Speaker 1: So, Hi, I'm Tom Collichio, and I'm sure that some
Speaker 1: of you know me from Top Chef, where I play
Speaker 1: that that strict, stern judge and you know, from rolling
Speaker 1: my eyes and kind of making people nervous. But I'm
Speaker 1: also a chef and restaurateur. I've been cooking for well
Speaker 1: over forty years now. Also, I'm a co founder of
Speaker 1: Food Policy Action and so but I guess my, my,
Speaker 1: my hold on a second. I didn't like where I
Speaker 1: was going with this. Try this again. Hey, I'm Tom Collikio.
Speaker 1: This is my podcast Citizen Chef. You know, I am
Speaker 1: a working chef. I have seven restaurants and some in Manhattan,
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. I also have another side
Speaker 1: of me. I am a food activist. And what does
Speaker 1: that mean. I'm on a conference call every morning with
Speaker 1: a hundred chefs across the country. Again, the Family First program,
Speaker 1: the SNAP program is actually has expanded. We got rid
Speaker 1: of all the restrictstions to receive We got to talk
Speaker 1: about not just the economics here. Cafeteria workers. They are
Speaker 1: first spenders at this point and they need to be
Speaker 1: treated that way. They are doing They're doing God's work
Speaker 1: right now. From our next Senator from Pennsylvania. So you're
Speaker 1: asking yourself, why the chef? Why is he up here
Speaker 1: right now? Let me tell you. I'm just a regular guy.
Speaker 1: I was the first food correspondent on MSNBC, and UM,
Speaker 1: you know that that that was a pretty good gig
Speaker 1: for a while until the election three years ago, and
Speaker 1: that kind of knocked food off the table. So I
Speaker 1: decided to turn this into a podcast, and um, this
Speaker 1: podcast is is really going to tell a story about
Speaker 1: food through the news of the day. You know, everywhere
Speaker 1: I look when I see a news story, I immediately
Speaker 1: link it to the food system. You know, whether it's immigration,
Speaker 1: military preparedness, healthcare, and even the economy. Every single one
Speaker 1: of these issues is touched by food and the food
Speaker 1: that we eat. We're gonna interview experts and people at
Speaker 1: a response well for our food policy as well as
Speaker 1: farmers and food producers all through this country. We're gonna
Speaker 1: see if we can make our food system a more
Speaker 1: equable one for all. I can came to food politics
Speaker 1: in a very interesting way. My wife is a filmmaker
Speaker 1: and she co directed a film called A Place to Table,
Speaker 1: and it looked at hunger in America. We Uh, figured
Speaker 1: out pretty quickly when we started doing research on the
Speaker 1: film that people in this country are not hungry because
Speaker 1: of famine, are because of war, because of drought. People
Speaker 1: are hungry in this country because they often don't have
Speaker 1: the dollars to feed themselves, and we don't have the
Speaker 1: political will to make sure everyone is well nourished here. Well,
Speaker 1: every single president since Reagan has gone on record saying
Speaker 1: that one, if one person is hunger in this country,
Speaker 1: we failed, and yet nothing seems to happen about it.
Speaker 1: And this is both Republicans and Democrats, and nothing seems
Speaker 1: to happen about it. And so hopefully, um with this film,
Speaker 1: we can shine a light on this and hopefully that
Speaker 1: will start a public discourse. And so after my wife's
Speaker 1: film came out, it really gave me a platform, especially
Speaker 1: to talk about hunger food issues in a very different
Speaker 1: context that put me right in the crosshairs of a
Speaker 1: political conversation. And very soon after founding Member of Food Policy,
Speaker 1: I co founded an organization called Food Policy Action Jeff,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Ken, Thanks Happy Food Date, a DC based
Speaker 1: group that worked on various food policies and whether we're
Speaker 1: issues of hunger and farming and transparency in the food
Speaker 1: system or fishing. We produced a score card and we
Speaker 1: grad a congress on how they voted on various food issues.
Speaker 1: About about values. So if you value how your food
Speaker 1: iss made, if you value where your food comes from,
Speaker 1: if you value uh farm communities? So, how how did
Speaker 1: I get here? How did I go from being a
Speaker 1: chef and TV personality to activists? I guess we should
Speaker 1: we should take you through a brief journey of how
Speaker 1: I got here, back to uh, you know, growing up.
Speaker 1: You know, I grew up at with New Jersey, grew
Speaker 1: up in a kind of family where we had to
Speaker 1: be home every single night for dinner. And I saw
Speaker 1: how important food was, and not only in terms of
Speaker 1: nourishing us and keeping us healthy, but how it brought
Speaker 1: people around the table and created those conversations. My dad
Speaker 1: was a union organizer and he helped on some local campaigns,
Speaker 1: and my mother ran a school cafeteria, And you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't really think much of that. It happens every
Speaker 1: noon for the pupil who takes advantage of the lunch program.
Speaker 1: This noontime lunch maybe the only real food some of
Speaker 1: these children see all day long. Miss school and miss lunch,
Speaker 1: So it's important they sit here with someone to care
Speaker 1: for you. I never really thought much about it in
Speaker 1: terms of giving back to a community. Later on, I
Speaker 1: learned how important that job actually was one the issue
Speaker 1: that has really made a difference generally. I think it's
Speaker 1: very good. It's better school food. May we keep it please?
Speaker 1: I would like to introduce Mary Nestl. We're talking to
Speaker 1: her today because she literally wrote the book on the
Speaker 1: politics of food. I was going to all these meetings
Speaker 1: about childhood obesity in the mid nines, and I would
Speaker 1: go to these meetings of the pain Are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: How come nobody's talking about how the food industry is
Speaker 1: marketing junk food to kids. You know, why aren't they
Speaker 1: talking about the environment in which parents are trying to
Speaker 1: feed their children. I was pretty upset by it, so
Speaker 1: I started writing articles about it, and those articles lead
Speaker 1: to my book Food Politics, which has a chapter on
Speaker 1: feeding kids and exactly that kind of thing. Her books
Speaker 1: have been so helpful to me, and um, she's really
Speaker 1: helped shape my ideas around food policy, and so I
Speaker 1: thought this would be a great place to start. How's
Speaker 1: it going. It's not bad, It's not bad like most people. Marryan,
Speaker 1: UH and I are practicing our social distancing during this pandemic.
Speaker 1: So we uh we spoke via zoom. I'm in the
Speaker 1: highest risk demographic for this thing. Yeah, obviously, so much
Speaker 1: has changed. Um, but I want to sort of start
Speaker 1: off because and part of the reason I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to you is because if ever I had to
Speaker 1: go to the hill of talk policy usually, UM, I
Speaker 1: called to you first, and uh, just to understand policy
Speaker 1: lit better and understand from someone who knows it inside. Now, UM,
Speaker 1: you kind of wrote the book on food policy. When
Speaker 1: it comes to teaching you, how how did you? How
Speaker 1: did you get how did you you start teaching food policy? Well,
Speaker 1: I have a doctorate in molecular biology. I'm a last
Speaker 1: molecular biologist. On my first teaching job, I was given
Speaker 1: a nutrition course to teach. It was like falling in love. UM.
Speaker 1: I had been teaching selling molecular biology to premit students
Speaker 1: and it was very abstract and difficult for them to understand.
Speaker 1: And when I started teaching nutrition, I could see that
Speaker 1: this was the most wonderful way to teach undergraduate biology
Speaker 1: because everybody got it. Everybody eats everybody's interested in food.
Speaker 1: You could talk about metabolism, you could talk about all
Speaker 1: kinds of serious biological concepts within the context of food,
Speaker 1: and everybody just ate it up mhm as it were.
Speaker 1: When did you first start teaching food policy? That was
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies six, You know, I taught a class in nutrition,
Speaker 1: and in that class, I remember using as readings a
Speaker 1: book that had been written by Center for Science and
Speaker 1: the Public Interests called Food for People Not for Profit,
Speaker 1: that could have been written yesterday. I remember using some
Speaker 1: articles that were in the New York Review of Books
Speaker 1: about sugar policy in that very first class, because I
Speaker 1: had never seen anything like that, and it was an environing,
Speaker 1: serious academic who just couldn't believe that the way that
Speaker 1: sugar subsidies and tariffs, the ent tariff system work was
Speaker 1: to make sugar more expensive in order to protect the
Speaker 1: businesses of sugar growers in Louisiana Nebraska. Is ragging nize
Speaker 1: for one minute. When I first came to Congress in
Speaker 1: nineteen sugar prices were skyroggety. Consumers were furious then, But
Speaker 1: I do not hear consumers complain anymore. Time of the
Speaker 1: gentle lady has expired the gentleman from New York is
Speaker 1: we see displayed before US boxes of cereal and cans
Speaker 1: of soda, And the gestion is made that with the
Speaker 1: thousands of people who compete there, that if we reduce
Speaker 1: one of the raw material prices into that that that
Speaker 1: will not be passed on to the consumer. Nonsense. Time,
Speaker 1: gentleman has expired. Gentleman from Louisiana, Mr Chairman I Yilmar
Speaker 1: remaining time to the Chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Mr.
Speaker 1: Dela cars recognized vote no on the down the amendment.
Speaker 1: It's jobs, USA, Jobs, USA, Jobs, USA, Jobs, USA. You
Speaker 1: can't cut it anymore, you can't hide it anymore. It's jobs, jobs,
Speaker 1: jobs in the U. S A. Vote no on the amendment.
Speaker 1: But the gentleman niel I yield. I'd like the chairman
Speaker 1: for yelling. Let me point out the European supports sugar
Speaker 1: at thirty cents a pound, the United States at eighteen cents.
Speaker 1: Our farmers will compete head up with anyone, but we
Speaker 1: can't compete against the europe with the gentleman. Same time,
Speaker 1: and the gentleman has expired, USA. Um. You know again,
Speaker 1: this was forty years ago and nothing has changed anyway.
Speaker 1: Has it gotten worse before COVID hit. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: the supermarkets have much much better food than they did
Speaker 1: thirty years ago, more farmers markets, more communities supported agriculture.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, the marketers have gotten even
Speaker 1: better at that selling unhealthy food to two people as well.
Speaker 1: And at the same time, if you're rich and educated,
Speaker 1: it's really easy to eat healthfully, or it was before
Speaker 1: COVID hit. So we have we have to talk about
Speaker 1: pre coved and post covered. You know, when I first
Speaker 1: conceived this podcast, I want to talk about food and
Speaker 1: where we eat and why we eat, and how the
Speaker 1: food gets to us and what it means to us,
Speaker 1: how it unites us and brings us around a table.
Speaker 1: This podcast was originally going to expose the fragility of
Speaker 1: our food system through conversations that we hear on the
Speaker 1: news all the time, issues around the economy and healthcare.
Speaker 1: Will you take a hard look at those issues and
Speaker 1: try to improve the quality of healthcare and education for
Speaker 1: the Native American people? Yes, I will, and I take
Speaker 1: it serious. Immigration in the environment, and then COVID happened,
Speaker 1: Various industries are starting to feel the brunt of the virus.
Speaker 1: As the pandemic continues to drastically alter americans daily lives.
Speaker 1: In a matter of weeks, the restaurant industry tank due
Speaker 1: to shelter and place orders. Me processing facilities were compromised
Speaker 1: by the virus. Unemployment skyrocketed, forcing people who would never
Speaker 1: experienced food and security to wait in a mile long
Speaker 1: car lines at food banks. All the while we're seeing
Speaker 1: food that's being thrown out, highlighting exactly how delicate and
Speaker 1: inflexible our food system really is. Let's let our viewers
Speaker 1: take part in this conversation. We'll start with Bill, who's
Speaker 1: calling from North Illinois. Bill, good morning, Good morning. I
Speaker 1: uh so, I saw these images from San Antonio where
Speaker 1: ten thousand cars were lined up at some food banks
Speaker 1: in San Antonio. Not My question is this, I live
Speaker 1: in a relatively affluent area and there's there's a food bank,
Speaker 1: and but how the people that are lined up in
Speaker 1: San Antonio? Are these people that have applied for SNAP
Speaker 1: and not been accepted or I mean, who are these people?
Speaker 1: I think how it has done one really terrific thing,
Speaker 1: and that's to expose how the food system works. In
Speaker 1: this podcast, we'll be looking at that food system. That
Speaker 1: we've relied on few people all over the world, and
Speaker 1: how the pandemic has compromised it in a really visible way.
Speaker 1: If COVID has done anything it's to expose the problems
Speaker 1: with healthcare system. But I think that the food system
Speaker 1: also clary. If you were if you were teaching, what
Speaker 1: is your lesson plan look like post COVID? What has
Speaker 1: it changed for me? COVID is the perfect illustration of
Speaker 1: everything I've been teaching for years, and it just highlights
Speaker 1: the contradictions in our food system and the way that
Speaker 1: a system that is set up for profit, not to
Speaker 1: promote the health of humans or the health of the planet,
Speaker 1: is destructive and vulnerable. And the COVID points out the
Speaker 1: vulnerability of the vulnerability of the system which may not
Speaker 1: have been obvious before. So in a way it makes
Speaker 1: teaching easier. What you want is you want a food
Speaker 1: system that's resilient, that can deal with something like this,
Speaker 1: and that means that it has to be decentralized much
Speaker 1: more than it currently is and focused on much more
Speaker 1: on human welfare then on corporate profits. And boy that
Speaker 1: takes some thinking. The point does the health of the
Speaker 1: planet and the health of individuals. When does that become
Speaker 1: more valuable and where's the profit net? What policies can
Speaker 1: you create, What levers are there you can pull that
Speaker 1: would make healthy food more profitable and make the health
Speaker 1: of the planet more profitable. Well, that has to happen
Speaker 1: through government. There are things that government is really good
Speaker 1: for and this is one of them. And I think
Speaker 1: that it would be possible, with no trouble at all,
Speaker 1: to dream of government regulations that would make for a
Speaker 1: much healthier food system for everybody. Many of our democratic
Speaker 1: colleagues have rushed to embrace the so called grain. The
Speaker 1: Green New Deal that was you know, put up by
Speaker 1: some legislators was a step in that direction, go much further.
Speaker 1: But the Green New Deal would kill our country. The
Speaker 1: deal Green New Deal would have a devastating effect on
Speaker 1: the world and it's not gonna happen anyway, because it's
Speaker 1: impossible for them to do it. If you have a
Speaker 1: look at what they want to do under the Green
Speaker 1: New Deal, it's it's like baby talk. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: someone who believes that there's a role for government in
Speaker 1: these kinds of things, and that the kinds of food
Speaker 1: regulations that we have now are set up to promote
Speaker 1: corporate profits. That's what they're set up to do. That's
Speaker 1: because we have an electoral system and a lobbying system
Speaker 1: where corporations have the money to make legislators do what
Speaker 1: they want. One of the things that the virus has
Speaker 1: exposed also are the lobbying forces behind some of these
Speaker 1: kinds of rules. But we're going to be taking a
Speaker 1: look at this new trend bioengineered crops and what, if anything,
Speaker 1: the federal government should do about it. Our first call
Speaker 1: for Mr Bettelheim is from Cleveland, Ohio. Good morning, Good morning.
Speaker 1: I think they should be prifably regulated because you're dealing
Speaker 1: with things that most people don't understand and it could
Speaker 1: be harmful. You begin to see how the system works
Speaker 1: in a way that a lot of people may not
Speaker 1: have noticed or don't realize. So you could have regulations
Speaker 1: that set a level playing field for food corporations that
Speaker 1: enabled them to make a profit, just maybe not as
Speaker 1: much of a profit. If you look at where the
Speaker 1: profits go and you look at where the bailout money
Speaker 1: is going. The bailout money is going to corporations that
Speaker 1: are paying their executives very high salaries, that are giving
Speaker 1: stockholder is the dividends that they have been promised and
Speaker 1: that are not paying the workers who are doing the work.
Speaker 1: The National Black Farmers Association, good morning, Thank you for
Speaker 1: being with us. Good mornings. A PLEASU should be here
Speaker 1: with you this morning. A demonstration here in Washington against
Speaker 1: the Agriculture Department in particular and the government in general.
Speaker 1: What's it all about. Well, basically, we've been struggling with
Speaker 1: the United States Department of Aquaculture for about since December
Speaker 1: of nine, and we've made a many trips to Washington,
Speaker 1: d c. And since that time the issue is really
Speaker 1: escalated to where the farmers are at dire stress. Right,
Speaker 1: the equality in the United States has gotten the way
Speaker 1: it was in the nineteen twenties. It's not how people
Speaker 1: survived in the nineteen forties, fifties and sixties and seventies.
Speaker 1: For forty years we had much less inequality in this
Speaker 1: country and the country did very well. But my father
Speaker 1: sold wheat at nineteen forty for for two for almost
Speaker 1: two dollars of bushel and and we just not selling today,
Speaker 1: uh for just about the same price. And at that
Speaker 1: time a loafer bread was a dime, and today is
Speaker 1: almost two dollars. So there's a lot of profitability that's
Speaker 1: going on somewhere, and it's it's not going to farmers.
Speaker 1: Well it's white, a black o, whatever color it. Maybe
Speaker 1: the economy boom, everybody did really well. They just didn't
Speaker 1: make excessive profits. The kinds of money that the upper
Speaker 1: one percent makes now are ridiculous. They couldn't possibly spend
Speaker 1: at all. You need enough money to be able to
Speaker 1: live a decent life. And then beyond that, what are
Speaker 1: you gonna do with it? You know, the system that
Speaker 1: is really there to benefit you know, big egg and
Speaker 1: large producers, it doesn't really take care of of eaters.
Speaker 1: It doesn't take care of small farmers. It doesn't take
Speaker 1: care of branchers and fishermen and people who actually are
Speaker 1: working in that food system to produce food. COVID really
Speaker 1: change the face of food. It's really shown us what
Speaker 1: our food system really is like and how vulnerable it is.
Speaker 1: So again, post coded, what do you want to see
Speaker 1: come out of this? What do you think of table
Speaker 1: right now? Like, for instance, I think right now if
Speaker 1: you had asked me four months ago whether or not
Speaker 1: we could have national health care, our natural national insurance
Speaker 1: for health care. I would say, there's no way you're
Speaker 1: gonna get sixty votes in the Senate. And now I'm
Speaker 1: thinking that possibly there there may be an appe site,
Speaker 1: especially when you look at twenty two million people who
Speaker 1: were laid off, and most cases health care is tied
Speaker 1: to your workplace, so probably sixteen millions of those people
Speaker 1: have no longer have health care. I would imagine someone
Speaker 1: may still have health care. And so it's showing just
Speaker 1: just how our system does not work. It's exposed, and
Speaker 1: so the question is how can you take that exposure
Speaker 1: and turn it into legislation when you are fighting an
Speaker 1: insurance industry and a political party that is completely opposed
Speaker 1: to it. In that political party, happens to the empower Now,
Speaker 1: you know, I think we're really hunger for smart solutions,
Speaker 1: especially now is food in security is growing and people
Speaker 1: are are more vulnerable than ever. So it's it's easy
Speaker 1: to point out how how things are broken. But the
Speaker 1: end of this podcast is to not only point out
Speaker 1: what is wrong with our food system, about to give
Speaker 1: some concrete ideas of how we can solve these problems
Speaker 1: and make sure that we all have a shot at healthy,
Speaker 1: nutritious food. And I don't have the crystal ball on this.
Speaker 1: I can tell you what I'd like to see, universal
Speaker 1: health care. I'd like to see universal school meals. I'd
Speaker 1: like to see a federal subsidy system for agriculture that
Speaker 1: rewards the growers of fruits and vegetables for producing them
Speaker 1: at a price that people can actually afford. I'd like
Speaker 1: to see, I mean, certainly, a minimum livable wage for everybody.
Speaker 1: Corporations that hire large numbers of employees in the food
Speaker 1: system pay the minimum wage, and those employees are on
Speaker 1: food stamps, so that the taxpayers are subsidizing those corporations
Speaker 1: for paying low wages. There's something wrong with that that
Speaker 1: that needs to fix. I don't think that would be
Speaker 1: hard to fix if there were political will. So the
Speaker 1: real question is how do you get the political will.
Speaker 1: It depends on how angry the population gets about what's
Speaker 1: going on right now. There is an element deliberately fostering
Speaker 1: a movement to try to unlock the economy and expose
Speaker 1: lots and lots of people to the virus. But we're
Speaker 1: going to be back and we're opening our country, and
Speaker 1: I hope that the lockdown governors. I don't know why
Speaker 1: they continue to lock down because if you look at Georgia,
Speaker 1: if you look at Florida, if you look at the
Speaker 1: ones that are most energetic about opening, they are doing
Speaker 1: tremendous business. And that this is what these numbers are
Speaker 1: all about. So what if people die? And I've heard
Speaker 1: people say that it just takes my breath away. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess, I guess. My hope is that
Speaker 1: COVID can bring together some sort of cooperation. Wouldn't that
Speaker 1: wouldn't wouldn't be? Would be nice? Well, I think that
Speaker 1: you have to use the political system in the way
Speaker 1: everybody else uses the political system. You get as many
Speaker 1: people together as you possibly can to write letters, to call,
Speaker 1: to zoom their congressional representatives and make their congressional representatives
Speaker 1: know that they want a better food assistant system, they
Speaker 1: want a better healthcare system, they want better school food,
Speaker 1: and they want these things and think that they deserve
Speaker 1: these things and demand these things. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: a time for political action, but it requires large numbers
Speaker 1: of people doing it, and that means they have to
Speaker 1: be organized in some way. But if enough individuals call
Speaker 1: and complain, the congressional representatives will hear them, and they
Speaker 1: won't hear just one person, They have to hear lots
Speaker 1: of people, and I don't know any other way to
Speaker 1: do it. Yeah, I wish, I wish your crystal ball
Speaker 1: actually works, and a lot of the things that as
Speaker 1: you envision that I think would make for a better
Speaker 1: a better country, you know, hopefully, I guess. My my
Speaker 1: hope is that you know, COVID will bring about together,
Speaker 1: you know, some use, some coming together of these issues,
Speaker 1: at least a way to discuss them and move issues forward,
Speaker 1: as opposed to just flat out you know, sides are
Speaker 1: drawn and we're not getting anywhere. But anyway, I'm sure
Speaker 1: I'll see more of you out there, I certainly hope. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I wanted to marry him to be on the first
Speaker 1: episode because whenever I need help, if I was going
Speaker 1: to the hill and lobbying on or else something, I
Speaker 1: always tried to get married on the phone first because
Speaker 1: she just had great insight not only two food systems,
Speaker 1: but the policies that we need to to change to
Speaker 1: create a board just system. So you know, the American
Speaker 1: food system really is, it's a web. It's complex, and
Speaker 1: once you start pulling on one string, you find that
Speaker 1: it's all connected to others, and so we're going to
Speaker 1: explore all of that, and we're gonna actually take a
Speaker 1: look at how the sausage is made. So to speak.
Speaker 1: I'd like to say I've seen both. I've seen how
Speaker 1: the law is made and so and and how sausage
Speaker 1: is made, and I'll stick to the sausage. No, this
Speaker 1: isn't a story about recipes, and it's not a podcast
Speaker 1: about you know, all the cool things happening in the
Speaker 1: chef Weralda. You know that's all great, and that podcast
Speaker 1: has been done. We're gonna look at a new path
Speaker 1: forward and how to make our food system more equitable
Speaker 1: for everyone involved. Look at that plate of food or
Speaker 1: when we're shopping and start to think about how that
Speaker 1: food got there, not only the people that were involved
Speaker 1: in producing that food, the farm workers who are picking
Speaker 1: those vegetables, and the processors that are processing it, and
Speaker 1: the people that are delivering it, and everyone involved in
Speaker 1: getting that there, and knowing that there are policies in
Speaker 1: place that affect all of those workers. We're gonna take
Speaker 1: a look at all of that. Thanks to Dr Mary
Speaker 1: Nestle for her wisdom and her friendship. Very special thanks
Speaker 1: to my wife, Laurie Silverbush, and Kristen castri at a
Speaker 1: place at the table for their insights and guidance. Citizen
Speaker 1: Chef with Me Tom Colokio is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Our executive producer is Christopher Haciotis, our researcher
Speaker 1: is Jescelyn Shields, and our producer is Gariel Collins. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening, don't forget to subscribe, and please check us
Speaker 1: out next week. Thanks