Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to season two ninety two,
Speaker 1: episode one.
Speaker 2: Of Daily's I Guys Say.
Speaker 3: Production of iHeartRadio. This is a podcast where we take
Speaker 3: a deep dive into America's shared consciousness. And it's Wednesday,
Speaker 3: June twenty first, twenty twenty three, which of course means.
Speaker 2: It's the longest day is. Summer begins today us get ready,
Speaker 2: put on your your big sun hats like I did
Speaker 2: that I got for Father's Day. I will be wearing
Speaker 2: this woven hat for the rest of the summer that
Speaker 2: has UCLA branding all over it. Very cool. Also, National
Speaker 2: Pieces and Cream Day, Yeah, exactly, National Selfie Day, National
Speaker 2: Daylight Appreciation Day, makes sense, World Giraffe Day, shout out
Speaker 2: to those long decks, National Smoothie Day, World Human This Day,
Speaker 2: World Hydrography Hydrography Day.
Speaker 1: We'll ask our expert guess what that means.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's go skateboarding day two. I'm also, if you're
Speaker 2: in Arizona, National Arizona Day, So how about that. There's
Speaker 2: a lot.
Speaker 1: Actually, it's also birthday time, the time of the year
Speaker 1: that all my I always talk about how I don't
Speaker 1: believe in astrology, and yet all my favorite people in
Speaker 1: the world have birthdays around this time.
Speaker 2: Over, So who's up today? You got someone today today?
Speaker 1: It is especially my best friend since I was twelve
Speaker 1: years old, Chris who you risk and Jose who you
Speaker 1: also met at the Brooklyn Show. And then a couple
Speaker 1: of days ago my wife and the day before that
Speaker 1: one of my best friends, John. So shout out to
Speaker 1: all the Gemini and your day, Gemini energy.
Speaker 2: Her majesty, her mad days. You know what I mean?
Speaker 2: It all Look, it's all happening. It's all happening. Well,
Speaker 2: my name is Jack O'Brien aka.
Speaker 1: I saw your thighs and it opened up my eyes.
Speaker 2: I saw your thighs.
Speaker 1: Is demanding all the plump first stand and I saw
Speaker 1: your thighs and it opened up my eyes. I saw
Speaker 1: your thighs. No one's gonna plump you up. To pull
Speaker 1: up the shorts where they where, the where they belong.
Speaker 2: That isy of a lease with the hot takes.
Speaker 1: Our expert guest is wondering what she got herself into.
Speaker 2: What manner of show? What manner of show is this?
Speaker 1: Uh? I'm thrilled to be joined as always by my
Speaker 1: co host.
Speaker 4: Mister Miles Grant Miles Gray the first time Father's Day
Speaker 4: celebrator and Blasian experimental visual artist Yo Boy Kusama.
Speaker 2: But yeah, shout out to a few people who sent
Speaker 2: me a Father's Day well wishes. I don't even know y'all,
Speaker 2: but thank you.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that first Father's Day. I don't remember mine,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure it was a trip.
Speaker 2: It's all I do is think about it's so weird.
Speaker 2: All I do is like run back stuff my dad did,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, did I would I do that?
Speaker 1: Is that good?
Speaker 2: Was that bad? And half the time I'm like, wait,
Speaker 2: is that trauma? Trying to like parts through And You're like,
Speaker 2: but it was normal, man, huh. But overall, fantastic time,
Speaker 2: fantastic time.
Speaker 1: Well, Miles, we are thrilled to be joined in our
Speaker 1: third seat by an award winning journalist, Auf their public speaker,
Speaker 1: the host of the new show Big Sugar. Please welcome
Speaker 1: Celeste Headlands.
Speaker 2: Nice welcome.
Speaker 5: You guys do that intro all the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, anytime you enter a room, we are available for
Speaker 1: you know, a small fee.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we moonlight as town criers for any kind of
Speaker 2: dynamic intro. Yeah. Well we can read from a scroll
Speaker 2: and everything.
Speaker 5: Wow, that's I don't know how much work there is
Speaker 5: for that, but you.
Speaker 2: Know, I'm not gonna lie. It's it's feast famine there.
Speaker 2: I'm sure we don't have to ask you this, but
Speaker 2: this is that is the dumbest opening to a show
Speaker 2: that you've ever been on. I have to imagine I
Speaker 2: probably don't even need to confirm that.
Speaker 5: But that's correct.
Speaker 2: Oat the crown on. Thank you, Yes, here's your crown King. Well,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: Your new show, Big Sugar is fascinating, kind of mind expanding.
Speaker 1: Also just kind of crystallizes, to use a sugar industry
Speaker 1: crystallizes a lot of the things that we aready suspect
Speaker 1: about the world of capitalism and industry in these United States.
Speaker 1: So thank you first of all for your work on
Speaker 1: that show.
Speaker 2: It's really cool.
Speaker 5: Thanks thanks so much. I mean I learned a lot
Speaker 5: doing it. Also. It's one of those things where you
Speaker 5: kind of pull the thread and it just came.
Speaker 2: It's still going.
Speaker 5: Everything, Yeah exactly, Yeah, but you know it's important. This
Speaker 5: is stuff you know, I know. Okay, so this is
Speaker 5: all stuff that we should know. But without diving completely
Speaker 5: feet first into it, I should say that one of
Speaker 5: my big takeaways after doing two years of work on
Speaker 5: this is that I don't think we should have to
Speaker 5: know this. I think that with all the other stuff
Speaker 5: we have going on as citizens, as consumers, I don't
Speaker 5: think we should be responsible for also policing our industries.
Speaker 5: I think that we shouldn't have to be the ones
Speaker 5: constantly having to keep watch over whether industries and employers
Speaker 5: are following basic ethical rules and regulations, both environmental and human.
Speaker 2: Yeah so, yeah, but I got good news, Celesti. We
Speaker 2: don't have to because that's what the regulators and the government, right.
Speaker 1: And they're super well funded and always up to the task.
Speaker 1: As we'll get into yeah right, all right, Well, we
Speaker 1: are going to get to know you a little bit better.
Speaker 1: We are going to hop into all of that feet first.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about you know, there's this is
Speaker 1: just right chuck full of conspiracies. There's a conspiracy to
Speaker 1: you know, under real real conspiracy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I guess people now think just conspiracy means conspiracy theory.
Speaker 2: It's like something else.
Speaker 1: These are real, vast conspiracies to keep the truth about
Speaker 1: the health consequences of sugar quiet and from affecting how
Speaker 1: much sugar can be put into things. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: just this powerful oligarchical family that is kind of at
Speaker 1: the center of the story and basically like slavery that
Speaker 1: exists in the United States, you know, basically to this day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: some of the worst working conditions. So we'll talk about
Speaker 1: all of that. But before we get into the new show,
Speaker 1: we do like to ask our guests a little bit
Speaker 1: about themselves, such as, what is something from your search history?
Speaker 1: It's revealing about who you are.
Speaker 5: So I just went through my search history and what
Speaker 5: I found was me looking up specific answers to the
Speaker 5: crossbord question for today. Okay, so I looked up a
Speaker 5: very specific Irish word, for example, which was the name
Speaker 5: of an Irish god, in order to answer a crossword.
Speaker 5: And that's personal because I do the crossword every single day,
Speaker 5: getting very very long strings the crossword and wordle every day.
Speaker 5: So there you go.
Speaker 1: Oh you doing a word wordles about where I'm max out.
Speaker 5: I'm excellent. I'm pretty good at word. I mean, I
Speaker 5: guess I'm pretty good at my average. I get by
Speaker 5: the third line.
Speaker 2: Okay, isn't that that's par right? What is that? No,
Speaker 2: that's a birdie that's a birdie. Oh is averaging a
Speaker 2: birdie over here? Okay, that's pretty good. Rights So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's pretty impressive. And then on the on the crosswords,
Speaker 2: I do that too. I google for help on specific answers.
Speaker 5: Some of them are like names and like specific yeah
Speaker 5: I don't know stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that actually makes me feel better about myself. I
Speaker 1: was like, wait, you know about like Celtic God?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Wow yeah. What is something that you think is overrated?
Speaker 5: Avocados?
Speaker 2: Okay, what do you mean? Okay, well, come on expand
Speaker 2: on that just I mean, I.
Speaker 5: Say this, I'm gonna get I'm gonna get email. I'm
Speaker 5: not because I'm from California. I just think they're overrated.
Speaker 5: They put avocados on everything, thinking and avocado is improve
Speaker 5: gonna improve everything, and avocados do not improve everything.
Speaker 2: Okay, So example, Okay, what's something that you're like, you
Speaker 2: can't that's it's this, isn't this isn't that different? You
Speaker 2: just put avocado on it? Is there something specifically like
Speaker 2: knock it off with the avocado on that?
Speaker 5: I'm just gonna say in general, like there's there's things
Speaker 5: like there's sandwiches that shouldn't have avocado on them. Like
Speaker 5: there's hamburgers that shouldn't have avocado means sometimes maybe, but
Speaker 5: you bite into a hamburger and avocado is this is
Speaker 5: a squishy piece of food, right, Like that's gonna be
Speaker 5: a mess, you know, so maybe cool it with the avocados.
Speaker 2: Yeah are you? How are you on avocado host that's.
Speaker 5: Just on the avocado's hoast, right, you.
Speaker 2: Know, favorite avocado dish if you got to give it
Speaker 2: up to avocados in one form or the other, where
Speaker 2: is it perfect?
Speaker 5: I'm from I'm from California. I mean it has to
Speaker 5: be guacamole.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, yeah, I'm just bad at picking. I'm bad
Speaker 2: at timing the ripening of them. Like unless they're right
Speaker 2: at the store, I fuck up. And like they're like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, three days and then I wait, like the
Speaker 2: fourth day it's I got worms having a party on
Speaker 2: the inside. And I'm like, I get.
Speaker 5: You can't go by really by color. You have to
Speaker 5: go by.
Speaker 2: Yeah squishy, yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: I like it firm like an apple, like I just
Speaker 1: have it. Crisp should have crush in my book. Interesting
Speaker 1: and gen Z, I love all of your avocado creations
Speaker 1: and you know, save yours, save your mail for Celeste,
Speaker 1: because I'm team Avocado. Okay, team Avo over here, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, so least i'm a coward just in case. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that'll become clear, but there will be a lot of
Speaker 1: disclaimers where I'm like, big sugar, we actually are big
Speaker 1: fans on this podcast.
Speaker 2: You love the Domino Company obviously for everything they've done
Speaker 2: for us in our Texas, but yeah, I feel like
Speaker 2: I see now it's funny how like the avocado wave,
Speaker 2: like it became a thing. I feel like in california're
Speaker 2: like fifteen years ago where it was just like you
Speaker 2: will not avoid it, and we're like okay, fine, and
Speaker 2: people are like, okay, this is cool, and now it
Speaker 2: is to a part like for me, avocado tuna sands.
Speaker 2: I like a tuna sandwich, but I see a lot
Speaker 2: of avocado on tuna sandwiches now, and I'm like that's
Speaker 2: a little too much for me, for me personally, not
Speaker 2: a big fan. But then I see how now like
Speaker 2: it infects the rest of the world because when I
Speaker 2: travel like abroad, you'll see them like at an avocado
Speaker 2: for five euros and you're like, damn.
Speaker 5: That's fucking expensive, but like, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: I think this pasta dish is fine without the avocado.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, spaghetti bowling ace with avocado with avocado, you gotta
Speaker 1: have some avocado slices thrown in there. I would say,
Speaker 1: just generally, like sliced avocado on a sandwich, Like I
Speaker 1: actually really love avocado toast, but like that's a great
Speaker 1: like to to guacamulli that avocado up so that it's
Speaker 1: almost like a spread that just like, oh she stays
Speaker 1: on there, real nice?
Speaker 2: Is well?
Speaker 1: I feel like we should see more burgers that have
Speaker 1: like avocado spread. I think that probably the issue there
Speaker 1: is that so many avocado spreads are just like green,
Speaker 1: like mayonnaise that's been dyed green, and so people are
Speaker 1: distrustful of it. But I don't know, Yeah, when when
Speaker 1: the when the little chunk of avocados like squeezing out
Speaker 1: every which way?
Speaker 2: That's hard, yeah, because it's already like a It's like
Speaker 2: it's just like the slip reest food anyway it is.
Speaker 2: And sandwiches are known if when they're made incorrectly, you
Speaker 2: are like ejecting elements of a sandwich out the size
Speaker 2: if you bite too hard, it's.
Speaker 5: Like avocado and cooked mushrooms, like those two slippery.
Speaker 2: Things you have, Yeah, like banana.
Speaker 1: If a banana wouldn't like work on the thing, it's
Speaker 1: avocado probably isn't.
Speaker 2: Gonna work either.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But we didn't have generations of you know, avocados
Speaker 1: being slippery the way we did with bananas and cartoons.
Speaker 1: So right, yeah, all right, what is something that you
Speaker 1: think is underrated?
Speaker 5: So I'm gonna stay with food and say Iceberg lettuce,
Speaker 5: so I X you know, I'm a child of the eighties,
Speaker 5: and Iceberg lettuce got such a bad name, right, Like
Speaker 5: everybody was all about the romaine and the kale and
Speaker 5: like it had color. But I gotta say, I'm coming
Speaker 5: back around to Iceberg, like I think it's gotten a
Speaker 5: bad wrap. So I'm all about the wedge salad lately.
Speaker 2: I love edge, right, Yeah.
Speaker 5: I think it's pretty underrated.
Speaker 2: Quick question we like to ask if you're a big
Speaker 2: wedgehead you forking knife in it? Are you just taking
Speaker 2: like a big melon slice?
Speaker 5: I definitely not melon slicing.
Speaker 2: That is a question we asked all our guests. So
Speaker 2: I feel like the last time the wedge came up,
Speaker 2: I was like, you ever eat it just like a
Speaker 2: big wedge of melon literally already made.
Speaker 5: My opinion clear on messy eating knife.
Speaker 1: And how are you on blue cheese on your melon slices?
Speaker 2: Though? Are you? Are you?
Speaker 5: I have recently devised a blue cheese vin a grete dressing,
Speaker 5: so I don't like creamy dressings very much, but the
Speaker 5: blue cheese vinagrette I'm all about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, playing god with the blue cheese.
Speaker 2: Vite Yeah right?
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: What was the thing though, Like people were just off
Speaker 2: iceberg because they're like it has no flavor and it's
Speaker 2: like devoided.
Speaker 5: They're zero nutritional value to it, which turns out to
Speaker 5: be not true.
Speaker 2: Ah, there's a little bit stuff like what does that mean?
Speaker 2: Like what do we get from?
Speaker 5: But there is this like ridiculous idea that Romayne lettuce
Speaker 5: had way more nutritional value than Iceberg. No. I mean,
Speaker 5: if you're gonna say iceberg has no nutritional value, it's
Speaker 5: not like romain has.
Speaker 2: Way more, right that it's like a super food or something.
Speaker 5: It's yeah, it's just a leafy right exactly. So yeah,
Speaker 5: it's you're just choosing one leafy green over another.
Speaker 2: I mean, as a child of the eighties, I mean
Speaker 2: the I remember the first time someone put like a
Speaker 2: mixed green salad in front of me, and I almost
Speaker 2: had a panic attack because like, what is the was
Speaker 2: yard trimmings? Like where's my crunchy ice.
Speaker 5: Also a child of the eighties, you know, and and
Speaker 5: and my you know, my cafeteria lunches. It was all light,
Speaker 5: pale green, you know. But there that was all limp
Speaker 5: and watery, and itd been sitting in there walk in
Speaker 5: cooler for yeah, I don't know, seven eight weeks, I
Speaker 5: don't know how long it's sat there becoming goop. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and that's kind of how it got a bad rep.
Speaker 5: But iceberg needs to be fresh because it's got all
Speaker 5: that crisp water in there.
Speaker 1: Yes, it is the crispy. It's water in crisp form.
Speaker 2: And refreshing, Yes, very refreshing.
Speaker 1: I just like to after a jog on a hot day,
Speaker 1: just bite into a big handful of just a big
Speaker 1: head of iceberg lettuce.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you love it. I mean that's why you're
Speaker 2: I think you still can't go to the Whole Foods
Speaker 2: by your house, right, Yeah? They get mad by that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: well look they don't understand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they shouldn't have that myster there being so enticing,
Speaker 1: you know, but you know it's wild though, too, like
Speaker 1: because of factory farming and stuff. Like I remember just
Speaker 1: how romaine let us used to have a flavor, and
Speaker 1: now it doesn't like when you buy it at the
Speaker 1: store or like a arugula too, Like I know when
Speaker 1: I've had like you're like, whoa shit, like some peppery ruge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but now I feel like the rocket, you know,
Speaker 2: as it's described in other places, it's not coming the
Speaker 2: same way as it used to. Yeah, so you know,
Speaker 2: I'll go back to Iceberg.
Speaker 5: I mean, I will just say, just in defense of Iceberg,
Speaker 5: it does have tassium in vitamin A and vitamin K
Speaker 5: and calcium and vitamin C. I mean, it is not
Speaker 5: devoid of nutritional con right.
Speaker 2: So I wonder who started saying that. That feels like
Speaker 2: such a weird take because it's like it's still lettuce y'all,
Speaker 2: Like it's probably big sugar big.
Speaker 1: It's probably like you guys should have jello instead, Like
Speaker 1: wasn't that a big movement in the fifties everything who
Speaker 1: was green jello replace all salads? Yeah, you have your
Speaker 1: vegetables and fruits in jello form.
Speaker 2: You don't need these. Uh, let us.
Speaker 5: Forget about the cuisine in the seventies.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, man, what a time to be alive. I've
Speaker 1: heard and the fashion.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, i'd always heard.
Speaker 1: The other food that I feel like I'm slowly waking
Speaker 1: up to the fact that it has a nutritional value
Speaker 1: is potatoes. Like I had always heard, potatoes were just
Speaker 1: like wonderbread, essentially like the wonderbread.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they have like.
Speaker 1: A ton of different nutritional value.
Speaker 2: Am I the only one?
Speaker 1: Did I just maybe like associate too hard between potatoes
Speaker 1: and French fries.
Speaker 2: Potentially, Yeah, maybe I think. But then I'm like, you know,
Speaker 2: like the Inkings gave us potatoes, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So like I'm like, here, I'll fuck with them. So
Speaker 2: there's got to be value there.
Speaker 5: Potatoes have a lot of nutrients in them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like I said, and I always knew that, adjusting
Speaker 1: you cut out that part where I said I didn't
Speaker 1: know that. Okay, all right, So last let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break, and when we come back, we are going
Speaker 1: to talk about your new show, Big Sugar.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: And we're back, and all right, celest there's so much
Speaker 1: good information in the in your new show Big Sugar.
Speaker 1: I do want to I want to start with the
Speaker 1: health conference that I think it's an episode seven. It's
Speaker 1: a conference about the connection between gum disease and diabetes.
Speaker 1: Miles what what is that diagram?
Speaker 2: Thank you?
Speaker 1: Like those two things, like sugar is the thing? Yeah,
Speaker 1: the gum pops into my mind immediately. Oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: I even with my very cursory knowledge of anything healthy,
Speaker 2: I'm like sugar.
Speaker 1: Sure, right, And so you know, as you tell it,
Speaker 1: there's this dentist, Kristen Kerns who's watching these keynote speakers
Speaker 1: and they're like handing out brochures and like the brochures
Speaker 1: don't mention sugar, and like they even mentioned like trying
Speaker 1: to avoid too much soult and which you know.
Speaker 2: Always a good idea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but like it's just wild and she kind of
Speaker 1: has this experience where she finally like after somebody from
Speaker 1: I think first keynote speaker CDC, the second one is
Speaker 1: from like the Diabetes Diabetes Education Foundation and hands out
Speaker 1: a form that is like how to eat fast food healthfully?
Speaker 5: And yeah, I mean the crazy thing is I mean
Speaker 5: think now about you know all the bad dad jokes
Speaker 5: about dentists and halloween candy, right, like, right, so many.
Speaker 5: But we're talking about a time when she's at a
Speaker 5: conference about dental health and they they're not even mentioning sugar.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: The crazy thing here is her describing going to these
Speaker 5: archives of the and finds that archives the Great Western
Speaker 5: Sugar Company, right yeah, and just sitting in these boxes
Speaker 5: that I guess nobody had ever looked in were all
Speaker 5: these confidential files, right, And I guess they never realized
Speaker 5: anybody was ever going to look in there because there
Speaker 5: was all this information in there, the backstory of what
Speaker 5: the sugar industry had kept hidden from the public for
Speaker 5: so long. And it was I mean, it was shocking,
Speaker 5: you know, the fact that that all the fact the
Speaker 5: reason why sugar wasn't mentioned at this dental conference was
Speaker 5: intentional all along and had represented a decades long campaign,
Speaker 5: you know, a ton of money, a lot of influence,
Speaker 5: a lot of effort, not only speaking to politicians but
Speaker 5: influencing scientists on the part of the sugar industry to
Speaker 5: blame it on everything else, as you say, salt, but
Speaker 5: also to make fat the bad guy when it came
Speaker 5: to obesity for example.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, I remember growing up in a world where
Speaker 1: like the products were fat free, like like you always
Speaker 1: had a fat free option for your cookies that like
Speaker 1: I remember the Snackwell cookies, the snack Well sandwich cookies
Speaker 1: that were like on the verge of just bursting into
Speaker 1: being crystallized sugar.
Speaker 5: Like, so they would put they would put a box
Speaker 5: of liquoration. It would say fat.
Speaker 2: Free, yeah, right right, right, like oh.
Speaker 5: Good, great, well this is healthy then right sugar?
Speaker 2: Oh, filled up to the gills with it.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, It's okay, it's just healthy sugar. And you know,
Speaker 5: we found these ads dating from you know, in the
Speaker 5: nineteen fifties, sixties and seventies where they literally said some
Speaker 5: good natural sugars, you know, and you're like, what are
Speaker 5: you talking about it? It's it's refined sugar. I mean
Speaker 5: that's literally yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: We did it for a while with corn syrup, right
Speaker 1: where we were like, well, as long as it doesn't
Speaker 1: have corn syrup, then it's okay.
Speaker 2: And you know, sugar.
Speaker 5: Corn syrup was originally seen as a health food product, right, it.
Speaker 2: Was an enriching Yeah, it's three game three Carmonte. Right.
Speaker 1: They're just like moving things around and you know, trying
Speaker 1: to make it as confusing as possible, to the point
Speaker 1: that there's a conference about the connection between gum disease
Speaker 1: and diabetes and nobody is mentioning sugar, and like that's
Speaker 1: how recently was that conference that she was at.
Speaker 5: I can't remember. I hate to say it, but it
Speaker 5: would have I mean, I'm going to completely guess and
Speaker 5: say it was the eighties, Okay, but you know, then
Speaker 5: we head back and sort of try to trace some
Speaker 5: of this and talk about sort of the the rivalry
Speaker 5: between two scientists, John Yudkin, who'd grown up in this
Speaker 5: very poor Orthodox Jewish family in London, who very early
Speaker 5: on spotted the dangers of sugar and began to connect
Speaker 5: it to obesity, like really early on. Yeah, and then
Speaker 5: he and Ansel Keys, and Ansel Keys took a huge
Speaker 5: amount of money from the sugar industry and he said
Speaker 5: it was fat right, And John Yudkin published this book
Speaker 5: called Pure White and Deadly, and that was in the
Speaker 5: nineteen seventies, and Ansel Keys made it his mission to
Speaker 5: just ruin Judkins. Judkins Life's reputation. He just it completely
Speaker 5: completely derailed his career. So we would have been I
Speaker 5: think Kristin Kurns was working in the early two thousands
Speaker 5: now that I think of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was early, very recent that I.
Speaker 5: Think of it, because yeah, his book was published in
Speaker 5: the seventies, which is what I was thinking of, and
Speaker 5: she was working in the early two thousands.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And I mean it really seems to come
Speaker 1: down to there's no individual consolidated like powerful lobby for fat, right,
Speaker 1: but there is one for sugar. And so the guy
Speaker 1: who tells the truth that like sugar is really bad
Speaker 1: for you in the amounts that people are consuming it
Speaker 1: and could drive an obesity epidemic if it's not controlled,
Speaker 1: he just really like has his career dismantled in a
Speaker 1: way that is pretty startling. Like he is a star
Speaker 1: heading into the publication of this book. And the book,
Speaker 1: by the way, is like currently very popular fifty years
Speaker 1: after its publication. And right, but this other guy, ansel Keys,
Speaker 1: you know, like on the one of the very first
Speaker 1: health studies or like collaborations between a major sugar industry
Speaker 1: lobbying group and like the medical establishment, Like he is
Speaker 1: one of the first people who does that, and this
Speaker 1: is he becomes a superstar. Like it's like I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's just I think a thing that Hollywood movies have
Speaker 1: treated us to this or have implanted this idea in
Speaker 1: our head that like the person who does the bad
Speaker 1: thing might win in the short run, but in the
Speaker 1: long run they it all comes out or something, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the truth comes out, and like, I guess that's true
Speaker 1: in this case.
Speaker 2: But it's like the very long run.
Speaker 1: Like this person was a massive celebrity for all his
Speaker 1: like fat free diet advice. He was like the number
Speaker 1: one most covered and like media saturated dietitian in for
Speaker 1: like decades and wealthy, and.
Speaker 5: Think of all the lives that were ruined, they weren't
Speaker 5: marketing sugar as a way to lose weight. And that
Speaker 5: entire time the documents that Kristin discovered, they were basically
Speaker 5: running the same kind of campaign that Tobacco ran to
Speaker 5: try to disguise the damage that is smoking dusty your health.
Speaker 5: And so what she found out was that the sugar
Speaker 5: industry basically spent what would be the equivalent of millions
Speaker 5: of dollars today on somewhere between fifteen and twenty studies
Speaker 5: that were designed to show that sugar is good is
Speaker 5: not bad for you, to exonerate sugar as the bad guy.
Speaker 5: In fact, they even had one study that was supposed
Speaker 5: to link sugar to to say that sugar was it
Speaker 5: could be a treatment for depression, right and and and
Speaker 5: so Keys at the meantime was receiving financial support from
Speaker 5: the sugar industry.
Speaker 2: Right right. So when you because like we talk, I
Speaker 2: mean like any industry that has like a tangible product
Speaker 2: has like a you know, substantial lobbying arm because they
Speaker 2: need to kind of get ahead of any kind of
Speaker 2: messaging about their products, whether it's tobacco or falsel, fossil
Speaker 2: fuels or sugar. What Like what is how do the
Speaker 2: formation of the sugar lobby even come about? Like what
Speaker 2: was there like an impetus for them to be like
Speaker 2: holy shit, all right, we got to get ahead of it,
Speaker 2: like we need to start obscuring the facts like immediately
Speaker 2: or was this just kind of a natural thing because
Speaker 2: like any industry, they have to throw their influence around
Speaker 2: like and to get political.
Speaker 5: It started because you know, in Europe there was a
Speaker 5: leader there who very early on started an investigation into
Speaker 5: sugar and wanted to put some limits on sugar consumption.
Speaker 5: Basically at the same time that sugar started to become
Speaker 5: really affordable. They started to see some of these real
Speaker 5: health problems emerging. And so as soon as sugar producers
Speaker 5: start at the same time that they were seeing their
Speaker 5: profits really going up, right because it was going to
Speaker 5: be afford it was spreading all over the world. Here's
Speaker 5: this guy in Europe who's like, uh, let's start regulating this.
Speaker 5: And that's when they started kind of came together and said,
Speaker 5: we need to do something about this. And by the way,
Speaker 5: we should mention that Kristin Kerns herself was labeled as
Speaker 5: a conspiracy theorist. She was herself, you know, smeared by
Speaker 5: a lot of people, even though she has been she
Speaker 5: has been you know, all those people. She has been
Speaker 5: held up since then as being correct. And his book
Speaker 5: has been reissued. John Yudkins book has been issued, has
Speaker 5: been doing really well. And you know, his son talks
Speaker 5: about you know, it's a it's a victory for him
Speaker 5: since his death, right, but yeah, posthumously. But yeah, this
Speaker 5: all started because there was a danger to their profits
Speaker 5: from the beginning, yes, yeah, and so they fought back.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: We talk about like how you know, people when they
Speaker 1: talk about AI worry about the singularity and like this
Speaker 1: idea that someone's going to create a computer program that's
Speaker 1: going to like start, you know, become smarter and more
Speaker 1: advanced than humans, and then like after that it'll just
Speaker 1: like run away from us and like start doing things
Speaker 1: that aren't in humanity's interest. And it feels like we're
Speaker 1: there with capitalism just like unrestrained hyper capitalism, like that
Speaker 1: is basically how it operates. And there's this quote from
Speaker 1: Kristen Kerns at the end of I Think Episode seven
Speaker 1: where she talks about the sugar industry just like constantly
Speaker 1: be on guard, always scanning for threats, always ready to
Speaker 1: take on the next challenge. And it truly sounds like
Speaker 1: you're listening to John Connor like talk about talk about
Speaker 1: a terminator, Like it's just just always seeing, never stopping,
Speaker 1: always aware, and like, you know, it just basically in
Speaker 1: the form of capitalism that we have in this country,
Speaker 1: it's the thing that is more well funded, the thing
Speaker 1: like they can hire the smartest people out of the
Speaker 1: best law schools to work around the clock to keep
Speaker 1: everyone quiet and or you know, pay for studies on
Speaker 1: how sugar is good for you, and then you know
Speaker 1: the outcome is not that like they have a couple
Speaker 1: good paychecks, Like the outcome is like generational wealth. Like
Speaker 1: Brett Kavanaugh's dad was like a lobbyist for Jay and
Speaker 1: Jay and helped them get around regulation to sell a
Speaker 1: carcinogenic product, and like his legacy is like his fucking
Speaker 1: son is on the spring court. It's just it's like
Speaker 1: a really hard system to shake. But I your show,
Speaker 1: in particular, like makes makes a good case for like
Speaker 1: we at least need to be able to see it
Speaker 1: for what it is, and I don't think we even
Speaker 1: get that usually. And I think your show does a
Speaker 1: good job of actually showing us like how this thing
Speaker 1: actually operates. And part of the time it's how we suspect,
Speaker 1: but it's even more flagrant than we might sup.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and that's one of the reasons we wanted to
Speaker 5: keep pulling at this thread, you know, because at one
Speaker 5: point I tried to eliminate sugar from my diet. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and I got to tell you it took the vast
Speaker 5: majority of my time, Like it was so hard. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it's in everything. I had to bake my own bread.
Speaker 5: Number one, it was expensive, and number two, it was
Speaker 5: really time consuming. Yeah, because it's in everything and they
Speaker 5: call it by different names, so you don't even recognize it.
Speaker 5: So there's a huge amount of research where I had
Speaker 5: to start making lists of all the different names they
Speaker 5: give to sugar so that you can recognize it when
Speaker 5: you're looking at the nutritional labels. Sometimes they have proprietory
Speaker 5: recipes that you're not allowed to know, so you can't
Speaker 5: even be sure which things have sugar in which don't.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's how successful they've been.
Speaker 2: I mean, what are some of the alternate names of
Speaker 2: sugar that you'd look for?
Speaker 5: So I'd have to go back to my sneaky I
Speaker 5: call it like sneaky names for sugar.
Speaker 1: It's like a lot of things with like sucrose or
Speaker 1: any something open.
Speaker 5: Well, there's ones that you expect, but there's things like gallictose.
Speaker 5: I mean, there's ones you expect, like maltose, glucose, dextros.
Speaker 5: Those are the ones you know, but then there's like
Speaker 5: there's and then there's things like dextrin. There's diastatic malt.
Speaker 5: There's ethyl maltol. There's malted dextrin, which I kind of
Speaker 5: you know, there's suconot, there's barley malt, there's.
Speaker 1: So malt is a any malt.
Speaker 5: There's treacle, which people in the UK.
Speaker 1: Would I thought that was a word for poop on
Speaker 1: last week's episode that we did. Yeah, it sounds.
Speaker 5: Like it possibly, you know, there's a lot of different
Speaker 5: words for it, yes, you know, and you have to
Speaker 5: start learning how to spot it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean that is the result of, you know,
Speaker 2: just hundreds and hundreds of people who are working for
Speaker 2: the sugar industry and paid really well to come up
Speaker 2: with different ways that they can get their product in
Speaker 2: all the food Like it's just it's so massive. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the average Yeah.
Speaker 5: The average American eats almost sixty pounds of sugar a year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sixty.
Speaker 1: Oh, it seems like too much sugar, but it is
Speaker 1: too much sugar.
Speaker 5: Okay, it's way too much sugar.
Speaker 2: I think of like like sugar just as like a
Speaker 2: lover of history has kind of been like the magnetic
Speaker 2: force of a lot of bad things, whether that's like
Speaker 2: the original crop that helped explode slavery in the United States,
Speaker 2: or like why we annexed places like Hawaii or Puerto Rico.
Speaker 5: In the environmental disasters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's does it like is there? I get
Speaker 2: that there's the big sugar lobby, But is there like
Speaker 2: a is there like a darker like is there a
Speaker 2: figurehead or is there like a group of companies or
Speaker 2: families or something that kind of are sort of have
Speaker 2: an outsized influence within the sugar industry because I feel
Speaker 2: like anything there's probably like everybody participating, and then you
Speaker 2: have like the real movers and shakers of sugar.
Speaker 1: So can I talk about just one scene that blew
Speaker 1: me away? Because then it kind of goes into this question.
Speaker 1: So Bill Clinton, remember him, Miles, he was the President
Speaker 1: of the United States when we're hi, President, Yes, is
Speaker 1: in the Oval office breaking up with Monica Lewinsky, like
Speaker 1: because he's like, look this, I've made a mistake.
Speaker 2: This is like not all bad. Yeah so bad. Oh No,
Speaker 2: I messed up big time.
Speaker 1: And as he's doing that, he's pulled away to a
Speaker 1: phone call with one of the sugar magnates at the
Speaker 1: center of this story that Big Sugar is about. Like
Speaker 1: that is how powerful. He's pulled away by this person
Speaker 1: who's like the prince of sugar. They're called the first
Speaker 1: Family of corporate Welfare because of like how much taxpayer
Speaker 1: money goes into their pockets. But like that is the level.
Speaker 1: One of these people decides to call the president. Right,
Speaker 1: He's like, sorry, I know this is a career threatening
Speaker 1: scandal that I'm trying to deal with here, but I
Speaker 1: gotta I gotta take this call from this guy who
Speaker 1: is the Prince of Sugarcane, who are the lanisters of
Speaker 1: the sugar game.
Speaker 5: So that's so we focus on here. And surprisingly enough,
Speaker 5: much like media companies, there's a small number of people
Speaker 5: pulling the levers in sugar and two of them are
Speaker 5: the Funhouol brothers, and one of them is who you
Speaker 5: were just talking about. And that was February of nineteen
Speaker 5: ninety six, and Alfi fun Whole calls Bill Clinton and
Speaker 5: they say, Alfi fun Hoole's on the phone, and he
Speaker 5: tells Monica Lewinsky to wait a minute, and he picks
Speaker 5: up the phone and takes that call. So the Alfi
Speaker 5: fund Hull brothers our Pepe Funhole and Alfi funhol Or,
Speaker 5: who are the sons of extremely wealthy Cubans who were unseated.
Speaker 5: They lost all their property and everything when Castro took
Speaker 5: power in Cuba, and they fled to the United States,
Speaker 5: and you know, they bought some land here and they
Speaker 5: eventually built an empire here. There are fewer than forty
Speaker 5: five hundred farm businesses that actually produce sugar in the
Speaker 5: United States, but the United States taxpayers pay more than
Speaker 5: four billion dollars a year in subsidies. Yeah, we're paying
Speaker 5: more than and and sugar in the United States. Is
Speaker 5: it's more expensive here than it is anywhere else in
Speaker 5: the world. So not only are we paying more than
Speaker 5: four billion dollars to the people who make sugar, we're
Speaker 5: also paying more for the sugar than anywhere else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you were saying that, like when you check the markets,
Speaker 1: like the sugar prices are like in the twenties in
Speaker 1: other countries, and in the US it's like in the
Speaker 1: forties or something like that. It's a double that's twice
Speaker 1: as expensive. It's so expensive, and we eat.
Speaker 2: So much more sugar, Like we should we should get
Speaker 2: credit for all the sugar we eat at least or yeah, right,
Speaker 2: like so much more sugar than any human species at all,
Speaker 2: or any human civilization at any time in history. Give us,
Speaker 2: give us a deal on all this sugar we're eating.
Speaker 1: Don't try to get more.
Speaker 2: Wait, why why are the prices locked at that rate?
Speaker 2: That's because of the subsidies that the lobby is able
Speaker 2: to extract, like through their lobbying efforts. Essentially.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So what we're talking about now is the Farm Bill,
Speaker 5: and the Farm Bill is a piece of legislation that
Speaker 5: comes up to be reauthorized every five years, and in fact,
Speaker 5: this is the year when the Farm Bill comes up
Speaker 5: for reauthorization. So there's actually quite a bit of lobbying
Speaker 5: that's going on right now, and in fact, there's a
Speaker 5: lot of people, including citizens like yourself, who are writing
Speaker 5: letters to their representatives saying, please do not include sugar
Speaker 5: subsidies in the farm Bill. That's what's in there. And
Speaker 5: part of the reason they're doing that is because sugar
Speaker 5: farming is the way that we do it right now,
Speaker 5: is environmentally catastrophic. They plant sugar cane, and because it's
Speaker 5: cheaper to do it at the after they pull all
Speaker 5: the cane down, they burn the fields. They burn them.
Speaker 5: And there's even places in Florida where they literally have
Speaker 5: legislation written in where that you can only burn them,
Speaker 5: so the smoke aims towards the poor part of town
Speaker 5: and it can't go the app spoken ash can't towards
Speaker 5: go towards the wealthy parts of town. Yeah, we visited
Speaker 5: a sugartown in Florida where we walked toward this elementary school.
Speaker 5: We walked in the parking lot at this elementary school
Speaker 5: in one of the lower socio economic places, and I
Speaker 5: was covered in ash in this elementary school parking lot coverage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just a like you know, apocalyptic.
Speaker 1: It's truly like an apocalyptic landscape that is the result
Speaker 1: of this system that is just funneling money to these
Speaker 1: like you know oligarchs. You know they are oligart they
Speaker 1: are you know, are on They can get Clinton whenever
Speaker 1: they want. I'm sure things haven't changed that much. We
Speaker 1: just like know about that instance because it was like
Speaker 1: such a famous meeting between him and Lewinsky. But they
Speaker 1: you know, there's just so much about like so much
Speaker 1: just wild.
Speaker 5: I should mention that Alfi von Hul's personal net worth
Speaker 5: is over a billion dollars.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 5: He had gone to that sugartown after visiting his yacht
Speaker 5: and house.
Speaker 2: Yacht Yeah, yeah, super hot.
Speaker 5: Yes, Yes, it's private yet yeah, I mean massive, massive estate.
Speaker 5: You can't we could not get anywhere near him. And
Speaker 5: this is one of the things that I came away
Speaker 5: with after all this reporting is that if you're wealthy
Speaker 5: enough to the United States, you don't have to answer
Speaker 5: questions about your Yeah, you don't have to answer questions.
Speaker 2: Miles.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the Lanisters and I do just you know,
Speaker 1: and when when you guys dig back into like how
Speaker 1: their you know, sugar empire was built, Like they built
Speaker 1: their fortune by like marrying different sugar producing families, like
Speaker 1: very much, just this soulless kind of power consolidation thing
Speaker 1: that happened over the course of many generations. And then
Speaker 1: they built their US fortune by getting tax benefits from
Speaker 1: the Farm Act, and you know, and then they claim
Speaker 1: to be self starters who you know, came here and
Speaker 1: you know, Castro stole everything from them and they came
Speaker 1: and rebuilt their thing. But it's all, you know, built
Speaker 1: from this generations and generations power consolidation, self mythologizing thing
Speaker 1: that there's that one interview where they're talking to one
Speaker 1: of them. I think it's Pepe is talking about a
Speaker 1: hotel where he spends like millions of dollars on a
Speaker 1: pretty regular basis, and he says, it's just it's a
Speaker 1: it's a great quote. You have to listen to the
Speaker 1: podcast which I'm sure is clear by now. But he's like,
Speaker 1: it's not as grand as the Ritz in Madrid or Paris,
Speaker 1: you know, which has a wonderful outdoor space to have lunch.
Speaker 1: But the people here they treat you like family.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they know what, they know what I like, They.
Speaker 2: Know what I like.
Speaker 1: They keep they have like they do photographs. They take
Speaker 1: photographs of the room when he leaves, so that it's
Speaker 1: like exactly everything's exactly where he wants it to be
Speaker 1: when he comes back, and like that is the that
Speaker 1: is what you are buying, I guess with this just soulless,
Speaker 1: horrifying consolidation of power and wealth.
Speaker 5: And this is I should also mention that Pepe fun
Speaker 5: who was friends with Jeffrey Epstein and was in his
Speaker 5: infamous Black Book.
Speaker 2: Of Contacts, of course.
Speaker 5: That they found as well. If you read Jeffrey Tubin's
Speaker 5: book on the subject, you would have found that in there.
Speaker 5: So yeah, you know, it's just a it's the whole
Speaker 5: thing is very and we haven't even started talking about
Speaker 5: the labor issues.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's what I want to get to next, sugar, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to get to next that next. But and
Speaker 1: kind of in transition to that. There's one moment where
Speaker 1: someone asks if he Alphie I think it is that
Speaker 1: one of the other the other brother, billionaire brother, is
Speaker 1: asked if he'd ever cut sugarcane before, like the process
Speaker 1: that is required to make this product that he has built.
Speaker 2: An empire on.
Speaker 1: And he laughs and he says he lasted like ten
Speaker 1: minutes and it was so overwhelmingly difficult he had to
Speaker 1: like give up. So that's and it's not like the
Speaker 1: irony of that seems to be totally lost on him
Speaker 1: and everything involved in this system, or at least it's
Speaker 1: like buried under so many layers of wealth and influence
Speaker 1: that they don't have to acknowledge it. But yeah, let's
Speaker 1: take a break and we'll come back and we'll talk
Speaker 1: about labor.
Speaker 2: And we are back, and yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Mean there's so many scenes. The trip to the town
Speaker 1: that is like the sugar camp cane plantation town that
Speaker 1: is like just you know, covered in smoke and you know,
Speaker 1: just a matter. There's also like a scene I think
Speaker 1: it's in the eighties maybe nineties in Florida, like the
Speaker 1: Dog War where like workers strike and the police come
Speaker 1: in and start arresting everyone and seeking police dogs on
Speaker 1: them and like basically deport them at the point of
Speaker 1: a shotgun. And like usually when people think about labor
Speaker 1: being threatened to the point of a gun by like
Speaker 1: state power, we go back to like the nineteen twenties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: pinkertons and shit. But this is happening now, Like this
Speaker 1: is happening in our life.
Speaker 5: Within our lifetimes.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, the whole thing is just Even
Speaker 6: for me, and I've been a journalist for over twenty years,
Speaker 6: even for me, there were so many points in this
Speaker 6: where I was.
Speaker 5: Like, are you are you kidding me? Honestly, it has
Speaker 5: put me off sugar. I can't not eat it is
Speaker 5: as I mentioned, that's really hard to do, but it has.
Speaker 5: It has put me off sugar.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it feels like again like just even the
Speaker 2: historical context of it, You're like, it's it started off
Speaker 2: as like a justification for the use of.
Speaker 5: Slave labor and colonization.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and now and like it's still in this like
Speaker 2: obscure place where like even right now I'm like looking
Speaker 2: up the fon Houl Brothers and the first thing will
Speaker 2: come up. It's like, hey, part of the like Florida,
Speaker 2: like agricultural Hall of Fame, and there's nothing like so
Speaker 2: these people are allowed to still live in this like
Speaker 2: very weird, like you know, semi obscurity while being you know,
Speaker 2: like at the wheel of one of the most fucked
Speaker 2: up industries in terms of like health outcomes and labor.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I mean, I guess. So now we are
Speaker 2: in a what when you say slavery now with sugar
Speaker 2: cane or sugar plantations and there the farming of it.
Speaker 2: Are we talking? What what kind of slavery? Which is so
Speaker 2: weird to ask, what are the dement like? What does
Speaker 2: that look like in this modern context?
Speaker 5: At the center of our podcast is this long year's
Speaker 5: long case that was on behalf of a large number
Speaker 5: of cane cutters. For a long time, American sugar producers
Speaker 5: used immigrants from H one n one workers from Jamaica.
Speaker 5: And part of the reason they admitted that they used
Speaker 5: workers from Jamaica was because a they couldn't get American
Speaker 5: workers to do the work for that low of pay.
Speaker 5: It was incredibly dangerous and hard work, and also American
Speaker 5: workers would faint from the heat. So they brought in
Speaker 5: Jamaican workers and had them do it for a long time,
Speaker 5: and it gave them a lot of control because if
Speaker 5: they were ever if they ever angered the boss, they
Speaker 5: could immediately deport.
Speaker 2: Them send them back.
Speaker 5: So after this this long case, they automated the fields.
Speaker 5: So even though the machines are not as th row,
Speaker 5: they don't get every single cane the way that the
Speaker 5: workers did. In the end, they found it to be
Speaker 5: more cost effective than using workers because machines don't file
Speaker 5: class action lawsuits against you, right exactly, They don't chop
Speaker 5: their fingers and limbs off. Although they never it's not
Speaker 5: like they got them real medical attention, right. So when
Speaker 5: we talk about slavery, a this is an industry that
Speaker 5: is just intertwined with the history of slavery. It's impossible
Speaker 5: to tear them apart. For me personally, I think that
Speaker 5: the United States is kind of an era of wage
Speaker 5: slavery in a lot of different industries just kind of
Speaker 5: writ large, which is a whole separate subject. But when
Speaker 5: it comes to slavery in and of itself, even though
Speaker 5: in the United States we have mechanized a lot of
Speaker 5: sugar production, we get a lot of our sugar ourcane
Speaker 5: is cut in other countries like Dominican Republican elsewhere where,
Speaker 5: it is still the same kind of conditions as we
Speaker 5: had here on these farms that we were talking about
Speaker 5: in the podcast. So that's what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So in this case, early on there is this
Speaker 1: you know, for first of all, lawyers who are advocating
Speaker 1: on behalf of farm workers are treated just you know,
Speaker 1: it's very like at one point one of them, one
Speaker 1: of the lawyers who's advocating on behalf of labor, like
Speaker 1: gets a call from you know, somebody. Now I don't
Speaker 1: know that it was in the sugar industry, but they say, listen,
Speaker 1: I'm about to leave town and I want to kill you.
Speaker 1: I want you to drive down to my farm so
Speaker 1: I can shoot you, yeah, which he politely declines. But
Speaker 1: it's just there's so much going against anybody trying to
Speaker 1: advocate on being half of people who are being abused
Speaker 1: or enslaved by these massive industries. And so these lawyers
Speaker 1: get together this class action lawsuit, they win a case,
Speaker 1: and then you know, they immediately like because it's very
Speaker 1: clear cut. It's like the sugar companies said they were
Speaker 1: going to pay one thing in this contract and then
Speaker 1: did not pay that to them and paid like basically
Speaker 1: way less than minimum wage.
Speaker 2: But then it as it gets to.
Speaker 1: Higher courts through an appeals process. Yeah, through the appeals process,
Speaker 1: Like it really felt like the low level judge was
Speaker 1: able to see what was accurate, like see the truth
Speaker 1: because presumably like she wasn't the industry hadn't bothered to
Speaker 1: buy her offer or something like. Because it's like, as
Speaker 1: it gets higher and higher, like these judges just suddenly
Speaker 1: aren't making these kind of questionable, baffling decisions that really
Speaker 1: favor the sugar industry.
Speaker 5: So a couple things. First of all, it was and
Speaker 5: I'm saying all this to the best of my ability,
Speaker 5: none of this is obviously proven. So for as far
Speaker 5: as I can tell, in my opinion, it looks as though,
Speaker 5: possibly intentionally, things were made as confusing as possible. When
Speaker 5: it came to recording hours and wages, we know for
Speaker 5: sure that the hours people worked were not always accurate.
Speaker 5: And we know that for sure because they found record
Speaker 5: books in which there were changes made to how many
Speaker 5: hours people worked in order to pay them less per ton, Right,
Speaker 5: Like if someone had worked a certain number of hours
Speaker 5: per day, it was changed to six hours per day
Speaker 5: instead so they could pay them less and it If
Speaker 5: this sounds confusing, even with the way that I'm saying
Speaker 5: it right now, you can understand why maybe the sugar
Speaker 5: companies thought the judge wouldn't get it. So it seemed
Speaker 5: to me, as I was reading through all this stuff,
Speaker 5: and I had to read through it four or five
Speaker 5: six times, that possibly they banked on the fact that
Speaker 5: the judge wouldn't get it. Now, I will say that
Speaker 5: it was only the fun Holes actually let it go
Speaker 5: to court. The other sugar companies settled, So the fun
Speaker 5: Hools insisted on fighting this, and they fought it for years.
Speaker 5: I would guess they probably spent well a lot more
Speaker 5: in fighting this than the other companies had settled for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they had this idealistic vision of themselves as like,
Speaker 1: you know, we came and built this thing from nothing principle.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, but it does, I don't know, it
Speaker 1: does feel like the low level, lower level judge was
Speaker 1: able to figure it out.
Speaker 5: Yes, But you know, here's the thing. If you follow
Speaker 5: this whole and I don't want to give it away
Speaker 5: because frankly, it's a really compelling story this case as
Speaker 5: you follow it through. But in the end, the only
Speaker 5: defense they have is this centuries old like pre Civil
Speaker 5: War law, Right, that's the only way they end up
Speaker 5: being able to prevail. And when you finally realize this,
Speaker 5: when you get to the end, that that's how they
Speaker 5: are able to keep from paying these workers. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 5: it just feels so spiteful to me. I mean, these
Speaker 5: are workers who even the smallest amount of money would
Speaker 5: have made such a difference to their lives. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 5: and they spent more than that on lawyer's fees and.
Speaker 2: For what for what? Yeah, their margin a little bit, well.
Speaker 5: You know, for the twenty three million. I mean, it
Speaker 5: wasn't even for the twenty three million dollar yacht sitting
Speaker 5: behind his house, because again, they spent more than that
Speaker 5: on their.
Speaker 2: Attorneys, right, I mean you know that. I was just
Speaker 2: looking at the political donations of this family because I
Speaker 2: was just like, oh, let me, let me see, and like, oh,
Speaker 2: you guys are that big because you give it to everybody, everybody,
Speaker 2: you know, they're not just like we're we're into conservative politics.
Speaker 2: They were giving money to Maxwell Frost, the youngest member
Speaker 2: of Congress out of Florida, like maxing out and you're like,
Speaker 2: oh shit, Okay, like people, I'm sure they know you, like,
Speaker 2: especially if you live in Florida, because they I mean,
Speaker 2: it's like every single person in Congress is getting money
Speaker 2: from them, and I'm sure many people just probably think
Speaker 2: of them as like, oh, yeah, they're like a farming family.
Speaker 2: And I wonder if what someone like like a more
Speaker 2: progressive politician would think about being like, yo, do do
Speaker 2: you know, like what's up with that? Do you understand
Speaker 2: like like where that money is coming from and how
Speaker 2: that might be a little bit problematic in terms of
Speaker 2: someone's politics. But again, we're in the age of corporate
Speaker 2: funded entities in Congress, so it's.
Speaker 5: See what now you see the purpose one of the
Speaker 5: purposes of the podcast, like this is the whole reason
Speaker 5: for this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that people do know, yeah, what's.
Speaker 5: Going on here?
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I'm like, wow, you're giving to like doctor Oz,
Speaker 2: Joe Manchin any but Debbie Wasserman Schultz, like everybody that
Speaker 2: basically has any kind of saying I'm sure they. I'm
Speaker 2: sure there are people who run their pack or whatever
Speaker 2: their political spending or savvy enough to know where to
Speaker 2: send that money based on committee assignments and all that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's wow. Yeah, it's why not playing well?
Speaker 1: Celeste, thank you so much for coming on talking about
Speaker 1: the show. The show is called Big Sugar and it
Speaker 1: drops this week, right it does. Yeah, So you can
Speaker 1: go find that wherever fine podcasts are published. Where can
Speaker 1: people find you, follow you, find out more about all
Speaker 1: this stuff.
Speaker 5: So my website is just Celesteheadley dot com for the
Speaker 5: moment on Twitter all on that last, and that's almost
Speaker 5: the only social media besides Instagram where I put post
Speaker 5: post pictures of.
Speaker 2: My dog and your dog? Is there sugar? Is there
Speaker 2: sugar in art pet food too?
Speaker 5: Not the pet food I buy?
Speaker 2: Okay, good to know, yes.
Speaker 5: But you got to read the label. Read the label.
Speaker 2: One question though, when they say added sugar, is that
Speaker 2: like another Is that another ploy of the industry or
Speaker 2: that's more just to say about the process, because other
Speaker 2: times you see like no added sugar aside from the
Speaker 2: stuff that's like naturally occurring.
Speaker 5: And it's already in it. Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Is that is that a way to be like
Speaker 2: adding it to that? Yeah? Yeah, sense it's all around cleus.
Speaker 1: Does there a work of media that you've been enjoying.
Speaker 5: A work of media? Actually, I just shared on on
Speaker 5: Twitter today. This really the short video from a kind
Speaker 5: named mic O Vaughn and you can find it. Actually
Speaker 5: I retweeted it, but he sent it out on on
Speaker 5: Instagram and it's he made it a satire video about
Speaker 5: a product called could You Fucking Not? And it's for
Speaker 5: people who men who have correct ale dysfunction and correct
Speaker 5: women who know more about a subject than they do.
Speaker 5: So it's pretty brilliant and I have probably watched it
Speaker 5: like ten times maybe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Miles, where can people find you?
Speaker 1: What is the work at media you've been enjoying? Uh?
Speaker 2: You can find me on Twitter, Instagram, other at based
Speaker 2: entities at Miles of Gray. Also, if you want to
Speaker 2: hear some basketball chatter, check out Jacket and Eyes basketball podcast.
Speaker 2: Miles and Jack Got Mad Mousies. You know, don't talking
Speaker 2: about the off season. There's still a lot to talk about,
Speaker 2: believe it or not, because there's so much happening. And
Speaker 2: I saw Victor webbin Yama get absolutely swarmed at the
Speaker 2: airport as he touched down for a Draft day. And
Speaker 2: then also if you want to hear me talk about
Speaker 2: my favorite trash reality shows, check me out on four
Speaker 2: to twenty Day Fiance with Sophia Alexandra a tweet that
Speaker 2: I like, you know, just like this. There's this tweet
Speaker 2: of just like one of the strike signs from the
Speaker 2: writer's strike that's happening. And at Joe Russo tweets, just
Speaker 2: put up a screen or like a picture of one
Speaker 2: of these like picket signs with a quote from an
Speaker 2: Apple executive that said quote, writers think they're the center
Speaker 2: of the fucking universe. And you're like, wow, well yeah,
Speaker 2: you kind of need that for your little ideas. But
Speaker 2: but go off, Apple executive. It's just interesting to see,
Speaker 2: you know how, just their perspective all the time about
Speaker 2: being like they think they're this, it's us. We have
Speaker 2: the money, and I'm sure they have the ideas that
Speaker 2: helped make the money. But come the fuck off. Good
Speaker 2: luck to that good luck.
Speaker 1: A couple McDonald's based tweets. Will Send It tweeted losing
Speaker 1: my lust for life. Just ate a big Mac and
Speaker 1: didn't grin or chuckle at all. I only said who
Speaker 1: has it better than me? Two times? It's no idiot,
Speaker 1: Big Mac. And then hex and Kraft tweeted pronouncing Grimace
Speaker 1: like VERSACEI so Grimachi is a good, good way to put.
Speaker 2: A little pizzazz. Yeah, exactly, like saying like asparta may
Speaker 2: That's right exactly.
Speaker 1: You can find me on Twitter, Jack Underscore Obrian. You
Speaker 1: can find us on Twitter at daily Zeikeeist. We're at
Speaker 1: d daily Zeikeist on Instagram. We have Facebook fan page
Speaker 1: and a website, Daily zeikeist dot com. Worry post our
Speaker 1: episodes and our footnote. We link off the information that
Speaker 1: we talked about in today's episode, as well as a
Speaker 1: song that we think you might enjoy. Miles is their
Speaker 1: song you think people mightn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've stumbled upon a really cool I think quart
Speaker 2: Yeah it is. I like, I think they're a quartet.
Speaker 2: They're called Speaker's Corner Quartet. I'm like, I think, yeah,
Speaker 2: they're quartet from London. Really great musicians, Like if you
Speaker 2: like Hiatus, Coyote or bands with like high musician fluency
Speaker 2: kind of vibes, this is a This is a great
Speaker 2: band and this track is called Soapbox Soliloquy, really really
Speaker 2: great track. If you like live bands with that hip
Speaker 2: hop feel and good musicianship, this tracks for you. So
Speaker 2: check out Soapbox Soliloquy by Speakers Corner Quartet. All Right, well.
Speaker 2: The daily is Eitgeist is a production by Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast,
Speaker 1: or wherever you list your favorite shows. That's going to
Speaker 1: do it for us this morning. You're back this afternoon
Speaker 1: to tell you what is trending and we will talk
Speaker 1: to you all then.
Speaker 2: Bye bye,