Latest / REAP/SOW / Soda wars: fighting new SNAP restrictions in the states
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- This transcript was exported on 03/18/2026 - view latest version here Theodore Ross: Welcome to Forked. I'm Theodore Ross, editor-in-chief of the Food and Environment Reporting Network. I'm joined by my co-host, Helena Bottemiller Evich from Food Fix. This episode, MAHA moves to ban soda and candy purchases for SNAP recipients fizzle out, for now. We're also looking at what the war with Iran is doing to fertilizer and food prices. In Colorado, workers at one of the largest meatpacking plants in the country go on strike. Helena, welcome back to Forked. Always good to see you. Helena Bottemiller Evich: Good to see you, too. It feels like spring, a little bit, almost. Theodore: Well, at the time of this taping, it is actually not feeling like spring at all in New York City. It's like 30 degrees. Helena: Yesterday, it was 70. [laughs] Theodore: The technical term for New York is blustery. It's blustery out there. Helena: We had tornadoes here in the DMV yesterday. Things are really normal. [laugh] Theodore: For those of you out there in podcast land, in case you're looking out your window and the weather is different, we taped this a week in advance. Let's dive in. We got lots to talk about. Every episode of Forked, we always start off with the double take, that is something in the food news that it makes you do a double take. There's a surprise there for you. Sometimes it's good. A lot of times, it's not so good. This time, I think it's not good. As of this moment, and it is March 17th, St. Patrick's Day, also my brother Jason's birthday- Helena: Oh, happy birthday. Theodore: -we are at war in this country with Iran. I don't know if by the time this comes out, we will not be at war with Iran, but I have a feeling that we probably will. One of the things that I think we should talk about is, there's a lot of discussion, obviously, about the impact of the war on oil prices. Right now, if you look at the pump, you can read it about the news, the price of a barrel of the benchmark crude, I think it's called the Brent crude, which is the benchmark, is up to $100 a barrel. It's looking like it's going to stay there. I think we should talk about the impact that it's having on food. I don't think we've quite seen it yet. I think the cost of food in this country is going to go up due to this war. What do you think about that, Helena? I have some other things to add to that, but let's hear from you. Helena: First of all, I think most of us who eat are blissfully unaware of the role of fuel and fertilizer prices. This is just not something we have to think of. We have the luxury of not thinking about it. Farmers, however, are thinking about this a lot because these are key input costs. Input costs have gone way up over the past several years, and commodity prices have not really kept pace. Farmers are in a lot of distress right now. I think a lot of consumers are just waking up and being like, "Oh, Strait of Hormuz? How does this affect me?" Theodore: Let's talk about that effect. Helena: It's going to be a long-term ripple effect. Farmers, right now, this is a very bad time. This is the time when you plant and plan for the year for most crops. It's really bad. Theodore: There's a lot to unpack here. Let's start with the timing. One of the things that USDA head Brooke Rollins was talking about in the news, I think yesterday it was at this time, was that something like 25% of the nation's growers, and I imagine that's the large-scale growers, still had not bought fertilizer. We're talking about that 25%, that's a lot of people, a lot of farms. They're going to be paying a price for fertilizer that's something like 30% to 35% higher than it was at the beginning of the war. I think-- Helena: It was already really high to begin with. [laughs] Farmers were already complaining that fertilizer prices were way too high. Start with that, and then now we are jumping over that. Theodore: Right. I think the thing that people maybe could have explained to them a little bit is the reason the United States needs the Persian Gulf states, these oil states, all these countries who are in the war right now, one of the reasons, is because fertilizer production is based on a supply of natural gas that they have a lot of in the Middle East. Helena: It's cheap. Theodore: It's cheap, it's plentiful, and natural gas is a component that is used to produce ammonia, which then becomes urea, and that ultimately gets turned into nitrogen. Basically, what our fertilizer are made of is nitrogen. Yummy, yummy, yummy, yummy. That is the reality of how our food gets to the table. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about the constriction of a natural resource caused by this war. You said something that I think was interesting, that this is going to be a long-running impact. Why do you say that? Let's talk about that part of it. Helena: If input costs right now are affecting farmers' decisions on what they plant, how much they plant, and ultimately, in some cases, actually what the yield will be, because how much fertilizer you apply, you have to make sure that basically the investment you're making in the fertilizer makes sense in terms of the yield bump. Farmers have to think about all this. It's a very chaotic time. It's hard to plan and think about how you do that. The decisions made now with all these price spikes affect the crop we're going to get in the fall. Then that has-- let's say it's smaller. I think even some of the analysts are now predicting that the corn crop will just be a little bit smaller. Well, a little bit, maybe significantly smaller. We don't know. Let's say it's smaller. That then has a ripple effect going forward of how much corn is available and prices. This is a long-term thing because we're not going to see that crop until the fall. I'm not an expert in fertilizer and the production side or anything like that, but the basics of supply and demand apply here. When things are chaotic, I just think it makes everything harder to predict. When you're having these price spikes, the safe bet is that it will lead to increased prices. Now, how much of the price of corn really affects what consumers are buying? It's a really small part of it, but you add up all this stuff, it's the packaging, it's the transportation, all the things. If there's a lot of pressure on fertilizer, on oil, on all of the different inputs, diesel, I think that a lot of analysts are now saying, look, this could really drive inflation generally, but it's early. We don't know. I think we need the war to end. Theodore: I think for a long time. We need the war to end. The thing I think is the key takeaway from this for the part that you're talking about is that this is going to be around for a while. Now, the price of gas, what's happening at the pump, that can go back down more quickly than what is happening to these farmers because they're making their decisions about fertilizer today, and that stuff's coming up out of the ground in a few months. This could be with us for a while. I want to read you-- Helena: They have to make these fertilizer decisions throughout. That's why it's a little bit harder to predict. I just cannot emphasize enough how much stress the farmers are under. We're already now-- we're hearing chatter about another bailout. Do farmers need aid? It's not a good situation. Theodore: It's not a good situation. I want to read you a little bit from an article in Forbes magazine, which is still out there, apparently. It's by Phil Lempert. Are you familiar with Phil Lempert? Helena: Yes. He's [inaudible 00:07:40] Theodore: I love Phil Lempert. Helena: We should have him on. He'd be good. Theodore: We should have Phil Lempert on because he's the guy-- for those of you out there in the non-food media world, Phil Lempert is the expert on supermarkets. If any reporter, we could talk about their willingness to do their own work, but if you need to know, if you need a good quote for your story, it has anything to do with the grocery store, you got to get Phil Lempert on the horn. It is always interesting to me how somebody becomes the specific expert on a very specific thing, but that's Phil Lempert in this case. He was writing this, and I think it's a pretty clear picture that he paints of what the situation is. He says, "Let's talk about that bag of lettuce that's in your fridge. It's most likely had its start in California's Salinas Valley, grown in soil that was fertilized with nitrogen products derived from natural gas. It was harvested by equipment running on diesel. It was washed, dried, and sealed in a petroleum-based plastic film engineered specifically for breathability. It was loaded onto a refrigerated 40-foot trailer also running on diesel. Then driven 2,800 miles across the country to a distribution center in the Northeast, then onto a supermarket near you. Think of that bag of lettuce from field to shelf as a petroleum product. Right now, as you know, petroleum is at war." Mr. Lempert, thank you for making that so clear. I think that really runs it down. He did a better job, I guess, than you and I batting this around for a while. What do you think of that? Do you think most Americans-- what is their level of awareness of this? Helena: Oh, very low. Again, even as a food policy reporter, I do not wake up thinking about fertilizer. It's not-- Again, this-- Theodore: I bet it's on your dreams that night. Helena: This is the luxury. Theodore: With a good night of sleep, you might. Helena: If you have a stable food supply, these are just things you don't have to think about. I was listening to something the other day about this issue. One of the hosts was talking about how, before modern times, you wouldn't go to war during planting or harvest season. Those were the times you didn't go to war. For this reason, the nation's full occupation was to feed these people. Now, it's different. We rely on 1% of the population to do that. We are blissfully unaware. I don't even think about this, and I'm a reporter covering food. I think most consumers are not thinking about this at all. I think Phil did a really good job of laying it out in very clear terms, how much these inputs, particularly petroleum, drive how food gets to our plates ultimately. We don't think about it. Full stop. We just don't. I don't think most consumers do. Certainly, if food prices go up, people will start thinking about it. Theodore: They'll think about it a whole lot more. I also think it gets back to what we talked, on our last episode, about glyphosate. The people within the MAHA movement, the food side of it, I guess, who care about changing the way our food is grown, it's not easy for them to say, I told you so. It just shows you how dependent we are on these chemical processes, and that the enormous amount of work that would need to be done to make us less dependent on it. This shows you that this whole system is built on these chemicals. There's no getting around it. You can talk about regenerative agriculture until you're blue in the face, but the world we live in right now, we need oil and natural gas to make our food. Helena: Yes. I think in the same way that COVID offered this reality check for everyone about supply chains and how ultimately they can be vulnerable, all of a sudden you don't have certain kinds of pasta or certain kinds of tomato sauce or whatever, we saw that. Again, you don't think about supply chains until they break. I think it's similar with oil and all the input. In the end, glyphosate, all the inputs we need for the food system, you don't think about it until you're at war or there's some other crisis. It does force an awareness for a lot of people. I don't think we're there yet with this, but it feels like the early warning signs are flashing. Certainly, the experts, the people who work in fertilizer and inputs for agriculture, and the analysts are like, "Whoa, this could really have an impact." [sighs] The world feels just really unstable right now, generally. Theodore: I do think the COVID comparison is a pretty good one. One of the things that-- if you can think back to the early stages of the pandemic, when people were talking about supply chains. Oh, we got to fix our supply chains. We got to bring some of our production back to the United States. We can't be reliant on these global intricate chains because they can always break down. Really, what happened by the end of the pandemic is we were like, "Oh, we got to get these supply chains back up again. I got to get my cheap stuff from all over the world." What we're seeing, I think, here, we haven't yet seen a conversation about this war, shows you why we should change the way we do this. It doesn't appear, unless you've seen it somewhere else that I haven't. I don't think people are having that conversation about change, which we had during COVID, but then we didn't really make much change. Helena: Yes. I don't think we've changed our supply chains, and we haven't really fundamentally onshored a lot of things. This would obviously be really critical. It parallels what we were talking about with glyphosate. The national security implications of not having enough affordable fertilizer are really stark. It's not just fertilizer. I think a lot about the vitamins and minerals we need for in-fit formula, almost exclusively imported, IVs for hospitals. There's all these things that would be really, really catastrophic for us to lose, especially in a war. On one hand, you can understand the national security implications. It's confusing that we don't do more to, I don't know, be more insulated from these shocks. That's above my pay grade, but I don't think we're fundamentally having those conversations. What I am hearing is more farmers saying, "What about the consolidation in the fertilizer industry?" Prices were already high. Similar, we did see some of this focus on consolidation during the pandemic, focused on meat processors. If you had one go down, it was really impactful. At one point, they actually used the Defense Protection Act to keep the meat plants open. Theodore: Absolutely. Helena: That thing has happened. We haven't cracked down on meat processors. Theodore: I was going to throw this in there to be a little plug for FERN. If you go to the FERN website right now, you will see an article about meat processing and the big four and consolidation, and why and how those big processors are able to control the prices of beef in this country in particular, and how that is harming us at the grocery store, and also harming the ranchers who are raising the cattle. We have plenty of good reporting on that. Actually, we'll get to this later in the episode when we talk about the good vibe, there's a lot of things happening with consolidation in the meat processing as we speak. With that bright note about ammonia and war and supply chains, we should move on to our next segment, which is forks and knives, the main meal, the big thing happening in the United States right now. Helena, I think, for people like you and me who are really interested in these things, the lawsuit that is pushing back against the SNAP restrictions on buying sodas and sugary foods, I think that's the biggie right now. Don't you? Helena: Yes. Right now, you have MAHA really on a losing streak in the courts. MAHA has been really successful at the state level at getting certain policies through. I think the one everyone focuses on is West Virginia actually banning the synthetic dyes that the Trump administration is phasing out. They use the term phasing out, but these have not been banned. There's nothing on the federal register, which is where policy goes. Theodore: Of course, it's stymied in the courts in West Virginia. Helena: Yes, now it's held up in the courts in West Virginia. Also, the Texas big MAHA labeling, warning label bill, that's been ruled likely unconstitutional. That's got some legal issues. In this context of MAHA policies that were really full steam ahead, are now-- the courts are hitting the brakes on. We have another lawsuit from, I always forget the name of this group, the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, which is an advocacy group, and then the Shinder Cantor Lerner, which is an antitrust law firm. They filed the lawsuit recently on behalf of a handful of SNAP participants, alleging basically that the SNAP waivers harm people and were illegal. They violated the Administrative Procedures Act, which is our federal law that sets the rules for how policymaking needs to happen. Theodore: Let's talk about that for one second. I just want-- Helena: It's a whole mess. Theodore: I want to read because violating the rules, that sounds like it's a fine point, but I think there's-- Helena: A fine point? Theodore: Right. What it says in the lawsuit, as it was being knocked down in the courts, it says, had the USDA-- Helena: Oh, it hasn't been knocked down, to be clear. They filed a lawsuit. Theodore: Right. Had the USDA followed proper notice and comment procedure as required by law, SNAP recipients for retailers and advocates would have sounded the alarm on the significant harms that these food restrictions create for low-income people who rely on SNAP. This is by an attorney at the NCLEJ. I need to work on their acronyms. Once again, the Trump administration is making it up as they go along and disregarding the damage. I think when you talk about the MAHA movement, you hear this word that drives me up a wall, wins. Everybody's talking about wins when it comes to policy. For me, that's unfortunate language, I think. We're talking about important things that affect the lives of all kinds of people and qualifying them as wins and losses. I don't love it. In this case, these exemptions, allowing the states to start banning these products, that has been entirely viewed as a win for the MAHA movement, but maybe they got a little bit ahead of themselves. Tell us what the context is. How big a deal is this? Helena: There's no question. This is the MAHA movement's biggest policy win or achievement. Full stop, because-- Theodore: I like achievement better. Let's say achievement. Helena: Achievement-- I don't know. I don't think it's the same. Whatever you want to call it, this is where MAHA has actually moved the needle in terms of an actual change to a federal program. We're talking about food. We're narrowly focused on food. Theodore: [crosstalk], yes. Helena: It's interesting that the biggest substantive change has been at USDA, not at HHS. Sure, HHS and USDA had a big splash around the dietary guidelines changing. There's no question the dietary guidelines matter for federal programs, eventually. Eventually, all of that can be operationalized into these programs. School meals, whatever, they got to redo the rules for that. Now they're working through that long process. In terms of actual change, allowing states to have these waivers, which is how USDA is doing this. It's not a regulation. This is where it'll be interesting to see how courts rule on the Administrative Procedure Act. APA is really about rulemaking. This was not a rule, but it's USDA changing its policy and saying, we want states to apply for these waivers and we will approve them. There is waiver authority in federal statute for SNAP. It'll be interesting to see how this impacts. MAHA in this administration, is not keen on policymaking. We've talked about this a lot. There's not a lot of regulations happening. The one exception to this would be the grass reform proposal, which is actually a rule and is now sitting at the White House, and FDA is moving that forward. They're trying to get that out. We'll see what happens. Theodore: You said this to me in several episodes. It was sitting then to, I eventually would like to stand up. If I'm sitting for that long, I'd like to get up. Helena: OMB. This is not a long time for OMB. OMB can sit on things for a long time. Years. Theodore: The federal government is good at sitting. I'm aware of that. Helena: OMB is the bane of every agency. Any agency leader trying to move policy, OMB is the bane of their existence because that's where things get held up. It hasn't been there that long. Theodore: That's the Office of Management and Budget, for those of you who can score at home. Helena: Oh, there's a lot of history behind why that is. Basically, the White House, over time, has exerted more control over how policymaking actually gets out. They are reviewing it. It's only been there since December. I say only. It's March 17th as we're taping this. That's actually not that long, although a timely review would be soon. It should come out. We'll see how that goes. Theodore: Before the midterms, maybe? That might be a good time. Helena: Oh, no. Before. Yes. I think it'll come out before the midterms because they need more wins for MAHA. Anyway, that's all to say, there's not a lot of policymaking happening. MAHA is huge on rhetoric and vibes. We see the dietary guidelines, all this design. We see the Super Bowl ad. We see these ads. I don't know if you saw the one Secretary Kennedy just posted. I think he's recovering from shoulder surgery right now. It's an AI video of him slamming a Twinkie in a wrestling ring. Theodore: No, I did not see that. Helena: What do you call that? What do you call it? What's the wrestling-- Where do they wrestle? Theodore: The wrestling ring. The ring. Helena: Yes. It's like a square, but whatever. Okay. Theodore: It's called the ring. Yes, it's the ring. Helena: In the ring. He's got the Twinkie in the ring. He's throwing the Twinkie about. Go watch it. It's another AI-generated video. Theodore: All right, that's terrible. Helena: The amount of water being used on these videos, because AI uses a lot of water to produce things. Anyway, a lot of vibes. They're really leaning in on, on this anti-ultra-processed foods, eat real food. All of that has changed a lot. I'm not discounting that. A lot of change. Policymaking, not a lot. Theodore: Not so much. Helena: The SNAP waivers, though, are really an exception here. SNAP is a $100 billion program. Changing what you can buy in this program, even state by state, is a huge change. Now that you have a lawsuit challenging MAHA's biggest win in the courts, that's just a really notable thing. We also see reports recently that Wall Street Journal had a report that HHS is having a little bit of a tighter leash from the White House going into the midterms, especially because a lot of this vaccine rhetoric is really unpopular. I think MAHA's in this very difficult place right now. You have this massive glyphosate fight. There's just a lot of churn. It's the courts, the vibes. Also, did you see SNL? SNL had a pretty lengthy skit mocking a MAHA-themed emergency room. Theodore: Yes, that's right. Something about the [unintelligible 00:23:42] Helena: Whichever one you go watch. Harry Styles is great in it. It also made Weekend Update. There's some polling that was not as favorable to MAHA. In general, I think the waters are choppy. This SNAP lawsuit is a big substantive challenge to what I think is MAHA's biggest change to-- it is federal policy because USDA's stance on waivers really matters. You can actually go to USDA. If you Google USDA SNAP restrictions, USDA has a map, and you can see which states breaks down what has been banned in each state. Theodore: That map is interesting. The thing that's interesting, if you look at that map, there are 22 states that have these waivers. As far as I can-- I don't have them in front of me, but there are no bona fide blue states among them. There are a few purple ones thrown in there. Helena: Colorado and Hawaii. Theodore: Is Hawaii on there? Colorado is kind of purplish, right? Helena: Yes. Theodore: What color would we call Colorado? Helena: I think it's purple. Theodore: All right, fair enough. What to me is-- Helena: Mostly red states. There's no question about that. Theodore: It's mostly red states and mostly pretty heavy-duty red states. What it says to me, and what I think is interesting and maybe will emerge from this lawsuit, is there is something of a consensus that has emerged that, at least on the food side of the MAHA movement, the things that MAHA wants are popular, but where is this really being enacted is in places that are ideologically separate from that bipartisan consensus. What we'll find out with the lawsuit and what happens with MAHA on this particular issue, I think is a pretty good bellwether for really how popular the movement and its interests actually are and how much of it is just more of our ideological partisan beating the crap out of each other. Helena: I don't know. If you really think about it, it's interesting that they've allowed the SNAP waivers to get approved so quickly without thinking about or without knowing how consumers, voters, are going to respond. Theodore: What they actually want to buy, yes. Helena: I think I've maybe said this before, but with the whole SNAP restrictions debate, this has been long simmering in food policy world. We thought eventually a state or two would get approved, and it would be a pilot. You'd run the waiver, and it would get studied. Then you'd have information, and maybe more states would do it or be allowed to, or maybe they would shut this idea down because it didn't work. I don't know. We're just running this very large-scale experiment now. 22 states is a lot of states. All the states are doing something a little different. Not all of them are being studied super rigorously. Some of them will be, some of them won't. It's going to be a while until we know what the effects are in terms of purchasing, in terms of health outcomes, if we ever know that, because that's really hard to measure. It's going to be this big experiment that we don't really know the outcome of it for a while. It affects a lot of people. It's almost certainly going to increase stigma in some cases. Hopefully, they're going to measure that in some of these studies that they're doing. How do SNAP participants actually feel about this? They're really left out, Theodore: Doesn't make a difference. Helena: They're really left out from this. Theodore: They have no agency with this whatsoever. We'll just see. There's the stigma. I'd be very curious to see what it actually turns out to be. Does it change nutrition choices? Does it change how people eat? Does it change anything? Helena: We don't know. Theodore: We don't know. My instinct is it probably does, but you never know. Helena: We don't know. I think part of what this lawsuit is also alleging is that this weakened SNAP, generally. That's the argument they're making. Theodore: That's the goal. Helena: That's what you think the goal is. That's not what they say the goal is. I think if we see retailers get knocked out for this type of thing, you're going to see more lawsuits because the retailers will then have standing. Anyway, it's going to be a long road ahead for that. Theodore: Speaking of retailers for a second before we pass on, the Texas labeling law is very interesting to me. I didn't really know much about it. I don't know if it's permanently quashed in Texas, but it was ruled that it is likely unconstitutional. I wanted to read a piece of the law itself. The warning label that they were requiring or wanting to require companies to use was, this product contains an ingredient that is not recommended for human consumption by the appropriate authority. After that, I'm with you. Then it's in Australia, Canada, the European, or the United Kingdom. To me, that's strange. The great state of Texas, where they're as red as red can be, and the MAHA movement is putting this law here in place. What do we need to know what those folks up in Canada are doing, or those crazies over there in Europe? This is the law. This is what the law they were attempting to pass. Helena: They did pass it with bipartisan support, yes. Theodore: Right. To implement, I suppose, is the word, because it's stopped in the courts. I don't know. What do you make of that? That just shocks me that that would be in the law. Helena: I think the ground has shifted on these issues. If you really look at one of the most animating issue on the right on this general MAHA theme, it's that, why does Europe have better food than we do? That's what they're essentially saying. They're saying they get fewer additives or different additives. It's a really compelling narrative within MAHA, and it's on the right. It is interesting because back in the day, Republicans were like, "Europe, you suck," basically, [laughs] Theodore: It was like, "Freedom fries. We don't want your fries." It's really fascinating because if you were to sit in the bourgeois living rooms of Park Slope in Brooklyn, where I live, or in DC, where you live, you might hear a lot of people like, oh, yes, they have way better food in Europe. That's not the cliché of what Republican voters in Texas want. It just goes to show you-- Helena: I think it's changed. Theodore: Yes, there are a lot of things out there that are changed. Helena: The vibes have shifted. I was on a media podcast recently, and that's what the host was. He travels a lot, he's not in food, he's not particularly ideological. He was like, "No, seriously, though, why do I feel so much better in Europe?" This is a really mainstream narrative now. Here we are. I think it's almost nonpartisan. Theodore: I don't know if I agree with that yet, but it's getting there. All right. Why don't we go on to our last segment, which is the good vibes. I don't know if you came up with one. Helena: I don't have anything. Theodore: All right, I do. I have one. Well, I have two. One, the good vibe is there does seem to be some progress in the courts for stopping HHS from changing all the vaccine rules, and maybe we will not go forward with it. Helena: That came out this week. We'll have to see. Theodore: We'll have to see. Although I think the damage has already been done. Helena: I really do not know enough about how all of that process works, but I believe they were ordered to stop the change to the childhood vaccine schedule. I don't know if then there'll be an appeal or if they have to do it right away. I'm not sure. Theodore: I don't think they're done, but I think it's good. It's good to at least get a win. Wins are good. Helena: The courts are important as long as court orders are followed. You really start to see the wisdom of the three branches when they're functioning. Congress has been asleep at the switch for many years. Theodore: White House, not so functioning. Yes. Look, there are problems in all three branches. Nothing is perfect in this country. This, I think, is a cause for hope. Then the other thing that I want to point out, and again, this is somewhat-- I don't know if it's exactly a cause for hope, but right now in Greeley, Colorado, the JBS meatpacking plant there, which is one of the largest in the country, it is responsible on a daily basis for producing something like 6% to 7% of all the beef that goes out into the United States on a given day. The workers there, 3,800 of them, are on strike. Helena: I saw that. Theodore: We're covering that a lot at FERN, but I think what's interesting about it, and a note of hope for me, and we've reported on this at FERN already, most of the workers in the plant are foreign-born. Quite a few of them are from countries who have people here under the TPS visa system, temporary protected status, which allows people from countries that have been subject to natural disasters or political upheaval to be in the country legally, and it's a big focus of the Trump administration to repeal TPS for many of the people from these different countries. A lot of those folks are working in the plants, and their willingness, I think, to push for what they consider their rights. I don't have a side in this strike. I buy beef, so it's going to bum me out to some degree, but that they're willing to put all of that on the line to push this giant company, JBS, to change the way it does business, I take a note of hope out of that. Helena: What are they asking for? Is it higher wages? Theodore: It's higher wages. Some of it is about healthcare costs. I think some of it that's interesting is about the workers having to pay for some of their personal safety equipment in the plant. The position of JBS is that it's all about money. "These guys, they're greedy. They want more money." The workers are saying, "Yes, well, we do want money. The cost of living in the United States has gone up. It's very hard for us to live on the wages that we're making. This work is also very dangerous, and it's very difficult." Helena: It's hard work. Theodore: "Investments in our safety are fair and necessary." It's something that, again, I take some hope out of it. We're keeping close tabs on it in our reporting, and we'll have some stuff. Maybe it'll already be out by the time this comes out. I think it's worth us just having a little chit-chat about it. Helena: Yes, for sure. Theodore: Helena, I think that covers not all of the bases, but quite a few bases for one episode. Before we go, why don't you tell us a little bit about your newsletter, which I think is really good? For those of you out there, a lot of what we talk about, it is based on what Helena has been putting in her newsletter on a daily basis. Helena: If you're not on the list, go to foodfix.co. Really try to stay on top of what's going on. There's a lot going on. We live in interesting times. All about food policy. You can read all about the policy wins, the losses, the ups and downs of what's going on right now. Also, anyone who is on SNAP or any of the federal nutrition programs can get an upgraded subscription for free. Theodore: It is a nice thing. Helena: Just email info@foodfix.co. Anyone can get on the list, get the Friday newsletter for free. Go to foodfix.co and get on the list. Theodore: All right. Good stuff. Helena, thank you again. I will see you in a couple of weeks, and we'll do it all over again. Helena: All right. Theodore: Forked is a production of the Food and Environment Reporting Network. Our executive producers are me, Theodore Ross, and Tom Laskawy. Our sound engineer is Lauryn Newson. Our producer and video producer is Amanda Vicari. Our hosts are Helena Bottemiller Evich and me, Theodore Ross. To find out more about FERN and donate to support our independent nonprofit reporting, go to www.thefern.org. [00:35:21] [END OF AUDIO] Forked Ep 17.mp3 (Completed: 03/18/2026) Transcript by GoTranscript.com