more links to her work in our show notes
Speaker 3: on Dope Labs podcast dot com. Also, we love hearing
Speaker 3: from you. What did you think about today's lab? Do
Speaker 3: you have ideas for future labs?
Speaker 1: Call us at two zero two five six seven seven
Speaker 1: zero two eight and let us know. You can find
Speaker 1: us on Twitter and Instagram at Dope Labs Podcast, tt
Speaker 1: is on Twitter at dr underscore Tsho, and you can
Speaker 1: find Zakia at z said So follow us on Spotify
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Speaker 3: Mixing and sound design are by HANNS. Brown.
Speaker 1: Our theme music is by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sugiura,
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Speaker 1: it's executive produced by us T T show Dia and
Speaker 1: Zakiah Wattley. I remember in high school, my fren's teacher
Speaker 1: brought in a huge breed and I'd never seen anything
Speaker 1: like this before I was in high school. I only
Speaker 1: had like American cheese up until that point, maybe some Swiss,
Speaker 1: maybe some mild cheddar. She brought in this block of
Speaker 1: cheese and I was just like, that looks that doesn't
Speaker 1: look good. And she had all of these like crackers
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, and then she cut it open
Speaker 1: and all that cheese started to roll out, and I
Speaker 1: was like, ooh, we we