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Episode #118: Apeel: Separating Fact From Fiction · Beyond Labels Premium

0:00
SPEAKER_00: What we're trying to do here on the show is to kind of shine light on um let's understand what current system we live in.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: Then you can choose do you want to still participate in that system or do you want to grow your own, go to local farmer, right?
0:15
SPEAKER_00: You have that choice.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: And if you want to stay in that system, what we're trying to do here is help you tease out the differences between the different coatings that are on the produce so that you can make informed decisions.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: You can give informed consent.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Beyond Labels.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: I'm Dr.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: Cena McKella, and I'm here with our favorite farmer, Joel Salatin.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: Today, Joel and I actually have a special guest, Jenny Dew.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: She's the co-founder of Appeal.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: Now, as some of you may already be aware of the name Appeal, right?
0:46
SPEAKER_00: Because it's very controversial at this point.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: Appeal is actually a company that created a post-harvest coating for fruits and vegetables.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: It's a coating that's derived from plant material.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: And the goal of that coating was to extend the shelf life of our produce in order to reduce food waste.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: As I said, there's a lot of controversy around this product right now.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: We've had a lot of our listeners email in questions and concerns.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: We're going to answer all of those today.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: Some of them are is the company funded by Bill Gage?
1:17
SPEAKER_00: Should we boycott Bragg's organic apple cider vinegar?
1:21
SPEAKER_00: Because I heard that they are now using appeal apples.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: Also, things like does it contain heavy metals?
1:28
SPEAKER_00: And the coating is actually a pesticide.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to dive into all of those.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: We've gone straight to the source to try to help us tease out the controversial and answer these questions.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: And that's why we invited Jenny to join us on the show.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: Jenny, welcome to the show.
1:44
SPEAKER_03: Thanks, Cena and Joel.
1:46
SPEAKER_03: Just really appreciate the opportunity to have this conversation.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, let's jump right in then.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so when we got the listeners' questions and I started researching the topic, about 10 minutes into it, into my investigation, I remember actually telling Joel, I don't think people know what appeal actually is.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: And even probably more importantly than that, I think it's possible that one reason why so many people seem so upset about appeal is because they aren't aware of what's actually currently on produce that's in the grocery store.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's I think it is important to point out that I think Joel, you'd probably agree with me.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: We Joel and I probably don't want anything on our produce, right?
2:31
SPEAKER_00: Like my preference would be do not put anything man-made on my produce whatsoever.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: But I think that's what they're laying out in this show, if we want the convenience of our local grocery store, there's a there's not a good chance of you walking in there and getting all of your produce without it containing some kind of coating on it.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: When that also applies to organics, a lesser extent in the organics, but it does still apply to the organics.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: So just so that everybody listening to this is clear, we don't want anything on our produce whatsoever.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: But since that's not the system that most of us live in because we're not growing our own or we're not going down the street to our local farmer to do the UPICs, you know, like all year round, then this is a system that we have.
3:18
SPEAKER_00: And so what we're trying to do here on the show is to kind of shine light on let's understand what current system we live in.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: Then you can choose.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: Do you want to still participate in that system or do you want to grow your own, go to local farmer, right?
3:34
SPEAKER_00: You have that choice.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: And if you want to stay in that system, what we're trying to do here is help you tease out the differences between the different coatings that are on the produce so that you can make informed decisions.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: You can give informed consent.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: So I want to start there.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: Let's start on this big picture and then let's drill down to the minute details.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: Tell us in a grocery store, which produce tends to contain like some kind of man-made wax or coating on it?
4:03
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, perfect.
4:04
SPEAKER_03: Um, we'll start here, and I'd love a chance to go back and also tell you kind of it.
4:08
SPEAKER_03: Um it's related to the inspiration of why we started appeal, um, but I'll answer this question first.
4:14
SPEAKER_03: Um so produce, uh, it's been coated with a wax coating for actually quite some time.
4:20
SPEAKER_03: Um, going back decades, the first commercial use of edible coatings, like a wax coating of some kind or a wax blend dates back to as far as even like the 1930s.
4:32
SPEAKER_03: Um, some reports arguably the 1920s.
4:35
SPEAKER_03: Um common categories where waxes um are used or can be used would be like apples, all your citrus categories from your oranges, grapefruit, mandarins, lemons, limes, your cucumbers, eggplants.
4:52
SPEAKER_03: So it's fruits and vegetables, um, and also ones with a non-edible peel, like some of the ones I've shared, like the citrus ones, uh, but also those with an edible peel, um, like cucumbers, your stone fruits, um like peaches, nectarines, plums.
5:08
SPEAKER_03: Um, so it's uh it's a pretty extensive list, I guess, is is um is over.
5:13
SPEAKER_03: There is no uh limitation um in most markets actually around the world.
5:18
SPEAKER_03: Um as soon as there is like a wax um approval of some kind, um, it's typically allowed for use on all fresh fruits and vegetables.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: Um, and and I and I'm a good and I'm assuming, Jenny, that all that this was all started primarily um not as a not as a beauty enhancer, but as a way to reduce evaporation of the interior of the fruit or the produce in order to extend shelf life.
5:48
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, that's a great um point.
5:50
SPEAKER_03: If we take it back, like so fresh produce itself, like when you um pick like a fresh plum or a blueberry and it looks like kind of dusty or dull, um, that produce has an actual wax coating that forms on it, like when it's on the tree.
6:04
SPEAKER_03: That's sometimes it's called the bloom.
6:06
SPEAKER_03: Um, and so that's kind of the the inspiration of these coatings is like, oh, these fruits have a natural peel and some wax that's already there to help protect it, you know, from um from sometimes the adherence of um like pests, um, like insects and the like, but also to retain moisture.
6:25
SPEAKER_03: And um, very, very early uses of wax, actually back to the 12th and 13th century, would imagine like a like a vat of wax, or you could like dunk like whole apples in, so you'd make a really big thick coating, or maybe you'd pour wax sort of into a barrel of apples or something like that as a way to preserve and and extend the shelf life.
6:46
SPEAKER_03: But then over time it became more um like let's say an evolution to like a thinner coating, you wouldn't need to use as much wax.
6:54
SPEAKER_03: Um, but then also the uh the almost the consumer preferences from a time before about you know, a bit of a sheen to the wax and a glossiness also became in vogue at the same time.
7:08
SPEAKER_03: So while the original intention has been um to retain moisture and reduce that oxidation, um, there's also been a bit of this like market preference from consumers, whether they realize it or not, that to pick this perfect and beautiful produce is what um then the suppliers and the retailers felt like consumers then continued to want.
7:31
SPEAKER_03: And so actually a lot of wax today continues to be used for that purpose.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's not just conventional produce, right?
7:40
SPEAKER_00: This also applies to organic.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: And where does the National Organics program sit in terms of what type of organic produce can have a wax or a coating on it?
7:52
SPEAKER_03: Sure.
7:53
SPEAKER_03: Uh I'll kind of compare and contrast like what is allowed in conventional and then what is then a shorter list that's allowed in the organic side.
8:01
SPEAKER_03: Um, but on the conventional side, they can be um natural waxes, and by that I mean derived maybe from like um a plant source, like a carnaba wax, candlelo wax, um, bees wax, or even a shellac, which is derived from like an insect, for example, but also um petroleum-based uh waxes like a paraffin wax, mineral oil, um polyethylene also, for example.
8:31
SPEAKER_03: On the organic side, it limits it more to where you can derive it from than an organic source.
8:36
SPEAKER_03: So then it tends to be more the list of like beeswax, carnava, um, candlela wax, and um yeah.
8:46
SPEAKER_03: So like the petroleum-based waxes, for example, wouldn't be permitted in organic.
8:50
SPEAKER_03: Um, but it's true that I think there's a misunderstanding that organic suggests that there's nothing on the products, um, while it's actually more like there's a limited list, you know, for which those ingredients are still allowed to be used in organic.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think that's a good point.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: So just so that all the listeners are aware, in my opinion, and I'm curious to see if Joel agrees, we talk a lot on the show about how there's man-made problems with our food supply.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: And for me, the need for the wax is in part, in large part, a man-made problem.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: It's that humans want this um convenience, right?
9:29
SPEAKER_00: Like we want to have apples in the grocery store year-round, right?
9:33
SPEAKER_00: And so why don't you you previously shared a story about apples and how often they're harvested and what happens to them.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: So can you share that?
9:42
SPEAKER_00: Because I think it's important for people to understand that this is a system that has been created based on our demand.
9:49
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, perfect.
9:51
SPEAKER_03: Um, so organ, like if you think about when you would go and like do an apple harvest, it's usually kind of late summer, early fall.
9:58
SPEAKER_03: Um, it's really difficult, you know, when you're go and do a U-pick, like you're not going to find one in the middle of winter.
10:04
SPEAKER_03: But yet in our grocery store, you can buy apples all year round.
10:07
SPEAKER_03: I mean, this is something I didn't, I just took for granted until I started, until we started to peel and started asking more questions.
10:14
SPEAKER_03: Um, and so what ends up happening is um, and this is true for conventional as well as organic apples, they're all um grown through the summer, harvested towards late summer, early fall, and then they're um kept in basically like large refrigerated storage rooms um all year long, and then they're released um just slowly, you know, over the year until you can hope you can bridge into the next season.
10:39
SPEAKER_03: Um, but in order to do that, there's sort of um a few like tricks.
10:42
SPEAKER_03: You basically have to put the apples to sleep.
10:45
SPEAKER_03: Um, and then you do that first of all by like cooling um reduces the respiration of the apples.
10:52
SPEAKER_03: And so the less that it's breathing, the less it's kind of metabolizing and using up its own tissue for energy.
10:59
SPEAKER_03: Um but at the same time, on conventional apples, you can um like you introduce this gas called like one methylcyclopropene.
11:10
SPEAKER_03: And so apples, um, like while they don't ripen, um, they are sensitive to ethylene.
11:16
SPEAKER_03: And so all fresh fruits and vegetables, you know, they might emit a bit of ethylene.
11:20
SPEAKER_03: So sometimes you worry about who are you putting with the neighbor, because that might cause one to um go bad faster than the other.
11:27
SPEAKER_03: Um, so when they get exposed to ethylene, and it's because they're just coming out of the apples naturally when they're in storage, that can trigger neighboring apples to start to get mealy and soft.
11:38
SPEAKER_03: So um we'll add this, like or one methylcyclopropene is added to sit in that little receptor where ethylene would normally sit, and it tricks the apple into not having this sort of catalytic reaction where more and more ethylene, you know, causes it to go mealy.
11:54
SPEAKER_03: Um, one methylcyclopropene is not allowed for use on the organic um in the organic program.
12:01
SPEAKER_03: Um, so the other trick you can do is really kind of turn the oxygen levels down, you know, turn up nitrogen and carbon dioxide.
12:09
SPEAKER_03: So then again, you try to slow the breathing of that uh produce down.
12:14
SPEAKER_03: So there's all kinds of things, you know, because of to your points, you know, the expectation that produce is available um all year round, um, that the market therefore has has kind of responded um, you know, to provide that.
12:30
SPEAKER_01: The the the one methyl material, when you say it's put in the apple, is that how does that get you they're actually putting it in the apple?
12:40
SPEAKER_03: No, it's not like an injection, it's like um imagine exposing the atmosphere gas into the atmosphere.
12:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, in the cold storage uh warehouse.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's correct.
12:51
SPEAKER_01: With you.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: So so to get the bigger pic the big picture, yeah, the produce would be picked, it's gonna be washed, whether it's conventional or organic, it's gonna be washed with some kind of detergent or sanitizer.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I believe chlorine can be used for both organic and conventional.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: Then a fungicide can be applied.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: This is post-harvest.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: So fungicide can be applied.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: The selection of fungicides varies between conventional or inorganic, but it's still allowed on both.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: Then an edible coating can be applied, which is what we're talking about here.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about different waxes.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: This is the step where appeal comes in.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: And then there's different packaging methods that are utilized, like ethylene control, things like that to slow down decay and you know the ripening and bacterial growth.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: So both conventional and organic go through both of those post-harvest processes.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: All right.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: So now that we we know what happens to them, um, and part of this is because produce travels.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: Like I read an article some at one point that was estimating on average the produce in your grocery store travel like 1500 miles.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: So it's got to travel long distance and we want it year-round.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: So this is the system that we have, right?
14:09
SPEAKER_00: This is the I'm gonna call it the industrial system we have.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: So now let's get into where appeal plays a role.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: You guys, you learned about this, and then what was the goal of appeal?
14:21
SPEAKER_00: Like, is it is it a better product, in your opinion?
14:24
SPEAKER_00: Like, what is the purpose?
14:26
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
14:27
SPEAKER_03: When um appeal started with a very simple inspiration, um, or actually more like uh a tremendous shock at hearing a certain statistic.
14:38
SPEAKER_03: And that was um like back in 2012 and hearing um the food and agriculture organizations' reports that a a third of the food that we grow is never consumed.
14:50
SPEAKER_03: Um it's lost either on the farm or through transportation and retail or in consumers' homes.
14:57
SPEAKER_03: And um so it entirely goes like basically to waste.
15:01
SPEAKER_03: Um and then if you think about how hard we're pushing you know, this the system, industrial or otherwise, you know, to food to feed a growing population, the resources that are totally squandered as a result of that, because all that produce ends up um or that food goes to waste.
15:21
SPEAKER_03: Like um, we were all studying different things in engineering and the sciences at the time at which we had come across this information.
15:30
SPEAKER_03: And it was like that thing you just can't unhear.
15:34
SPEAKER_03: Um, and it we just started asking ourselves a bunch of questions, especially for where we are based in Central California.
15:42
SPEAKER_03: There's a tremendous like abundance, farms of all sizes um all around us growing a variety of different kinds of crops.
15:50
SPEAKER_03: And you're going, like, what do you mean like half of this almost?
15:54
SPEAKER_03: You know, like a third or half of this just gets like thrown away.
15:57
SPEAKER_03: Like, so it was also then in is so like in front of our eyes.
16:01
SPEAKER_03: Um, and so we started asking questions like, wait, okay, well, how wait, how does produce like decay or spoil in the first place?
16:09
SPEAKER_03: And you can boil that down to two different stressors.
16:13
SPEAKER_03: One we say like environmental, that's just like the water loss and the oxidation.
16:20
SPEAKER_03: On the other side, you have the biological stressors, um, could be you know, sort of pest pressure.
16:26
SPEAKER_03: Um, and that could be from pests in the field down to really like mold and other things like uh during transportation and and um and farther down the supply chain.
16:36
SPEAKER_03: And so we're like, okay, well, what how do plants well it's like what's what do people do now to protect food?
16:45
SPEAKER_03: Um, there's a tremendous reliance on refrigeration.
16:49
SPEAKER_03: Um, and we kind of I think also forget, like just given the cost and the infrastructure for that, that that is um like a luxury to have access to and to be able to do that from the field and all the way like into our homes.
17:06
SPEAKER_03: You know, when you bring produce home, you very little of it probably sits on the counter, most of it probably goes into the fridge.
17:13
SPEAKER_03: And so we were like participating in some of these post-harvest extension courses, and like the number one thing was just like refrigerate, refrigerate, refrigerate, whatever, no matter the crop, like get it in the fridge.
17:24
SPEAKER_03: And it was like, okay, uh, what else is there?
17:27
SPEAKER_03: Um, packaging, you know, plastic packaging or just packaging of different kinds was like a big um, you know, you see that when you go in into the stores.
17:37
SPEAKER_03: Um, but then also then that's where we learned about um while there was maybe like a much larger array of technologies available for pre-harvest use, the post-harvest space has been actually pretty um like status quo.
17:55
SPEAKER_03: And so it's like the use of those sanitizing and washes, uh, the wax.
18:02
SPEAKER_03: And then when we looked more closely, we're like, wax doesn't even do a very good job.
18:07
SPEAKER_03: Like it does a great job on the shine part, but sometimes you're better off, you know, not with so much handling, and the natural product can protect itself better than something that has had to go through a wax application.
18:20
SPEAKER_03: And so we're like, this doesn't make any sense either, you know.
18:25
SPEAKER_03: So then um we asked ourselves, well, how do plants protect themselves?
18:30
SPEAKER_03: Um, and so when you look into like a plant peel or cuticle, it's like, oh wow, like all of us, like that's the purpose of our skin, um, and a plant peel.
18:41
SPEAKER_03: Um, and even like a strawberry that you don't think of as having a peel has like, you know, a very, very thin like layer interface with the rest of the world.
18:49
SPEAKER_03: And you go, like, well, this is what plants have evolved to protect themselves.
18:54
SPEAKER_03: Um, something that helps it retain moisture and um like reduce the oxidation, you know, due to exchange with the environment.
19:02
SPEAKER_03: And so we just start asking ourselves, what's that material made of?
19:06
SPEAKER_03: Um, and it turns out it's you know, fatty acids and glycerol connected to the fatty acids in order to build out these like cuticle structures.
19:16
SPEAKER_03: Um, and so for us, like we want I think all of us, you know, you want the best technology in your in your phone and in your computer, but that's not what you would want to eat.
19:27
SPEAKER_03: And so that's why when we started looking through, I would call it like a natural library of of ingredients that could be suitable, um, that these plant-based lipids that are the building blocks of the cellular structures of plants and they're in the plants that we already eat.
19:47
SPEAKER_03: Um, that's how we landed on, first of all, the idea for the peel, you know, a better thin barrier that is only there to retain moisture and and reduce oxidation.
19:59
SPEAKER_03: Because when you do that, the produce itself actually can protect itself against biological stress to a much greater extent as well.
20:08
SPEAKER_03: And um, to use ingredients that we felt like, hey, we're already eating these and our bodies metabolize us just like they metabolize regular dietary fats.
20:16
SPEAKER_03: Um, and so that's the the story for the inspiration for appeal um uh as a technology and also um like what it's made of.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's wonderful.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: Now let's if you if you will entertain me, I want to do kind of like a lightning round.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, lots of questions um from the audience and my own questions.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: So uh so you guys have two different types of coatings.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: One is edipeel, and that's for the conventional produce, and then you have organopel, and that's for organic produce.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: Let's start with edipeel.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: What are the ingredients and how do they compare with the current waxing or coatings that are on conventional produce?
21:03
SPEAKER_03: Sure.
21:04
SPEAKER_03: The current ingredients are mono and diglycerides.
21:07
SPEAKER_03: And when I say that, people are like, what is that, especially if you're not familiar?
21:10
SPEAKER_03: So dietary fats are triglycerides.
21:13
SPEAKER_03: It's like a glycerol with three fatty acids attached.
21:16
SPEAKER_03: And so imagine um removing one of those fatty acids, you make a diglyceride, you remove the second fatty acid, you make the monoglyceride.
21:25
SPEAKER_03: So it's a fatty acid and glycerol molecule.
21:28
SPEAKER_03: Um, and that's kind of why we call them like like plant plant-based lipids, uh lipids, because they're derived from these fats or lipids or oils.
21:36
SPEAKER_03: Um so that's the those are the ingredients in um in in edipeel.
21:42
SPEAKER_03: Um, they're just the fatty acids of of different chains.
21:45
SPEAKER_03: And so that's why let's say the the the formal name is mono and diglycerides.
21:51
SPEAKER_03: Um and it's it's just a mixture of these these fatty acid chains.
21:56
SPEAKER_03: Um as that compares to like how does that compare to wax?
22:00
SPEAKER_03: Um in our case, we believe that the improved ability for edipeel coatings to retain moisture and prevent and like reduce oxidation is actually a lot of it is like to the purity of the product.
22:15
SPEAKER_03: When you compare it against other um like conventional formulations that are out there for a lot of the other waxes, um, you have to add things in to make it like more processable.
22:26
SPEAKER_03: Like if you think about like a block of beeswax, like how do you turn that into something that can like spread onto something as delicate as a peach, you know, without damaging it.
22:37
SPEAKER_03: Um, and so in order to like formulate those things, um, there's there's other stuff in it.
22:42
SPEAKER_01: Um because normally, normally, you know, um, I mean, you know, we have we have bees here and work with uh bees wax, and uh normally it would have to be heated pretty hot in order to get it liquid enough to actually immerse.
22:57
SPEAKER_01: Well, you don't want to you don't want to put a peach in uh in hot hot wax.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: Uh we don't even want to put your finger in hot wax.
23:06
SPEAKER_01: Something as tender as a peach or an apple or a strawberry uh immersed in hot wax would be uh pretty devastating.
23:14
SPEAKER_01: And so what you're saying is the the actual liquefication, the the emulsification and liquefication of the coating requires a chemistry that many of us find um um not uh not desirable find undesirable in our food to eat the those even if the basis of it is good, the actual chemistry to get it liquefied enough to work is not good.
23:49
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.
23:50
SPEAKER_03: And then it's like those materials aren't like the things that are actually doing the heavy lifting around creating the barrier that's there to extend the self-life.
24:00
SPEAKER_01: It's strict, it's strictly a uh uh a distribution, uh a distribution agent.
24:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: So let me give an example.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: The carnaba wax.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, I have this article from a company that actually uh manufactures the wax, and it says that it comes from the leaves of the um carnaval palm palm, but it's actually refined and bleached before it's used.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: So it's gonna be refined with most likely some kind of you know man-made chemical that we're not wanting to eat.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: And then they're saying that it's bleached.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: At least this company, that's what they do before it's added on top of some of the foods, you know.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: So that's just one example.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, now with yours, so I have the the grass document.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: We've talked about grass, generally recognized as safe on this program before.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: Um, and you had to get um do a grass submission to the FDA.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: And so I have the grass document here, and in it you list the manufacturing process.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: And I want to go through this.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, but my first, my first really quick.
25:07
SPEAKER_03: So the edipeel is made of mono and diglycerides, organopeel made of so it's citric acid, um, baking soda like sodium bicarbonate and the monodiglycerides.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and so we're gonna also get to that in just a moment.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: But my first question is so we're gonna have a link in the show description so everybody can access the GRASS document and all our sources for themselves.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: In this document, you have the manufacturing process.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: Is this, and we're gonna talk about how it's been modified, but was this the process for the mono and um diglycerides for both the edipeel and organic peel?
25:47
SPEAKER_03: Um, at a historical time, yes, but not the current manufacturing method today.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so this is one of the things I wanted to go through because one of the documents that's being cited over and over by people um kind of uh in our tribe, let's say, is this document, this grass document.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: And what they're saying is in this manufacturing process, um, it starts the feedstock, right?
26:14
SPEAKER_00: So the material that they started with to make the mono and diglycerides is grape seeds on here, right?
26:22
SPEAKER_00: So a natural um ingredient.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: Then it goes through these different steps, and this is this is where a big concern comes in for a lot of people.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: So for instance, on this diagram it shows solvents and it says it can be heptane or ethyl acetate.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: It also has um palladium as a catalyst, and then as you turn to the next page, page 10 in the grass document, there's a there's a um di um a chart here, and it has processing aid residuals, um, and then it also has heavy metals and it lists like not more than um 10 milligrams per kilogram palladium, and then there's arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: So this is being cited by well-meaning people as you know, edipeels, um edipeel and organic peel is not good, it's toxic.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: We're consuming these um processing eggs, these man-made chemicals, and they've added heavy metals, right, to the coating.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so let's let's talk about that.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: Um is this the current process that you or your company is using to create the mono and diglycerides for edipeel and organopel?
27:45
SPEAKER_03: This is not the current process.
27:47
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'm really excited to have a chance to address this.
27:51
SPEAKER_03: Um the and I think this is maybe like an important point to reiterate.
27:56
SPEAKER_03: Like um, there's sort of two points here.
27:58
SPEAKER_03: One is um post-harvest additives existed long before appeal ever came on the scene.
28:07
SPEAKER_03: So that's kind of the first point.
28:09
SPEAKER_03: And then the second point, and it's related to this manufacturing method question, uh mono and diglycerides have also been used in the food system or like in our food supply um since basically like also the 19 like 30s or 50s or so.
28:26
SPEAKER_03: Um and so there's a well-established um existing process for making mono and diglycerides.
28:35
SPEAKER_03: Um, and so appeal is taking an existing um ingredient and then using it in a new way, but it's it's been in uh foods that we've been consuming like for all this time.
28:47
SPEAKER_03: And why that's relevant is like so I just I guess join me on the journey to like when we were very small, we didn't have our product, it was an idea on a piece of paper.
28:59
SPEAKER_03: And if we go and we want to like buy monondiglysterides from an existing supplier, um, because these are found in things like your peanut butters, your breads, your pastas, your ice creams, infant formula, a variety of other foods.
29:15
SPEAKER_03: Um, we can't buy it in like a small enough amount that we could even afford.
29:19
SPEAKER_03: It's like, could you want like a whole palette of this?
29:21
SPEAKER_03: Like, I don't even know if this is gonna work yet.
29:23
SPEAKER_03: So a lot of our early work was to make the molecules in a, let's say in a lab way ourselves.
29:32
SPEAKER_03: And also to be like, can we actually use um byproduct like grapeseed, you know, as a feedstock?
29:38
SPEAKER_03: So it was kind of like testing a variety of different hypotheses, but trying to do that in a way that also um is in line with the like the legal and the regulatory structure to do that.
29:51
SPEAKER_03: So um, so that that's at least that to explain the motivation for why we had this manufacturing process is like we don't know what um chain lengths are relevant to us, at what purity is this even going to work?
30:04
SPEAKER_03: So, how do we make it ourselves and kind of know in a like in a on a lab scale, like how to do that?
30:12
SPEAKER_03: But then we also didn't want to start testing any product and sending it into the wild without making sure it was like approved for you.
30:20
SPEAKER_03: So then you go through the grass process, and even though that's a voluntary process, we were very clear to make sure we were, you know, we had all this these hurdles cleared before we had anything introduced into the food system.
30:33
SPEAKER_03: And so that's why this process exists, but why we don't use it anymore.
30:38
SPEAKER_03: And it's because we now know what our purity specifications like need to be, and we can make those requests of um existing suppliers and manufacturers of mono and dichlycerides, you know, to to a very um like a very common standard.
30:55
SPEAKER_03: Um the full list of what's in that um in those specifications that you see in that grass document, you know, some of them are carried over from like the regulated specifications.
31:07
SPEAKER_03: So because there's already a process, because they've been also evaluated for um like like let's say like their safety and their dietary exposure, you know, human dietary exposure, that's where some of these limits um also come from.
31:23
SPEAKER_03: But then because in our uh early process, you know, we were using um different methods like and like solvent for purification or um, you know, a catalyst to run a certain reaction, we needed to check that after we remove those, you know, that we were um maintaining these very like low residue levels and then using um like a toxicology firm to help us make sure that those were also at you know reasonable limits.
31:50
SPEAKER_03: So that's kind of like a description of why there are certain things on a specifications list.
31:56
SPEAKER_03: These aren't things we're like intentionally adding to like stay there and carry on with the food.
32:02
SPEAKER_03: You know, they were um they're part of the process and things we wanted to remove.
32:06
SPEAKER_03: But then there's a new process that we use, which is how mono and diglycerides are really like made for the all the rest of the ways in which we consume them in in our day-to-day foods.
32:17
SPEAKER_03: Um, and so in that process, there it's more in Cina, you and I have talked about this a little bit briefly before, but um it's about um like taking an oil, pressing it, being able to um react it with glycerol to start to kind of break that triglyceride into the mono and the diglycerides, and then using things like high vacuum and heat in order to like distill the portion like that we want to keep.
32:45
SPEAKER_03: So that's a very different process from what is described in the grass near this.
32:49
SPEAKER_01: So so just uh as a as a total, so you you two you two ladies understand chemistry.
32:57
SPEAKER_01: Um whenever I got a chemistry right problem in high school, the the teacher said, Well, even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while.
33:08
SPEAKER_01: So that that's my that's my involvement with chemistry.
33:11
SPEAKER_01: So so but but but I have been involved with making sausage.
33:17
SPEAKER_01: And when we started making sausage back, you know, uh decades ago, um we could not find a legal seasoning recipe that didn't have monosodium glutamate in it.
33:38
SPEAKER_01: MSG.
33:39
SPEAKER_01: It was it was simply it was not available.
33:42
SPEAKER_01: And and so we went ahead, we went ahead with that seasoning because it made us legal as a prototype.
33:53
SPEAKER_01: And and now now we we we've found we've we've got we've found others, and so it uh so now we obviously we don't have any MSG in our sausage anymore, but when you're prototyping, um what you're describing sounds like literally uh in your embryonic prototype, you simply couldn't, you didn't have um market capacity to get the tiny volumes necessary to run your experiments, but that had to be submitted as part of the documentation early on.
34:29
SPEAKER_01: Now, once you got to a to a prototype that worked and you were able to scale it, so now you can customize the blend and and um and and get exactly what you want, as opposed to only what's available in massive quantities.
34:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's spot on.
34:48
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think if we think about the the evolution of this, it was like, okay, what do we think we need to do like a proof of concept and the you know, right, testing some of the ideas up front.
34:58
SPEAKER_03: And then over time, being able to be like, hey, I know what my specs are.
35:02
SPEAKER_03: And so um, this has also been talked about elsewhere, um, you know, let's say brought up in um in some of the press.
35:09
SPEAKER_03: It's like, yeah, but you know, mono and diglycerides aren't like regulated for trans fats.
35:14
SPEAKER_03: It's like, but appeal can add all these additional specifications.
35:17
SPEAKER_03: So like we the there we test and we assure um the absence of the trans fats.
35:23
SPEAKER_03: We do not source from regulated allergens, we um don't source from animal because technically mono and diglycerides could come from animal sources.
35:33
SPEAKER_03: So kind of going back to like if you're a vegan and you don't know that um, or you're following a vegan diet and you don't know that like beeswax or shellac, you know, that may be against your values and that's coded on your fresh produce.
35:45
SPEAKER_03: So like a wholly plant-based selection.
35:47
SPEAKER_03: So I, you know, I just really wanted to build on what you shared there, um, Joel, because it was um as you as you as you know more, you can actually now define things that are more in line with your values, you know, and then have an ask for it because you know that you've got like a path forward that's gonna make sense for that.
36:05
SPEAKER_00: So we're running out of time.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: So I want to try to get just like let you really short answers to and to get all of this summed up for our listeners.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: So um really quick, for the feedstock, do you source from genetically modified materials?
36:20
SPEAKER_03: No, and we have the a non-GMO um project verification um for that too.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: For the organopel, is the feedstock that you source from organic?
36:32
SPEAKER_03: Um, no.
36:33
SPEAKER_03: Uh and in that case, it's because the monoandiglycerides are allowed as an inert ingredient.
36:40
SPEAKER_03: So um back to your previous question around the difference between edible um edipule versus organopel.
36:46
SPEAKER_03: Organopel we developed because we were being approached by um organic producers around, hey, we we are limited in the tools that we have available, um, but we still have the perishability problem.
36:57
SPEAKER_03: Um, and so that's where we looked more to like citric acid.
37:01
SPEAKER_03: Um, it's used as like a way to kind of manage like mold growth and a variety of other food applications, and seeing that um, you know, is there a way to kind of deliver citric acid in a small amount in order to help?
37:15
SPEAKER_03: You're way more limited than you would be on the conventional side.
37:18
SPEAKER_03: Um, but in order to really like deliver that citric acid, citric acid then becomes this active ingredient.
37:24
SPEAKER_03: And that's why, um, and we're making a claim around its ability to help um inhibit mold growth.
37:30
SPEAKER_03: So that's why it's regulated as a pesticide compared to edipule, which is regulated more on the food side.
37:36
SPEAKER_03: We're not, we don't have any pest claims on that side.
37:39
SPEAKER_03: And so you can use mono and diglycerides uh as like an inert ingredient uh to that formulation, and it doesn't have to come from an organic source because an organic source you've been trying to seek out, and and they're actually quite difficult to come across.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: And so this goes, this answers one of the listeners' questions when they were talking about isn't doesn't the coating contain a pesticide?
38:01
SPEAKER_00: So this comes from if you look at the um environmental protection agency, their document that's a notice of pesticide registration, which again we'll include this one in the link.
38:12
SPEAKER_00: It says organopeel and it is registered as um a pesticide of June of 2019, but it's not a pesticide like we would think of, right?
38:24
SPEAKER_00: Like um, like in the category of pesticide, we're not talking about like a glyphosate.
38:29
SPEAKER_00: You're saying that it's registered as a pesticide because of the actual citric acid that's that's added to organopil.
38:37
SPEAKER_00: And where is the citric acid sourced from?
38:41
SPEAKER_03: Uh from cassava root.
38:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
38:43
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: So that was another that's been circulating around.
38:48
SPEAKER_01: Um so Cena, you know, again, I'm in I'm in the livestock end of this.
38:53
SPEAKER_01: I don't sell apples.
38:55
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but I know that in the organic, in the organic slaughterhouse, um, a lot of times they're using citric acid as opposed to chlorine as an antimicrobial bath to dredge chickens through, for example, that satisfies.
39:08
SPEAKER_01: And so, yes, it is you the the this is where labels, you know, beyond labels, right?
39:13
SPEAKER_01: Uh this is where it gets so nutty because the the US duh, the government, uh, the regulators, they have these categories.
39:22
SPEAKER_01: And and as soon as you start, as you as soon as you start having a non um uh um you start pushing the category, you have something innovative.
39:36
SPEAKER_01: Well, they don't have an actual category for that.
39:38
SPEAKER_01: They don't have a category for a non-toxic pesticide.
39:42
SPEAKER_01: It's all pesticide.
39:44
SPEAKER_01: Uh and so so you can't in your in your uh document forms, um you can't express those nuances.
39:54
SPEAKER_01: They don't fit the they don't fit the categories.
39:57
SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, oh my.
39:59
SPEAKER_01: Um this this is so this is so this story uh um that you're that you're sharing, uh Jenny, is uh is you know, we've been through down this story, you know, the same thing, you know, running a running an inspected slaughterhouse, trying to make sausage, you know, doing things like this that have all this plethora of stuff and you and you try to nuance it out, and and then suddenly you're outside a category.
40:27
SPEAKER_01: And oh my it's like it reminds me of when Bill Wolf was importing kelp and uh as a as a um as a uh as a fertility agent, and they he had to have an LD, uh a lethal dose uh on it.
40:44
SPEAKER_01: And of course he was feeding rats, and the rats just got healthier and healthier the more seaweed he had them.
40:50
SPEAKER_01: And so he said, How am I gonna kill these to get a to to meet the lethal dose specifications?
40:55
SPEAKER_01: So he finally he finally took a five-gallon bucket, uh, poured water in it and some kelp and dumped the rats in it so he could check the box that there was a lethal dose to the kelp, you know, he could drown the rats in it.
41:06
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, this is the kind of crazy stuff that uh that that that is nuanced, but but tight regimented uh government forms don't allow for nuancing.
41:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's that's my that's my that's my tirade.
41:23
SPEAKER_00: So having said that, um, Joel, I know you're on a tight schedule.
41:26
SPEAKER_00: Let's go through just our last couple of things, uh, questions for the listeners.
41:30
SPEAKER_00: And then listeners, if you have more questions, I'm sure Jenny wouldn't mind us, you know, following up with more questions from you guys.
41:36
SPEAKER_00: And I'm encouraging everybody, please ask more questions.
41:39
SPEAKER_00: Please look into the documents and look into the other waxes as well.
41:44
SPEAKER_00: Don't just stop here, right?
41:45
SPEAKER_00: Look into the other ones so that you can decide what's best for you guys.
41:49
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm telling you, some um Joel and I have been aware of this for a long time, that in our book, Beyond Labels, one of our practical bites, if you remember, Joel, is called peel your apples.
42:00
SPEAKER_00: And in that practical bite, I talk about, I learned about the wax coating on apples when I was really sick because I learned that some of the um chemicals that are used in there can actually be derived from grains.
42:13
SPEAKER_00: And so I started peeling my produce because I was so sensitive to glutens.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: So, see, there's all kinds of things that are on our produce that most of us aren't aware about, uh are aware of.
42:24
SPEAKER_00: So we're so just research it for yourself.
42:27
SPEAKER_00: You know, we're not taking sides here.
42:29
SPEAKER_00: We're just trying to provide some light on the situation for you to go in more depth.
42:33
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I wanted to and and seeing it just so that everybody's clear here, uh, that's why Theresa and I buy, you know, 10 bushels of apples directly from an orchard in the fall, and we make applesauce.
42:45
SPEAKER_01: And so in the in the winter, when we want apples, we put a jar of applesauce on the table and we've got our apples.
42:53
SPEAKER_01: Um, and and with none of this on it.
42:55
SPEAKER_01: So, so let's just this this is part of a system, all part of a system.
42:59
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
43:00
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't want to make the applesauce, I make like an apple bake for my kids, really healthy with coconut oil, fresh ground cinnamon, and that freezes really well.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: So, all different kinds of ways you can start preserving to reduce your your intake of any of these types of coatings, okay?
43:15
SPEAKER_00: But I just want to be crystal clear because to, you know, about the grass um um uh outline here.
43:22
SPEAKER_00: So you're starting with feedstocks that are non-GMO verified, and then you're pressing it into an oil.
43:29
SPEAKER_00: You have this catalyst that helps um attach the glycerol.
43:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, so break it down like from a triglyceride that attaches the glycerol to make the mono and the diglycerides.
43:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then but you're not adding any of these solvents.
43:42
SPEAKER_00: You're not adding any of these man made ingredients.
43:45
SPEAKER_00: And then what happens once it has the glycerol attached to it, and now it's the mono and diglyceride, just real fast.
43:51
SPEAKER_00: What happens to it then?
43:52
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
43:53
SPEAKER_03: So it gets uh distilled, and that just really is means heat, vacuum, and you're almost like smearing it.
44:00
SPEAKER_03: On the wall of a vessel to make a thin film.
44:03
SPEAKER_03: And that increases the surface area so that it can actually, because all of these different, like if it's saturated, unsaturated, different chain lengths, they have basically different like melting points.
44:14
SPEAKER_03: And then you can use heat and vacuum to kind of separate those fragments from each other.
44:19
SPEAKER_03: And then with this high temperature where it's like melted, um, it gets to in order to make turn it into a powder, which is what the final kind of dried product looks like.
44:29
SPEAKER_03: Um, you s we spray it basically into a nozzle.
44:32
SPEAKER_03: You make these little droplets of that material.
44:35
SPEAKER_03: And so as it cools, it cools into like little particulate instead of being one big block of wax, like we were talking about, or like a waxy like um solid, like we were talking about with Joel earlier.
44:48
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and so then it goes into a powder form, and then that it's like mixed, is it mixed like mixed with water?
44:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, hot water.
44:57
SPEAKER_02: That's how it's sprayed.
44:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:58
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so so to the quickly to the to the audience's questions.
45:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, so is the appeal coating made from petroleum?
45:06
SPEAKER_00: No, it is not, right?
45:07
SPEAKER_00: Unlike conventional produce, that that that wax can be made from a petroleum base.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: Um does it contain a pesticide?
45:17
SPEAKER_00: We covered that.
45:18
SPEAKER_00: It it is technically registered registered as a pesticide, the organ appeal.
45:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, organopeel is organopeel because of the citric acid, but but it's not what we think it is.
45:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, should we boycott Bragg's organic apple cider vinegar because Braggs is now using appeal apples?
45:35
SPEAKER_00: Is Bragg's using appeal apples in their organic apple cider vinegar?
45:40
SPEAKER_03: Not to our knowledge.
45:41
SPEAKER_03: I think this is maybe a conflated issue because Katie Perry um is like had invested previously in appeal, um, and because she has a link to Braggs, but we have no direct link or sourcing or anything to Braggs.
45:57
SPEAKER_00: So Okay, so not to your knowledge, not to your knowledge.
46:00
SPEAKER_00: Is the company funded by Bill Gates?
46:04
SPEAKER_03: We had received a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation early on with a focus on reducing post-harvest loss and waste in sub-Saharan Africa.
46:16
SPEAKER_03: So that was a very early grant fund.
46:18
SPEAKER_03: So there was no equity stake or no ownership stake that was exchanged as part of that.
46:24
SPEAKER_03: It was for a total of like call it one less than$1.2 million in 2012 and 2015.
46:34
SPEAKER_03: And at that time, yeah, it's part of a grant challenges explorations program.
46:38
SPEAKER_03: That grant program is very active.
46:41
SPEAKER_03: So there's hundreds of companies, universities, nonprofits that um receive this grant funding for a variety of different innovation projects.
46:51
SPEAKER_03: Um, but we don't know Bill.
46:53
SPEAKER_03: We've never met Bill, and he's not uh at all, has has zero ownership stake in appeal.
46:59
SPEAKER_00: And he's not a current funder?
47:01
SPEAKER_03: No, he's not a current funder.
47:03
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
47:04
SPEAKER_00: With the new process, with this with the new manufacturing process, does it contain heavy metals now?
47:11
SPEAKER_00: Does the coating contain heavy metals?
47:14
SPEAKER_03: The heavy metals that are there are um taken up through like the production of the raw material.
47:20
SPEAKER_03: So in the same way you think of like heavy metals that can bioaccumulate in fish and in any other product because it's taking it up from the soil, from the water, from the air.
47:30
SPEAKER_03: Um, so what we have is the residuals um that for whatever reason could not be a hundred percent removed from processing the original agricultural feedstock.
47:42
SPEAKER_03: Okay, so you're talking about like added.
47:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, none are added because of the none are added, and you're not using like the palladium catalyst anymore.
47:50
SPEAKER_00: But what you're talking about is when you have the feedstock that you're starting with, like the grape seeds, for example, those will have some kind of heavy metal in them.
47:59
SPEAKER_00: Just like if you're eating produce from the grocery store, that's gonna contain some heavy metal in it, depending on the produce, because it's taken up from the soil, it's in the air and everything.
48:10
SPEAKER_00: So there's some on there.
48:11
SPEAKER_00: Are you are you actively trying to remove heavy metals from the feedstock to lower that content?
48:17
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, with every like step that you go through, you don't really want them to kind of carry over.
48:23
SPEAKER_03: And and then there are those um like limits that you have to stay within.
48:26
SPEAKER_03: And your the European Union just recently also reduced um those limits for mono and diglycerides used in any foods.
48:34
SPEAKER_03: Um, and so there's like an active, just continuous like improvement you can think of to try to reduce those levels as technologies get better.
48:44
SPEAKER_00: Is it true that some countries, I think it might be like the UK and the EU, are they not allowing like organopeel in that country or edipeel or they're restricting it?
48:55
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, edipeel is allowed.
48:57
SPEAKER_03: Um it is not, it's restricted not because of a safety issue with regards to the ingredient themselves, um, because there's no limit on the allowable daily intake um in any of these markets for mono and diglycerides.
49:14
SPEAKER_03: Um, it is more, I would say, like a cultural preference that only produce with non-edible skins that have had to trans be transported a long distance should have some kind of food additives used.
49:30
SPEAKER_03: That's their new approach, the European Union, um, to how they're thinking about um the use of additives in fresh fruits and vegetables, but they do have historical carryover.
49:40
SPEAKER_03: Um, so like waxes, both the petroleum and the plant-based ones, are allowed on apples, pears, um, stone fruit like peaches.
49:50
SPEAKER_03: So uh there's there's some, I would say like historical inconsistency, and also another additive that's um yeah, allowed on like all fruits.
50:00
SPEAKER_03: So they are restricted because I would say a cultural reason again, preferring non-edible peels and fruits that have had to travel a long distance, um, but it's not restricted because of a safety issue.
50:12
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and this is my final question.
50:14
SPEAKER_00: Okay, then I'll throw it to Joel to close out.
50:17
SPEAKER_00: Okay, um, I was reading this article in Alliance for Natural Health International, and they were talking about edipeel, and they were saying that it utilizes um an emulsifier known as an E471, and that emulsifier is composed of the purified monoglycerides and diglycerides, as we've discussed.
50:35
SPEAKER_00: And they're they're talking about how there really aren't that many, if at all, health studies, right?
50:41
SPEAKER_00: Scientific studies to show what potential impact these emulsifiers have on, for instance, the gut microbiome.
50:50
SPEAKER_00: So, um, and I know I'm very like, I don't consume emulsifiers in, I know that they are ubiquitous in our food supply.
50:59
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, baby foods, you know, baked goods, whatever, they're very ubiquitous.
51:04
SPEAKER_00: I don't consume emulsifiers partly because of my concern of a dysbiosis in the gastrointestinal tract.
51:11
SPEAKER_00: Are you aware of any studies that are saying that these emulsifiers that you're using in the product um like are inert or not harmful or maybe even beneficial in some capacity to human health, particularly the microbiome?
51:28
SPEAKER_00: And if you're if you are not familiar with any, are there any plans for your company itself, or like through funding maybe, or through partnerships, to test this out?
51:38
SPEAKER_00: Because now a lot of us, for instance, maybe you listen to this podcast who don't eat a lot of processed foods, but we do eat a lot of fruits and vegetables.
51:46
SPEAKER_00: Now, presumably, we will have an increase in our consumption of these mono and diglycerides.
51:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I'm wondering if there's any plans to test a potential impact.
51:59
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there are no studies that I'm aware of with the the microbiome like looking at that topic specifically.
52:07
SPEAKER_03: The history on the mono and diglycerides going back to like because they're present in um small percentages in dietary fats, it's also how your body like metabolizes um fats.
52:19
SPEAKER_03: And so then mono and diglycerides are created um as you are digesting any regular dietary fat, um, whether it be something like you know, butter or olive oil or avocado oil, coconut oil, whatever the case may be.
52:35
SPEAKER_03: So historically, the um the reason why there's no limit on the allowable daily intake from a regulatory standpoint is because it's so um, it cannot be distinguished kind of from your regular metabolism of the dietary fat.
52:52
SPEAKER_03: The European Union, the FSA does um kind of a periodic re-evaluation of all additives.
52:59
SPEAKER_03: And so when they do that, they do um like a review of kind of all the kind of new public literature that might have come up, you know, since the last evaluation.
53:09
SPEAKER_03: And so um that's where really like this continuing look at the studies at like a like a higher level, I would say, like at a an authoritary or like an authority level is happening.
53:22
SPEAKER_03: Um, but and we are aware that the European Union is starting to ask questions just in general, not to E471 specifically, but on um a variety of additives and their effect on the microbiome.
53:35
SPEAKER_03: But I think the complexity of the response of that at this point, there's no there isn't like a clear methodology, I guess, that has been established yet that we're aware of.
53:47
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
53:51
SPEAKER_01: Well, what an interesting discussion.
53:54
SPEAKER_01: Um you know, I I think that uh this has been um revealing uh for all of us here.
54:02
SPEAKER_01: Uh Jenny, thank you so much for coming on doing this with us.
54:06
SPEAKER_01: Um I I I can tell you that, you know, our our friends, you know, and we we have friends throughout this movement from, you know, uh Dell Bigtree to whatever.
54:16
SPEAKER_01: And uh and and I I know that I've been guilty of jumping on things, you know, prematurely.
54:25
SPEAKER_01: Um and obviously, yeah, uh you're asking for these emulsification studies.
54:33
SPEAKER_01: Well, that would be a place where you could get another Bill and Melinda Gates grant, I guess, to run them.
54:39
SPEAKER_01: But look, you know, just because a grant came from somebody doesn't mean that the whole thing is uh that that the whole business that that might eventually come out of that, germinate from that, is is uh tainted.
54:55
SPEAKER_01: And so um so uh we I I I really appreciate the the chance to to dig down on this, create a little bit of um um space in in on on our side to uh not cry wolf and say the sky is falling uh prematurely and unnecessarily.
55:16
SPEAKER_01: And um, and so thank you very much for coming on.
55:20
SPEAKER_01: Thank you everyone for joining us on another Beyond Labels podcast, and we look forward to visiting with you again next week.