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Is it better to buy local or organic food? · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
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Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot com. Welcome to the podcast.
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Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. Chuck Bryant's about the vomit. But the
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Speaker 1: two of us together, you get a squishy, fat podcast
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Speaker 1: called Stuff you Should Know. Yeah. Well it's true though
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Speaker 1: too and kind of Harry too, Chucky, Harry and squishy.
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Speaker 1: It's a bad combination. We're like one of those tumors
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Speaker 1: that kind of grows out of you when you ate
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Speaker 1: your twin in the womb, you know, the tumors where
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Speaker 1: they find like hair and fingernails and teeth. We're like
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Speaker 1: one of those when you put us together. Yes we are. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: good stuff, Josh, Thanks Chuck, So Chuck. Speaking of all that,
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Speaker 1: did you know our first lady planted her own garden
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Speaker 1: outside the White House recently? I did. I bet she
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Speaker 1: had a little help, but yeah, she did from some
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Speaker 1: local school kids, although I bet they just screwed around
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Speaker 1: the whole time. School kids are useless when it comes
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Speaker 1: to gardening, and they are, But yeah, Michelle Obama planted
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Speaker 1: a garden. Apparently it's the first kitchen garden since Eleanor
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Speaker 1: Roosevelt was in the White House. Pretty cool running the
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Speaker 1: show while her polio stricken husband couldn't even get out
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Speaker 1: of bed. Um. So but yeah, so and that that
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Speaker 1: that that you know, Barack keeps getting compared to fdr um.
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Speaker 1: So this is appropriate enough. But the big thing, the
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Speaker 1: big hubbub about all this is that she chose to
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Speaker 1: go a hundred percent organic. Right, Yeah, good move. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: and this day and age, that's just a smart thing
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Speaker 1: to do, you right, well, and why not is my point.
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Speaker 1: If you're planning your own garden, I'll tell you why not.
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Speaker 1: As far as the Mid America Crop Life Association, which
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Speaker 1: is basically a pesticide and fertilizer trade association, they have
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Speaker 1: a lot of nice things to say. They they sent
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Speaker 1: her a letter basically saying they never said the word
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Speaker 1: and this is from a Times UK article, but they
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Speaker 1: never said the word fertilizer or um organic anything like that.
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Speaker 1: They just basically wanted to know that America owns it
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Speaker 1: owes its robust physique to all the technological advances in
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Speaker 1: agriculture that have taken place over the years, meaning fertilizer
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Speaker 1: and pesticide exactly. Yeah. So, um, apparently a lot of
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Speaker 1: people didn't really like the fact that the UM M
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Speaker 1: a c A took it upon themselves to send Michelle
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Speaker 1: Obama a letter. Um. So there's a petition online right now,
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Speaker 1: um and at least a hundred thousand people assigned it
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Speaker 1: basically telling the M a c A to lay off
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Speaker 1: their pesticide propaganda. And I just made air quotes for
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Speaker 1: everybody who can't see interesting. Yeah, well, I hope it works.
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Speaker 1: I guess it will. I don't know. But the point
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Speaker 1: is is Michelle Obama's going organic and a lot of
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Speaker 1: people are right. Yeah, it's it's sort of the thing.
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Speaker 1: It is thinks so much so that now there's there's
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Speaker 1: a term big organic. Have you heard this? Uh yeah, Josh,
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Speaker 1: big organic is um like Walmart is carrying uh organic food.
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Speaker 1: Now that's what you would call big organic. Yeah. If
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Speaker 1: you're a mom and pop farmer, you can't. So you
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Speaker 1: can't sell it to Walmart. You just can't do it.
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Speaker 1: It takes, you know, huge agricultural concerns that have tens
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Speaker 1: of thousands of acres at their disposal, cranking out as
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Speaker 1: much as they can per acre and It's kind of
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Speaker 1: sad to see organics go that way because it's that's
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Speaker 1: pretty that's a pretty big shift from its roots and
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Speaker 1: feel forgive the pund very nice, Josh, I hate puns. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: for anyone who likes puns, I would strongly advise you
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Speaker 1: to go listen to tech Stuff, one of our sisters podcasts. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Oh and Strickland isn't isn't completely innocent of his puns either. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: So I guess we should probably get back to talking
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Speaker 1: about organics, right, yeah, alright, so Chuck, is it better
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Speaker 1: to buy local organic? And actually we probably shouldn't take
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Speaker 1: traditional factory farm. I guess we'll just call it traditionally
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Speaker 1: grown um food out of the equation quite yet, right, right,
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Speaker 1: non organic? Big farm? Is that what you're talking? Yeah,
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Speaker 1: but I mean big or yeah, yes, big farm, right,
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Speaker 1: the ones that use like pesticides and fertilizers and stuff
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Speaker 1: like that. I'm trying to see if we can get
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Speaker 1: the M A c A after us. I want a
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Speaker 1: letter of my own. That'd be pretty cool. That would
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Speaker 1: be super cool. Frame it for the cube. Oh yeah, definitely. Um. Actually, Josh,
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Speaker 1: when I read this, I thought it was interesting because
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Speaker 1: I wanted to say, well, why not both organic and local? Yeah,
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Speaker 1: which is the pretty obvious thing, But that's kind of
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Speaker 1: not the point in the article. Well, let's talk about
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Speaker 1: it first. What's wrong with with you know, traditionally grown stuff. Well,
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Speaker 1: I've got some stats for you. I love your stats
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Speaker 1: that can illustrate just what might be wrong with it. Uh.
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Speaker 1: I conventionally grown apple, Josh Josher's maybe sprayed up to
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Speaker 1: sixteen times with over thirty different chemicals, and it's lifetime
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Speaker 1: that apple that you're eating right before you put it
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Speaker 1: in your mouth, which is why you wash the food,
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Speaker 1: shining it on your shirt. I imagine that just kind
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Speaker 1: of smears the pesticides and fertilizers around. And I imagine
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Speaker 1: running it under a cold tap for a second doesn't
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Speaker 1: a whole lot either. Yeah. I found, Um, there's a
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Speaker 1: book on Google Books. It's called Supernutrition for Men. They
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Speaker 1: actually recommended that if you, um buy commercially grown veggies
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Speaker 1: what we're talking about, traditionally grown stuff, Um, you want
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Speaker 1: to soak it in a three percent hydrogen peroxide solution
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Speaker 1: before you eat it. Yeah, And they said that if
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Speaker 1: you really want to go to town, you can mix
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Speaker 1: a half a teaspoon of bleach in a gallon of
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Speaker 1: water and soak your vegetables and then will get rid
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Speaker 1: of the pesticides and bacteria and all that stuff they
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Speaker 1: can come along with traditionally grown food. So that wouldn't
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Speaker 1: what happens to the bleach though, Does it wear off
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Speaker 1: or something? They you soak it for another ten minutes
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Speaker 1: and just clean water. But I should also say, if
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Speaker 1: you do make a bleach solution, um, you want to
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Speaker 1: use purified or distilled water because normal hard tap water
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Speaker 1: actually has compounds that can that can fuse to the
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Speaker 1: bleach and create carcinogens. No, there's an alternative of though,
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Speaker 1: which we were just talking about, right, it's called what organic. Yes, yes,
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Speaker 1: I have one more stat for you though before we
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Speaker 1: move on, just so people know what they're putting in
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Speaker 1: their body. It's important, uh the FDA that they actually
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Speaker 1: did this one and they said that between thirty three
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Speaker 1: and thirty nine of our food contains detectable amount of
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Speaker 1: pesticides and of the fruits and thirty of our vegetables
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Speaker 1: out of that lot, so that's you're eating pesticide and
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Speaker 1: came definitely and these things can have um, you know,
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Speaker 1: harmful effects. They've been shown to have harmful effects like headaches, fatigue. Um,
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Speaker 1: there's na pesticides that have been shown to be neural disruptors,
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Speaker 1: which is awful. Um. Yeah, nausea is not fun. You
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Speaker 1: don't eat four nausea you know. No, No, So okay,
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Speaker 1: so we're just gonna go ahead and say if you
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Speaker 1: eat traditional farm food whatever, more power to you. It's
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Speaker 1: a good idea to know what's in your food, right,
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Speaker 1: you should know what you're putting in and there you
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Speaker 1: can also make a case for using pesticides and fertilizers
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Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Um no, you can't, well, I think,
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Speaker 1: And their point is, in a big um farming situation,
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Speaker 1: it's pretty much near impossible to sustain that without using pesticides. Well.
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Speaker 1: Plus also it usually makes for much cheaper food. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: it's a lot less labor intensive. Um. You know, if
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Speaker 1: you're using like um uh, natural pesticide methods, this is
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Speaker 1: usually much more difficult. It requires a lot more labor,
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Speaker 1: and thus the price is going to go up, which
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Speaker 1: is why if you're poor in America you're not eating
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Speaker 1: organic food. Now, it's definitely a bit price here. So okay,
7:36
Speaker 1: so let's talk organic chuck. Yes, the U s d
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Speaker 1: A has a program Josh called the National Organic Program fittingly,
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Speaker 1: and they are the people that certify things organic. When
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Speaker 1: you see certified organic, it has to run through them
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Speaker 1: your whole operation. Uh. You know, the seeds cannot be
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Speaker 1: genetically modified at all or treated with synthetic pesticides or fertilizers.
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Speaker 1: It's all this is laid out. And if you quality
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Speaker 1: steps as a program, you can be certified organic. Right
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Speaker 1: and and actually, um, there the standards are pretty good
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Speaker 1: there there. They were almost questionable there in two thousand four.
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Speaker 1: In April two thous four, the U. S d A
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Speaker 1: issued three directives, right, and one of them was it
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Speaker 1: allowed fertilizers and pesticides to be used that contain unknown ingredients.
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Speaker 1: And I just made air quotes again, um and uh.
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Speaker 1: You could also feed livestock non organic fish meal, which
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Speaker 1: who knows what's in that? Sure, and you could also
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Speaker 1: use antibiotics on them. Those are two directives, and then
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Speaker 1: there's a third one. I should say. Those first two
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Speaker 1: they didn't stick. There was such a public outcry against them.
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Speaker 1: The u U s d A repeal them the next month. Um.
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Speaker 1: But there was a third one that stick that. I
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Speaker 1: think everybody should be aware of non agricultural products, including seafood, um,
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Speaker 1: skin lotion, anything like that. This label organic, the USDA said,
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Speaker 1: you know what, that's out of her jurisdiction. They can
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Speaker 1: say they're organic if they want, We're never going to
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Speaker 1: investigate it. And you know what, this hits home. You
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Speaker 1: know my wife does. Yeah, she makes her She makes
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Speaker 1: a fine fine line of health and beauty products and
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Speaker 1: made all natural, handmade, and she gets her feathers all
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Speaker 1: riled up all the time because she'll see these companies
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Speaker 1: tout things like organic when it's completely falls out of
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Speaker 1: the jurisdiction. And and beyond that, just like a lot
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Speaker 1: of like huge products, they'll they'll throw things on there
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Speaker 1: like um all natural and fresh, and there's really no
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Speaker 1: way to to back in in and up. Apparently with
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Speaker 1: light beer to um, you only have only has to
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Speaker 1: be light in color. Interest has nothing to do with
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Speaker 1: calories or anything like that, although you're led to believe
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Speaker 1: it does. So Yeah, that's uh. It definitely hits home.
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Speaker 1: And I would definitely not be angry if anyone went
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Speaker 1: to love your MoMA dot com and bought some of her.
9:55
Speaker 1: I was I was gonna ask, do you that you
9:57
Speaker 1: have a website to plug? Well, probably shouldn't plug Love
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Speaker 1: your Mama dot com because that that would mean money
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Speaker 1: in our family's pockets. I know that would stick if
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Speaker 1: we plugged Love your Mama dot com. Chuck, Let's not
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Speaker 1: ever do that. Huh. So moving on, Josh, is organic
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Speaker 1: better for you? That's the one thing they really haven't
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Speaker 1: been able to prove. No. I actually found a real
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Speaker 1: dearth of, um of you know, information, like quantifiable information,
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Speaker 1: hard stats on things like that. Um, it's just an
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Speaker 1: assumption like, okay, you don't have pesticides, you know, fertilizers. Logically,
10:32
Speaker 1: pesticides and fertilizers have been shown to uh, you know,
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Speaker 1: create health problems they can, right, um, And since they're
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Speaker 1: not there in these certified organic products, then hence these
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Speaker 1: things should be healthier. But the USDA makes no claims
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Speaker 1: to this whatsoever. They're just saying, these people followed these steps.
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Speaker 1: Here's the steps that they followed to become USDA certified.
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Speaker 1: We've checked it out and we said, yes, this product
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Speaker 1: is usd A certified. You make you you surmise yourself
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Speaker 1: whether you want to eat or pay the extra three
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Speaker 1: dollars for this dozen eggs. Right. I think the deal
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Speaker 1: is with this, um is they cannot prove any nutritional
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Speaker 1: value by going organic. What they can say is if
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Speaker 1: it's organic, what it lacks, um, is probably better for
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Speaker 1: you without all the chemicals. But since they can't prove
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Speaker 1: that it's richer in vitamin C or whatever if it's
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Speaker 1: grown organically, then they can't. They have to lay off
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Speaker 1: in that category. Right. And what one of the other
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Speaker 1: reasons people choose organic obviously is because you get the
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Speaker 1: impression and it's much more sustainable, right, Um, Like I
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Speaker 1: think you have to rotate crops, you have to compost
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Speaker 1: on site, and these things are good and sustainable. But
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Speaker 1: again we were talking about big organic. Um. These these
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Speaker 1: farms are you know, following these processes, but I don't
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Speaker 1: know to what degree, just enough to be USD a
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Speaker 1: certified organic, right, But um, it's still having a huge
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Speaker 1: impact on the environment right through what's called food miles.
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Speaker 1: So the average of food that we eat in the
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Speaker 1: US I think travels to two thousand miles from where
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Speaker 1: it's farm to where it's consumed, right, Um, And a
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Speaker 1: lot of it actually there's there's a huge outcry I
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Speaker 1: found from researching this against um air transportation. Yeah, because
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Speaker 1: apparently that is the worst way to fly food. It's
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Speaker 1: the worst carbon dioxide emitter, it's the it's the worst
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Speaker 1: way to get food from from the source to you know, destination.
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Speaker 1: UM so yeah, so again though I looked it up,
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Speaker 1: I'm like, what's the average, um, what's the average amount
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Speaker 1: of of C O two that's emitted, you know, per
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Speaker 1: pound of food or whatever. There's nothing on there. So
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Speaker 1: all of this stuff surrounding this is all very logical
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Speaker 1: and intuitive, but there's no hard facts, which I find frustrating.
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Speaker 1: I have one cool quote, let's hear. This is from
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Speaker 1: guy Colombia who's been pioneering local eating for years. The
13:00
Speaker 1: name is Goosele and his wait, wait, does he just
13:04
Speaker 1: have one name like share? Actually that's just his last name,
13:07
Speaker 1: but sure, let's just say that. And goose Ale is
13:10
Speaker 1: often quoted saying that a strawberry ships from California to
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Speaker 1: New York requires four hundred and thirty five calories of
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Speaker 1: fossil fuel, but provides the eater only five calories of nutrition. Nice.
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Speaker 1: I don't know if it's true or not, but yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's I mean, that's the whole question. Do you buy
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Speaker 1: local or do you buy organic? I know the hundred
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Speaker 1: mile diet in U local wore dot com. There's a
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Speaker 1: big local food movement going on to try and cut
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Speaker 1: down the greenhouse emissions. Yeah you know much about the
13:39
Speaker 1: hundred mile diet? Uh? School me? Okay, I know a
13:44
Speaker 1: little bit. So in two thousand five, this Canadian couple
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Speaker 1: at Lisa's Smith and J. B. McKinnon. Um, they vowed
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Speaker 1: to basically only eat local food. Nothing could have come
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Speaker 1: from more than a hundred miles away. Right, Yeah, cool idea.
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Speaker 1: It is a cool idea, and it makes sense. But
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Speaker 1: I got the impression from from reading about this that
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Speaker 1: they had no idea how difficult this was gonna be.
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Speaker 1: Like they didn't realize that they were like seasons and
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Speaker 1: then sub seasons and apparently micro seasons. Um. So if
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Speaker 1: you want cherries in the winter, you could go to
14:14
Speaker 1: the grocery store and get them, but you can if
14:16
Speaker 1: you're on this hundred mile diet. Um. They were saying
14:19
Speaker 1: something like in this f a Q they were saying,
14:22
Speaker 1: you know, they went without wheat for a really long
14:24
Speaker 1: time until they finally met a local wheat farmer. And
14:27
Speaker 1: then they were able to you know, make their own stuff.
14:29
Speaker 1: But that part, that's part of it's very It can
14:32
Speaker 1: be much more expensive because you're buying all the ingredients
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Speaker 1: rather than a package product that was part of a
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Speaker 1: run of several thousands, So it's cheaper um. And also
14:42
Speaker 1: it's just much more difficult and again labor intensive, but
14:45
Speaker 1: it is a lot more sustainable that you're cut down
14:48
Speaker 1: on CEO two emissions a hundred miles in that far
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Speaker 1: as far as food miles goes UM. And also you
14:54
Speaker 1: you get to know kind of um. One of one
14:56
Speaker 1: of the reasons they say to eat local is um.
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Speaker 1: The produce is much fresher, so within twenty four hours,
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Speaker 1: it's it's it's been picked and you're eating it pretty
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Speaker 1: much right off of the plant, right um. And you
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Speaker 1: get to know the people that you're you're buying from
15:11
Speaker 1: because you're going to a farmer's market pretty much. Well,
15:15
Speaker 1: let's talk about farmer's market. Let's do it. It's the best. Yeah,
15:19
Speaker 1: you're a big, big proponent of farmers markets. It's the
15:21
Speaker 1: best here in Atlanta, as most people now actually indicator,
15:25
Speaker 1: we have the decab farmers market and I bump into
15:29
Speaker 1: Jerry there. Sometimes is there a she's a shopper the
15:31
Speaker 1: air but actually a bunch of people from work I
15:33
Speaker 1: see there. But it's the best, man. It's huge. And
15:36
Speaker 1: the cool thing about the farmer's market is not only
15:39
Speaker 1: can you choose from organic, but um above every fruit
15:43
Speaker 1: and vegetable is a sign that says where it came from,
15:46
Speaker 1: which is kind of cool. So you know you're getting
15:48
Speaker 1: your avocados from California or Mexico. And usually each fruit
15:52
Speaker 1: and vegetable has a couple of choices, and uh, none
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Speaker 1: of them are very local. Though that's surprisingly because most
15:59
Speaker 1: farmers markets have a pretty strict rule that it can
16:02
Speaker 1: only be from that state at least. Well, this is
16:05
Speaker 1: a little different kind of farmers market. I think most
16:07
Speaker 1: of those are the ones that are like a local
16:10
Speaker 1: farmers market that you'll have on Saturdays only and they'll
16:12
Speaker 1: set up in a parking lot and the local farmers
16:14
Speaker 1: come and bring their wares. This is a big, huge
16:18
Speaker 1: operation that's been around for you know, thirty plus years. Yeah, well,
16:21
Speaker 1: so it's it's a little different. I know there's a
16:23
Speaker 1: I think a state subsidized farmers market down by the airport. Yeah,
16:28
Speaker 1: and I think you could they you can only be
16:30
Speaker 1: a Georgia grower to participate there. Those are awesome. I
16:33
Speaker 1: went to one. I used to go to one in
16:35
Speaker 1: l A when I lived there while they had the
16:36
Speaker 1: Hollywood Farmers Market, which is awesome. And then I went
16:39
Speaker 1: to the one closer to where I lived in Eagle Rock.
16:41
Speaker 1: That uh, same deal. I mean literally, the farmers pull
16:44
Speaker 1: up their truck and set up their stuff in the crates,
16:47
Speaker 1: and you know, you chatted up within these guys. You
16:48
Speaker 1: feel really good about supporting it. Yeah. Apparently I was
16:51
Speaker 1: reading on them hundred Mile Diet site that there was
16:56
Speaker 1: a study that found that, um, people at farmers markets
17:00
Speaker 1: have ten times more conversations than people at the supermarket. Oh,
17:04
Speaker 1: I'm surprised it's not more than that. Yeah, well, I
17:06
Speaker 1: mean that actually struck me. I go to supermarkets. I
17:09
Speaker 1: don't normally go to farmers markets, but I know, you know,
17:12
Speaker 1: when I'm there, I'm not there to chat. I'm there
17:14
Speaker 1: to go buy food, you know. So yeah, that's pretty cool.
17:18
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna check the farmer's market out. Yeah,
17:20
Speaker 1: they're definitely a little more like when I'm at the
17:22
Speaker 1: the cab farmer's market. You'll be checking out of a
17:24
Speaker 1: pepper and the lady next so you will just say,
17:26
Speaker 1: aren't these peppers amazing? Yes? You know you never hear
17:29
Speaker 1: that at your local grocery store. Is there the heavy,
17:32
Speaker 1: heavy scent of patuli? Yeah? And then you know, the
17:35
Speaker 1: lady says that to me, and I say, mind your
17:37
Speaker 1: own business, lady, I don't need to hear about what
17:39
Speaker 1: you think about these peppers, And I stomp off. That
17:41
Speaker 1: sounds like my kind of farmers market, very aggressive, hostile farmers, right.
17:46
Speaker 1: You know, uh, should we talk about co ops and
17:50
Speaker 1: farmer community supported agriculture. Yeah, Well, that's the big thing
17:54
Speaker 1: about eating local. One of the one of the things
17:56
Speaker 1: that proponents always say is you're you're feeding the local economy. Me,
18:00
Speaker 1: you're creating local jobs, the money's going back into the
18:03
Speaker 1: local economy, you're helping local farmers. Um. And that's that's
18:07
Speaker 1: pretty much the opposite of a globalized attitude. Um. But
18:11
Speaker 1: still it's okay, I mean to each his own, of course, Chuck.
18:14
Speaker 1: We always say so if you're into helping the local economy,
18:17
Speaker 1: eating local is a really good way to do that, right,
18:19
Speaker 1: And one of the places where you can go and
18:21
Speaker 1: really help the local economy is a local food co op, right,
18:26
Speaker 1: we have one here in Atlanta, Sevenonda and there's actually
18:29
Speaker 1: um bruhaha going on. I heard about earlier this year.
18:32
Speaker 1: Apparently the general manager. They changed the charter and the
18:35
Speaker 1: general manager has a lot of power now and the
18:38
Speaker 1: board doesn't like some of the choices that he's making
18:41
Speaker 1: a big struggle. They don't want you know, tropicana non
18:44
Speaker 1: organic orange tin for sale next to Heinz ketchup that's
18:48
Speaker 1: not organic either, And you're like, what is this stuff
18:50
Speaker 1: doing here? This is a local community food co op.
18:52
Speaker 1: It's been around around for long since the early seventies,
18:55
Speaker 1: I believe, very cool place. Um but yeah, so food
18:59
Speaker 1: co ops and I found this very interesting. The top
19:02
Speaker 1: one food co ops in the US in two thousand
19:06
Speaker 1: three made a hundred and ten billion dollars and nuts.
19:11
Speaker 1: That's that's one point one billion dollars apiece. That's insane
19:15
Speaker 1: to me, it is. I mean, I can't imagine seven
19:18
Speaker 1: On to making a billion dollars. But I think it's
19:20
Speaker 1: a pretty good food co op. Right, Yeah, that's a
19:22
Speaker 1: great one. Pretty interesting. Uh. There's another way to go here, Josh,
19:27
Speaker 1: which is called a community supported Agriculture c S a
19:30
Speaker 1: program and that my friend Debbie in New Jersey actually
19:34
Speaker 1: is involved in one of these. She writes for our
19:35
Speaker 1: site and also another plug. She runs a very awesome
19:39
Speaker 1: blog called freak girl dot com and she is a
19:42
Speaker 1: member of one of these. And what you do is
19:43
Speaker 1: a group of people in a in a community get
19:47
Speaker 1: together and they prepay a local farmer. Uh, they basically
19:50
Speaker 1: invest in the farm. And the cool thing is, well,
19:53
Speaker 1: some people might not think it's cool, it's a drawback.
19:55
Speaker 1: I think it's cool is you don't know what you're
19:57
Speaker 1: gonna get. Every two weeks, you'll get a crate of
20:01
Speaker 1: you'll go pick up a crate of groceries, and you
20:04
Speaker 1: never know, like if the lettuce is great, you might
20:06
Speaker 1: get let us, you might get kale, you might get carrots,
20:09
Speaker 1: and so it just I think it's cool and encourages
20:11
Speaker 1: people to kind of learn how to cook with new ingredients.
20:14
Speaker 1: And it's like farm to table. And Debbie thinks it's
20:17
Speaker 1: really awesome and I trust her. Kid, you know, I've
20:21
Speaker 1: got a whole world of food to go explore. Oh yeah, yeah,
20:24
Speaker 1: And should we talk about whole foods? Real quick? Knock
20:27
Speaker 1: yourself out, pal, I have another thing too to follow
20:30
Speaker 1: up with. This is chock full man. Yeah, really, I
20:32
Speaker 1: wouldn't have thought. Whole Foods, as everyone knows, is a
20:36
Speaker 1: big grocery store chain that cost a lot of money.
20:40
Speaker 1: Whole paycheck is what some people call it. It's a
20:42
Speaker 1: little pricey uh. They a billion dollars a year, Josh,
20:47
Speaker 1: is what how much produce they sold in two thousand
20:51
Speaker 1: and six and sixteen point four percent and that came
20:54
Speaker 1: from local sources, which is up about two percent from
20:57
Speaker 1: two thousand five and another making in a big effort.
21:00
Speaker 1: I would imagine in two thousand nine it's even higher
21:02
Speaker 1: than that. So even these big companies like Whole Foods
21:05
Speaker 1: are trying to trying to source out local food a
21:07
Speaker 1: little more. Well, yeah, people are getting a lot savvyer
21:09
Speaker 1: these days. I mean, you know the fact that the
21:12
Speaker 1: FDA's directives were reversed the next month because there's an outcry.
21:16
Speaker 1: There's a petition online saying leave Michelle Obama alone because
21:19
Speaker 1: she's farming organic. People have gotten a lot, a lot
21:22
Speaker 1: savviier and they realized, hey, I'm putting this stuff in
21:25
Speaker 1: my body, literally, I should probably pay a little more
21:28
Speaker 1: attention to it, right I got a garden, do you
21:31
Speaker 1: in your little squatting land area? Um no, actually this
21:34
Speaker 1: is on our signer property. Uh yeah. John Fuller and
21:38
Speaker 1: I from stuff in the B side. He was talking
21:39
Speaker 1: to me about this weekend. He he has a little
21:41
Speaker 1: garden too, and we're gonna try and then I know
21:43
Speaker 1: a couple of other people here to We're gonna get
21:45
Speaker 1: a little vegetable exchange going on. Very nice, very nice fun.
21:48
Speaker 1: The concept of growing your own food, I think is
21:51
Speaker 1: John was just blown away by it. He's like, man,
21:53
Speaker 1: this is just the coolest thing. Really. I could put
21:55
Speaker 1: the seeds in the ground and I can eat it
21:56
Speaker 1: later on, and like, yes, John, it's farming years, ten
22:02
Speaker 1: thousand years. Yeah it is. I love my own tomatoes
22:06
Speaker 1: for sure. It's about all I can grow that in basil.
22:09
Speaker 1: Two good things. You're halfway to spaghetti. So agreed, agreed, Um,
22:13
Speaker 1: so check. There is something I think that we should
22:15
Speaker 1: point out. Um, no matter how you eat, whether it's
22:18
Speaker 1: local or um, you eat traditional farm stuff or organic
22:23
Speaker 1: or whatever or McDonald's at every meal, especially McDonald's. Actually
22:27
Speaker 1: that definitely factors into this. Um. There's this concept called
22:30
Speaker 1: ghost acres. Have you heard of this? Got me on
22:33
Speaker 1: this one, dude, This one's awesome. So basically, when we
22:35
Speaker 1: think about, you know, the amount of acreage it takes
22:38
Speaker 1: to produce food, right, we say, okay, well, you know
22:42
Speaker 1: one acre of food can produce um, you know, twenty
22:46
Speaker 1: thousand pounds of strawberries on a traditional farm. Right. Ghost
22:51
Speaker 1: aakers are all the other parts of land that's required
22:55
Speaker 1: for that strawberry to go through its life cycle. Right,
22:58
Speaker 1: So you take into the it's to account the acreage
23:01
Speaker 1: that the fertilizer factories built on. You take into account
23:05
Speaker 1: the acreage that the dump, the landfill that's going to
23:08
Speaker 1: accept the strawberry rhymes is built on. Or um, the
23:12
Speaker 1: acreage that's polluted by the runoff from this farm. Is
23:16
Speaker 1: there ghost acres and it ups the number of acres
23:19
Speaker 1: required that it's the actual number of acres and the
23:23
Speaker 1: impact that has on the land to produce you know,
23:26
Speaker 1: you know, ten thousand, twenty thousand pounds of shrubbers or whatever.
23:29
Speaker 1: That's the real deal. It's just the real deal. Yeah,
23:32
Speaker 1: So yeah, ghost acres definitely worth looking up. Man. Oh
23:35
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. Yeah. I thought you're gonna throw me
23:37
Speaker 1: some stat like, did you know that for every acre,
23:39
Speaker 1: there's ten ghost acres. Actually, the think that's about right.
23:43
Speaker 1: I think it's ten point one per person. Yeah, look
23:45
Speaker 1: at you. Thanks nice work, Thanks buddy. Have we exhausted this?
23:49
Speaker 1: I think we have a big time. I think we
23:51
Speaker 1: did about ten minutes ago. Yeah, grow your own stuff
23:53
Speaker 1: would be kind of cool local. You can join Chuck
23:56
Speaker 1: and John Fuller's um little food cooper change. Can I
24:00
Speaker 1: get in on that action? Uh? Well, you have to
24:02
Speaker 1: grow something? Can I just buy some? Yeah? Sure, okay,
24:05
Speaker 1: I'll say some zucchini. I've got cucumbers going in the
24:08
Speaker 1: back of my car, remember all right? Yeah, So yeah,
24:11
Speaker 1: that's about it. Um. If you want to know more
24:14
Speaker 1: about growing your own food, We've got all sorts of
24:17
Speaker 1: gardening stuff on the side, don't we, Chuck. We do.
24:19
Speaker 1: We also have tons of recipes. We have a whole
24:22
Speaker 1: recipe channel we do. So there you go. All you
24:25
Speaker 1: need to do is come to how Stuff Works dot
24:26
Speaker 1: com and say whatever you want to in that little
24:29
Speaker 1: search park. You should probably type it rather than say it.
24:31
Speaker 1: I don't think we have the right Josh this. Uh.
24:38
Speaker 1: As you know, we have a some fans over in Iraq, Yes,
24:43
Speaker 1: at Camp Liberty. Yes, some Army dudes and ladies who
24:46
Speaker 1: were very appreciative of And uh, this game from specialist Norman.
24:51
Speaker 1: I can't say your last name Norman, which stinks, but
24:54
Speaker 1: he is a specialist SPC Norman. Uh, he wrote her,
24:57
Speaker 1: wrote us a while ago. He's a soldier in the Army.
25:00
Speaker 1: He currently fed her down in an office job in
25:02
Speaker 1: the Greater Baghdad area. And your podcast is not only
25:05
Speaker 1: a ray of sunshine in this sterile environment, it is
25:08
Speaker 1: a rampant light storm. Pilford out of Tesla's personal Forbidden
25:12
Speaker 1: R and D department. Oh it's that guy. Yeah. I
25:15
Speaker 1: love this guy because he's an awesome writer and he
25:17
Speaker 1: blows things up. It's like what we want to be.
25:20
Speaker 1: He's hyperbolic, so he says we love you and flattery complete.
25:24
Speaker 1: And then he has a couple of requests which hopefully
25:26
Speaker 1: will get to one day. Uh. He would like to
25:29
Speaker 1: hear something on Dr SEUs and the reason why is
25:32
Speaker 1: because he has a new daughter that he has not
25:36
Speaker 1: met yet. Oh God, that's gotta be rough right now.
25:40
Speaker 1: And Josh, he has only met her through Skype, which
25:43
Speaker 1: is that videoconferencing and technology. So that's very sad. And
25:47
Speaker 1: Dr SEUs was awesome and I would love to do
25:50
Speaker 1: a podcast on him. Did you know he died the
25:52
Speaker 1: same day as Miles Davis. I did not bad day.
25:56
Speaker 1: I remember getting both of those pieces of news when
25:58
Speaker 1: I was in college. That really bummed me out. To
26:00
Speaker 1: my heroes. And then he wants to hear one on
26:02
Speaker 1: sexual reproduction and evolution. Uh, this is a theoretical marriage
26:06
Speaker 1: that I have never been able to tie the knot on.
26:09
Speaker 1: How in the vast realms of evolutionary possibilities to two
26:12
Speaker 1: separate organisms each decide to belch forth half of their
26:15
Speaker 1: genetic material and stir them together. What environmental factors stabilize
26:19
Speaker 1: such a mutation? So I love that guy. Dude, he's
26:23
Speaker 1: super smart and cool. And we sent them Camp Liberty.
26:26
Speaker 1: We sent them twelve T shirts and we just got
26:28
Speaker 1: a photo of them wearing the house stuff works T
26:31
Speaker 1: shirts with machine guns into tanks, bitch, And it is awesome.
26:35
Speaker 1: And I hope we can frame it super large and
26:37
Speaker 1: put it the office. We have to. We should pop
26:39
Speaker 1: it up on the blugs. Yeah, that's a good idea. Okay,
26:41
Speaker 1: let's do it. Let's actually do it this time. Well,
26:43
Speaker 1: I'll get his permission and then I'll do it, okay,
26:45
Speaker 1: but well you actually do that, yes, okay. So I
26:48
Speaker 1: want to thank Norman for your service, and you guys
26:49
Speaker 1: are awesome and thanks for listening and supporting us, and
26:53
Speaker 1: come home soon and safe heads off to all of you.
26:56
Speaker 1: And if you're in Baghdad or Burma or anywhere, you
27:01
Speaker 1: can send us an email whether you want some free
27:03
Speaker 1: key shirts or not, although it would help your case
27:06
Speaker 1: if you're actually you know, fighting our country, yeah, that
27:09
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Um. You can send us an email
27:12
Speaker 1: to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com for
27:20
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
27:22
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com and be sure to check
27:25
Speaker 1: out this stuff you Should Know blog on the how
27:27
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com home page. Brought to you by
27:31
Speaker 1: the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you