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Exposed: Shocking Truth Behind New U.S. Food Pyramid · UNCHAINEDTV'S Truth Files with Jane Velez-Mitchell

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Guidelines are promoting full-fat dairy products and dairy products in general.
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They're promoting meat as well.
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But dairy and meat happen to be the number one and number two sources of saturated fat.
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Many of these reviewers have been paid by Big Beef and Big Dairy,
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National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the National Dairy Council,
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General Mills, National Cattlemen's Beef Association, National Pork Board,
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oh and Nova Nordisk, otherwise known as Big Pharma.
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All of the recommendations in these new dietary guidelines
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somehow support the inclusion of all of these animal products.
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There it is, the controversial new food pyramid.
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And we've got some breaking news for you.
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And we're happy to say that Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
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is petitioning HHS and USDA,
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Health and Human Services and the United States Department of Agriculture
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to withdraw the dietary guidelines over the unlawful industry influence.
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We're so excited to have Dr. Neil Barnard of Committee for Responsible,
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Committee's Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
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and Chloe Waterman, Friends of the Earth with us.
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Thank you so much, both of you for joining us.
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We'll start with Dr. Neil Barnard.
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What is wrong with this new food pyramid and what are you doing to fix it?
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Two big problems.
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The first is the process by which it came about.
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By law, it's supposed to be transparent.
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People are supposed to know what they're looking at, what evidence is it?
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How did the people choosing it get picked?
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That was all done behind closed doors.
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But apart from the process, the content is really something that food industry,
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especially the beef and dairy industries, would have written.
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Their fingerprints are all over it.
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It says promote meat, promote dairy products,
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and it really shows the naivety scientifically,
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but that's what the food industry wants.
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So we have filed a formal petition with the U.S. government
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to pull it back and start over.
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Tell us about this petition.
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It's not a lawsuit.
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Health and Human Services and USDA are being petitioned to withdraw these guidelines.
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How does that differ from a lawsuit and what is it that you're specifically asking for?
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Okay.
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Well, there is a law called the National Nutrition Monitoring and Related Research Act
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that says when you're pulling together dietary guidelines,
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you've got to have a transparent process.
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It's got to be based not on some special interest,
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but on the preponderance of scientific knowledge at that time.
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The committee has to be free of bias.
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But what we found, and as you were describing in the lead up,
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when you look at the nine people who put this together,
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the nine supposed scientists, five of them had beef industry
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and specifically Cattlemen's Beef Association links,
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and overlapping five had dairy links.
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Three of them were linked to the low-carb industry product.
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And then when you read what they come up with, they said,
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eat more meat, have more dairy, favor low-carb diets.
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And you're thinking it is the most embarrassingly industry-influenced committee.
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So when I say we're filing a petition, I don't mean we got 200 signatures and mailed it in.
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What I mean is it's a formal legal process where we go to the inspector general at the USDA
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and said, this does not follow the law.
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We went to the inspector general at HHS saying this is not following the law.
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Now, they have a certain amount of time to get back to us.
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If they don't, we will be in court.
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In other words, that's where the litigation comes in.
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Now, we've been there before.
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Back in the year 2000, the dietary guidelines at that time,
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25 years ago, were produced without transparency.
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Nobody knew what they were looking at.
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Six of the 11 committee members had industry ties at that time.
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We sued.
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Now, Jane, the government has a lot of attorneys.
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Back at that time, we had one.
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But it helps if you're right.
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And the judge looked at our attorney and said, you are right.
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These guidelines are not fitting with the law.
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And I have to say, after that, the process got so much better
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with each succeeding dietary guidelines.
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But we're back to square one.
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And we're going to be back in court if we don't get satisfaction with our petition.
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Well, amazing work.
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Bless you that you're actually challenging these.
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I want to go to Chloe Waterman of Friends of the Earth US, senior program manager.
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I was really encouraged to see your news release
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very strongly outlining the reasons why this new food pyramid is a disaster.
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A lot of environmental groups, big ones, don't take a stand on this.
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And I could list them.
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And so I just want to applaud Friends of the Earth for being
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at the forefront of this issue, because it's also an environmental issue.
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So let me just show a very little bit about the top part is the New York Times
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editorial, the new food pyramid brought to you by Big Meat.
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And below that is your news release, Friends of the Earth,
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Trump's dietary guidelines reject science backed advisory committee recommendations
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for shifts towards plant rich diet.
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So tell us, Chloe Waterman, what are the headlines of your
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stance on this, Friends of the Earth?
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Well, we completely agree with Dr. Barnard that this pyramid is not
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been driven by science whatsoever.
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It has been driven by the industry interests of Big Meat and Big Dairy.
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And you see that.
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If we put if our plates looks like the food pyramid and people put that much
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steak and cheese and whole milk, we would be exacerbating cardiovascular disease.
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We would be exacerbating obesity, hypertension, diabetes.
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This is not what the science backed recommendations in the Dietary Guidelines
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Advisory Committee, which was that group that was put together in a transparent
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process and made recommendations for plant forward dietary guidelines.
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And you know what's convenient, Jane, is that the diets that are best for our
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health are also the diets that are best for our planet.
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So if we eat a predominantly plant forward diet, if we eat fruits, vegetables, nuts,
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seeds, legumes, whole grains, that is good for our health.
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But those are also the foods that emit fewer greenhouse gas emissions that
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have less water pollution that contribute less to biodiversity loss.
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So the diets that are good for us are good for the planet.
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And this dietary guidelines is a failure on both counts.
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Yeah.
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And Nilo Foroshkarian is saying PCRM is badass.
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You will get them again.
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Here's what I find so confusing about all of this.
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And that is that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is the mastermind behind this,
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has changed his tune on factory farming.
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He used to be, as a environmental attorney, very anti-factory farming.
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He went after Smithfield.
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He compared factory farming of animals to terrorism.
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So you're nodding your head.
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Let me go back to you on that, Chloe.
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What happened?
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RFK Jr. has been a complete traitor on the issue of factory farms.
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I think if you talked to him today, he would still say that factory farming is bad.
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And that makes it completely irresponsible to be recommending a carnivore forward of
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meat and dairy heavy diet, because he knows, as well as the rest of us, that the vast majority
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of meat and dairy products in the United States are coming from factory farms.
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So when maybe he can afford the higher quality, higher welfare animal products that
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don't have as many pesticides in them, that don't have the hormones and antibiotics
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that end up being stored in the fatty tissues of animal products, but most Americans are going
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to be eating meat from factory farms.
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That's where most of our meat comes from.
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So these guidelines completely contradict his message and a core message of the Make
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America Healthy Again movement, that factory farming and this really pollution-intensive
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method that we have of raising animals in this country is OK.
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It's completely contradictory.
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And I just hope that more environmental organizations follow the lead of Friends
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of the Earth and make the connection between animal agriculture and climate change.
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It is one of the leading drivers, and it is the most ignored aspect of climate change.
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Now, I want to go back to you, Dr. Neal.
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This idea of emphasizing meat and dairy, you see it there on the upper left hand,
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when Americans already consume more animal products than any other part of the world.
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Americans eat more than 66 pounds of pork per year per capita.
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And of course, heart disease is the leading killer, which comes from clogged arteries
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that get clogged with cholesterol from animal products to a large degree.
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How is it possible that the simple math of if people are already eating more meat and
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dairy than they should, adding more on is going to make them sicker, not healthier,
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not get through to the people who came up with this?
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Or do they just not care?
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Are they that cynical?
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Well, I think we have to put the blame where it belongs, and that's really on industry.
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The National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the dairy industry, their job is to promote
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their products.
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And that's what they do.
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And they're very successful at it.
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And so they try their best to push it in schools and push it into other federal guidelines
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and that sort of thing.
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And so if you were a secretary of HHS, Secretary Kennedy or others, they're entitled to have
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whatever views they want.
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And lay people never have a complete understanding of good nutrition.
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So that's what they need good, unbiased expert advisors for.
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And frankly, I think that the nine people who constituted the panel that pulled together
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the scientific findings, they really let the government down and they let the American
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people down.
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Their biases showed through.
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It was not a balanced group.
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And so what really needs to happen is we pull these guidelines back.
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You bring together true experts and a balanced panel of experts who can deliver to RFK, to
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the administration and to the public the information that they do deserve.
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Let's face it.
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Their families are at risk for disease as well.
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They need good information.
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And I don't think they were well served by the members of this committee.
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That's what needs to change.
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So people are asking, what can the average person do?
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Well, I can give you one answer.
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Support Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
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Support Friends of the Earth.
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Sign the petitions that go out against this.
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One of the problems we have here is that we're kind of in uncharted territory where perhaps
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even if you prove the industry influence, which I don't think would be very hard to
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prove, it's right there for everyone to see.
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It could just be ignored.
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It's we're sort of in an era of, you know, alternative facts.
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So how do we deal with this?
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How do we and what are the implications, Chloe, for institutions like hospitals, prisons,
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schools, et cetera?
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Well, that's something that's very concerning about these new dietary guidelines, because
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most Americans don't follow the dietary guidelines in their own diet.
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They do inform what ends up on our school lunch trays and in other public institutions.
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So school meals, for example, we serve seven billion school meals in the U.S.
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every year, and the dietary guidelines govern the standards for those school meals and therefore
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what ends up on the lunch trays of those children.
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That's a different process and a longer process.
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USDA still has to do a rulemaking process and propose new guidelines for the school
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meals that would align with these dietary guidelines.
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That's going to be a crucial opportunity for scientists and academics that should have
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been influencing this process that Dr. Barnard is talking about.
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For example, the scientists that are on the dietary guidelines advisory committee to be
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weighing in and ensuring that the way these guidelines are operationalized does not make
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our school meals even more meat and dairy heavy than they already are.
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Um, yeah, and everybody is saying thank you for fighting back.
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So we're getting a lot of response on that.
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Now, here is something that I find very bizarre.
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Okay, as Charles Dickens said, it was the best of times.
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It was the worst of times.
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Or maybe he started with it was the worst of times.
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It was the best of times.
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I don't remember.
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But there are also some developments that are positive that, of course, have been completely
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ignored by mainstream media.
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And let's discuss a couple of them.
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One is that there's this new law called the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act, which sounds
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terrible in the sense that it sounds like it's pushing dairy.
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But within that, there is a new rule that says non-dairy beverages can be fed to kids
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at school without a doctor's note.
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So that's a positive.
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I want to go to Dr.
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Neil Barnard, because in this upside down world we're living in, you'd think, oh, my
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God, the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act.
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Now they're pushing whole milk.
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And this is a disaster.
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But it's also saying that you don't need a doctor's note for soy milk or oat milk or
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almond milk.
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Take us through this, Dr.
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Neil, because I think it's hard for people to navigate all of this contradictory developments.
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Jane, you said it.
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And I want to thank Chloe for her work on this as well.
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When this act was first proposed a long time ago, it was terrible, exactly as you said.
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The whole thing was to put whole milk back into schools so the kids were going to get
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all the saturated fat and all the calories that had been taken out for a while.
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It was going to be put back.
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That was terrible.
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It was also inevitable.
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There was no way that that act was not going to be passed.
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So we and others worked very hard to get what we could.
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And so the first thing is, just as you said, Jane, right now, as of the signature on this
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law, which was, I think, yesterday or the day before, it's now law.
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Any school can serve cow's milk.
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They can serve soy milk.
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So a kid comes in, they're 16 years old, and they say, give me the soy milk.
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I'd like vanilla.
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The school can serve it before they couldn't.
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That's a good step.
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Secondly, we got a little frozen there, but that's OK.
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Go ahead.
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We got you back.
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All right.
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Well, you're hearing about this.
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We all froze for a second.
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I think freezing is part of our new society.
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So we'll get back to Dr. Neal in a second.
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What do you have to say?
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Well, Jane, I think I can finish his thought on this because Friends of the Earth and Physicians
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Committee worked really closely together on this.
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He described one of the things this would do.
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The second thing that this new law does is it gives students who have disabilities,
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which includes lactose intolerance, an affirmative right to a non-dairy milk at school.
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It used to be that those students would have to have a doctor's note describing their disability.
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Now this note can come just from a parent, and those students have the affirmative right
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to get a non-dairy milk at school.
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For your audience watching, if your student is lactose intolerant,
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you can now write your school to let them know your student is lactose intolerant and
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right and requires a non-dairy beverage, and they have to give that to you.
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For every other school, for every other student, your school is authorized now.
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They're allowed for the first time to put swim milk on the lunch line,
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and that is a huge step forward.
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And then there was another positive development.
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And this, again, I don't know if this is like even a broken clock is right twice a day.
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I don't know what's going on here.
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But another positive development is
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Senator Schiff has introduced legislation to expand plant-based meal options for students.
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I've got to read the fine print because this is huge.
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Of course, the mainstream media pretty much ignoring this as per usual.
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But here's the quote, providing additional resources to school districts so they can
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provide more plant-based food options brings us a step closer to ensuring that all students
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can have access to healthy, sustainable meals.
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As a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, I'm proud to introduce this legislation.
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Wow.
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I mean, that's huge.
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Absolutely.
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This is a bill that our coalition, the Plant Powered School Meals Coalition,
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of which Friends of the Earth and the Physicians Committee are both members,
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have been working on now for three Congresses.
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But this is the first year that this bill is being introduced in the Senate.
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So that is a huge milestone.
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And it shows the momentum that we've been able to build on this because of the student
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demand for these options.
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Students across the country are going to their schools and they're saying,
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I want more plant-based options.
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Some of them are doing it because they're bringing their environmental activism to the
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cafeteria.
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Other students care about this because they just want a greater variety of healthy protein
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choices.
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But their schools are having a hard time getting all of the resources to provide these expanded
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options.
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So this bill would give those schools grants to be able to expand healthy plant-based options
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so that plant-based options become the norm on K-12 menus instead of the exception.
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So how would you summarize all this?
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Because when I started looking into it, it started as a disaster for plant-based.
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We've got this new food pyramid that puts meat, you see, it looks like a chicken, steak,
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cheese, fish, eggs, which are cholesterol bombs, packed with cholesterol, milk.
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It looks like dairy, yogurt.
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And we've got Dr. Neal back with us.
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So I'll ask him, how do we balance all this out?
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We've got this horrible news with the emphasis on meat and dairy in the new food pyramid.
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But then we've got this great new legislation introduced by Senator Adam Schiff from California
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and that would expand plant-based meal options.
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And then we've got the new non-dairy options for students.
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Where are we, Dr. Neal?
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I think we have to make the choices for ourselves and we have to make the choices especially
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for our children right now.
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And so that means the government isn't going to put the food into your mouth.
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That's your choice.
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So there are healthful foods in schools.
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There are healthful foods at the store.
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Those are the ones to emphasize.
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In the meanwhile, plenty of us are working to make the policies better, but we have to
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have the healthy foods.
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And that means the plant-based foods, the vegan foods for our kids.
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So, you know, we all know that veganism, the plant-based movement has been under attack.
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And just to give it the 30-second or 15-second recap, when Beyond Meat's stock went public
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in 2019 and people from the mainstream media, which I used to be in, had ignored me for
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years and basically acted like I was a little crazy, suddenly started texting me.
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You were so prescient.
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Oh, this is so amazing.
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Well, I think the meat and dairy industry saw that Beyond Meat, there they were on the
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NASDAQ, the most successful initial public offering in years.
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They freaked out and they declared war on the plant-based movement.
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And the mainstream media, sadly, jumped on and has been writing a lot of negative articles,
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most recently in New York Magazine.
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But I do believe that every social justice movement doesn't go straight up.
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It has its, it's like a roller coaster, but the arc is positive.
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And I do feel that there's going to be a boomerang.
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I do feel that there is this overemphasis on, oh, meat's back.
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I believe we're a lot stronger than anybody's giving us credit for, and it's going to start
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showing soon.
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My question is, how is that going to transpire?
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Dr. Neal and then Chloe.
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We are seeing this at every possible front.
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On the scientific front, the evidence supporting a plant-based diet is stronger than ever.
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The evidence that the optimal amount of meat in your diet is zero, that evidence is stronger
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than ever too.
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The evidence linking milk to breast cancer and to prostate cancer is stronger than it
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has ever been.
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The American Medical Association now has policies promoting plant-based diets.
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Every restaurant you go into has options that are there.
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None of that was there a generation ago.
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So it's always a little bit of a stepwise path, but we are clearly winning, and there
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is no question that the diet of the future is a plant-based vegan diet.
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And I like to point out for those who say, oh, you know, the sky's falling.
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The word vegan was only created in 1944, while Pythagoras talked about veganism back in 500
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BCE, he did it as sort of meatless.
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There was no actual word for vegan until 1944.
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So when we put that in context, Chloe, we're doing quite well for a movement that is still
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in its infancy.
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Where do you see us going, Chloe, as we enter this new phase where, again, I have to quote
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Charles Dickens, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
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Plant forward is the future.
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I agree.
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And this week, I've had the fortune to spend some time with some young people who are part
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of our Plant Powered School Meals coalition, high school students and college students
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who have been advocating for plant-based options in their own school district and for the policy
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changes that will facilitate more plant-forward menus.
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And they and their peers and their generation have no question that plant-based is the diet
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that is going to support their health, and it's the diet that supports the health of
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the planet they're going to inherit.
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You know, I have to say, looking at this issue, and there's something called the 80-20
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rule, or is it the 20-80 rule, that 80 percent of the outcomes are based on 20 percent of
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the inputs.
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And when I read about that, I was like, that's meat and dairy.
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It is a leading, some have made a strong argument, depending on how you calculate this very big
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subject, the leading cause of climate change.
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But nobody argues.
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Everybody agrees it's a leading cause.
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Then you have the leading cause of the health crisis, heart disease being America's leading
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killer.
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Then cancer, processed meat is officially cancer causing.
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You have human world hunger, where we're feeding so much of the food that we grow, like more
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than 80 percent of soy goes into factory farmed animals.
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When people are dying of starvation, where we could redirect that soy to them.
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So many of the world's problems boil down to killing and eating animals for food.
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When will we hit a critical mass, do you think, Dr. Rao, and I quote Dr. Silas Rao, who has
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said that we must transition to a plant-based culture to avoid a climate apocalypse.
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When do you think that the so-called best and the brightest out there will actually
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wise up to this, given that climate change is no longer hypothetical.
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It is real to wit, people I know losing their homes in the fires that occurred last year
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here in California.
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Well, I think you put your finger on it.
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What do people really care about?
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They care about the environment that they're living in.
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They care about their own health.
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There's one other piece of this that they shouldn't forget about, and that's that people
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care about their children.
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They care about the health of the next generation.
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So the meat industry or the dairy industry will try to come up with distractions.
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They'll say, the problem isn't meat.
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The problem is soy.
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Soy causes cancer.
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Well, research showed that soy helps prevent cancer.
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Women consuming the most soy reduce their risk of breast cancer.
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Men consuming soy reduce their risk of prostate cancer.
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And the other piece of this is birth defects.
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One of the latest things that the meat and dairy industry has been doing is saying, don't
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worry about our products.
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The products you should worry about are processed foods.
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Processed foods will hurt you.
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Well, it turns out, as you may remember, that we used to have spina bifida, the neural tube
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defect, in very large numbers.
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And in 1998, the FDA said, put folic acid, it's a B vitamin, into processed foods.
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So every box of cornflakes, every box of Wheaties, all breads, grain products were fortified.
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And spina bifida dropped by 23% within just a matter of years.
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Now, with the beef industry saying that those products are the problem, by banning those
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healthy processed foods, they're going to bring back the birth defects that will hurt women
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and children.
26:34
We can't let that happen.
26:35
The problem is the meat industry.
26:37
The problem is the dairy industry.
26:38
Now, don't get me wrong.
26:39
Those are business people trying to feed their own families.
26:42
But they, like the tobacco industry before them, can get into healthy industries, and
26:48
we can all be better off.
26:50
Well, I have to say that you're taking the legal action.
26:56
PCRM, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Friends of the Earth is in there
27:00
in the halls of Congress.
27:01
But social media is talking about this like crazy.
27:05
And I'd like to play a couple of social media clips and get some response on how it's being
27:12
framed, because a lot of people are looking at this food pyramid and going, this does
27:16
not add up.
27:17
There is something, I hate to say it, fishy, don't like to use that phrase about this.
27:23
Now, here's Dr. Matthew Nagra covering more confusion.
27:25
How they came to the conclusion that vegan diets tend to provide inadequate amounts of
27:29
this long list of nutrients is actually unbelievable.
27:33
What they essentially did is look at what would happen to nutrient intake if you took a vegetarian
27:38
diet and then removed eggs and dairy, as well as fortified soy milk.
27:41
But then replace them with absolutely nothing.
27:45
So the take-home message is, if you stop eating animal foods and fortified soy milk
27:49
for some reason, and replace them with air, you get less nutrients.
27:53
Mind-blowing stuff.
27:54
And the scientist who was responsible for reviewing the data on vegan and vegetarian
27:58
diets for these guidelines didn't even know that this is how the research was done until
28:02
it was pointed out to him on X.
28:04
I mean, his job in developing this scientific report for the new guidelines was to know
28:08
these things.
28:09
And unfortunately, this wasn't just an egregious error that made its way onto a blog post or
28:14
podcast.
28:14
These are the dietary guidelines for Americans for the next five years.
28:18
Amazing.
28:23
Using some humor there, Chloe, what's so upsetting about these guidelines is that they
28:31
attack a plant-based diet, proactively attack a plant-based diet, even while putting the
28:39
vegetables up there on the right side.
28:42
So none of it really makes a lot of sense.
28:45
Well, Jane, I'm glad you picked up on it, because it is a little bit nuanced.
28:48
And I would say the food pyramid is particularly offensive to look at, in contrast with what
28:54
the science recommends around plant-forward diet.
28:57
When you actually look at the text of the guidelines themselves, they recommend more
29:01
protein, but they do not present a preference for animal protein over plant protein.
29:07
The written guidelines themselves actually say, have more protein, protein should come
29:12
from animal sources and plant-based sources.
29:15
What they should have done is say, most, if not all, of your protein should come from
29:19
plant-based sources, because that is what the science points to.
29:23
And so if we are going to meet the higher protein recommendations from the dietary guidelines,
29:28
it's critical that people do that by consuming more plants.
29:31
That message is getting lost, because the guidelines themselves are so confusing.
29:35
You put steak at the top of the pyramid, but you maintain the limit on saturated fat, which
29:40
is the right thing to do.
29:42
How can those things go together?
29:45
The Trump administration set out to try to have clearer guidelines, but these are only
29:49
more confusing.
29:51
Yeah, one of the obvious things, and a six-year-old child could figure this out, there's only
29:57
so many foods you can eat in a given day.
30:00
Considering that whereas Americans are already over-consuming meat and dairy, and by the
30:07
way, nobody mentions in any of this fast food, let's be real for a second.
30:12
The reason why two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese is because of fast food
30:16
joints.
30:18
People eating fast food at all the fast joints, fast food joints on the strip.
30:24
That's like, I would say, just crazy guess off the top of my head, at least 65% of the
30:32
over-consumption of calories.
30:33
They've done numerous stories where if you eat one of these fast food meals, you get more
30:38
than your daily intake of calories.
30:41
It's so shocking to me that they don't, well, it's not shocking, because obviously it's about
30:45
money and business, but they don't mention the words fast food to my knowledge.
30:50
Maybe they do.
30:51
I haven't read all the fine print.
30:53
They're not emphasizing that the real problem is America's
30:59
miracle miles filled with fast food joints.
31:03
When are we going to get to that, Dr. Neil Barnard?
31:06
Because to me, that is the heart, the crux of the problem.
31:11
Fast food is a very relatively recent phenomenon.
31:14
It literally started maybe 1960s, took off maybe 80s, 90s, but it has increased exponentially
31:25
and the obesity crisis going right up there with it.
31:29
Well, there's nothing wrong with food being fast.
31:31
It's a question of what that food is.
31:33
So if you go into Subway and you take all the meat items and the cheese items and so
31:39
forth, and if that's what you're going to pick, you are likely to gain weight.
31:42
You're going to have a high risk of diabetes.
31:43
If you go in there and say, no, cut open that baguette and put in all the veggies and so
31:50
forth, you're going to get something that's actually a pretty healthy sandwich.
31:53
You can go into Taco Bell.
31:54
You can go into any one of the fast food chains.
31:56
And if what you order is the plant-based choice, you'll do better, even if it is fast.
32:04
Well, I agree.
32:05
At the end of the day, they're just boxes on a street and those boxes can be filled with
32:11
anything. And there have been efforts by sort of the more modern casual dining and
32:19
or fast food in the manner of, let's say, Chipotle to offer more vegan options.
32:25
And there are vegan options in some of the fast food restaurants.
32:28
I agree with you there.
32:30
Let me jump back in here, Jane, though, because you did put your finger on something really
32:34
important.
32:35
What they're actually serving has been manipulated by industry.
32:38
If you look at, for example, at Wendy's, I can show you a contract that Wendy's signed
32:45
with the U.S. government to promote cheese.
32:48
By law, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has to promote cheese.
32:52
And one of the ways they do it is they contract with Wendy's, with Burger King, with pizza
32:56
chains to have more and more cheese in their products.
33:00
I can show you these contracts.
33:02
And what has happened?
33:03
Back a century ago, 1909, the USDA started tracking cheese intake in the U.S.
33:09
The average American ate only about 3.8 pounds of cheese in a year.
33:15
Today, are we eating 3.8 pounds of cheese?
33:17
No, we're eating 40 pounds of cheese per year.
33:22
Fast food is the vehicle that's come in.
33:25
But if you go to Taco Bell and you say, give me the bean burrito, whole cheese, that's
33:31
an OK choice.
33:31
And if you make the healthful choice at those places, you're going to.
33:37
Well, I know you have one of your podcasts that is a PCRM podcast coming up at the top
33:44
of the hour, so I don't want to keep you much longer.
33:46
We're so grateful for both of you giving your time.
33:50
But I do want to ask you a couple of quick questions.
33:53
One is the media.
33:54
Now, one of the reasons we started Unchained TV is that all these developments are completely
34:00
ignored in the media.
34:01
I looked actually for information on the new plant-based milk option that is now part of
34:09
law, and I found one reference to it in one.
34:14
This is big news, and it is being completely ignored or almost completely ignored by mainstream
34:20
media.
34:21
The non-dairy options for students that are now available with a parent's signature.
34:26
You don't need a doctor's note anymore.
34:29
So there's the media ignoring the story.
34:36
And then the other aspect is, how do we, given that the news, the mainstream media is ignoring
34:42
this, how do we let parents know that this is an option?
34:45
And I'll give you just an example.
34:48
We did pass a law, correct me if I'm wrong, Dr.
34:50
Neal, here in California that says when you're in the hospital, you have a right to a plant-based
34:55
option.
34:56
I can't tell you how many times people have called me, Jane, I'm in the hospital with a
35:01
broken arm and they won't give me a plant-based.
35:03
I said, it's the law.
35:06
Well, they don't know about it.
35:09
So if there is a law that says plant-based milks are an option, but the parents don't
35:15
know about it and the schools are not enforcing it, how do we make it happen?
35:19
I'd love to get both of you on this.
35:21
And it seems like you really want to say something, so I'll let you go first, Dr.
35:25
Neal.
35:26
You are absolutely right.
35:27
You're in the hospital, you don't have any choice, you're stuck.
35:30
And by law, what you said is exactly right.
35:33
You must have access to a plant-based meal while you're there.
35:36
Same thing.
35:37
Somebody gets picked up for their awaiting trial or they're incarcerated, they can't
35:42
handle what they eat.
35:43
By law, you must be able to get a plant-based item too.
35:45
Schools aren't there yet, unfortunately, so people do have to speak up for themselves.
35:49
If the media doesn't cover it, social media is your ticket.
35:53
So I think people should be using social media aggressively to make sure that everybody
35:57
knows what their rights are.
35:59
Thank you.
36:00
Chloe.
36:01
I agree.
36:02
And that's why we're picking up the slack where the media might be leaving out some of
36:07
this.
36:07
The Plant Powered School Meals Coalition, we have a website.
36:09
We will have resources up next week with guidance for how parents can utilize the new law, how
36:15
school food operators can utilize this new law to add plant-based options.
36:19
It's going to be a big national campaign.
36:21
We need parents from across the country who want these options for their students.
36:25
We need the students across the country to make this known to their school food directors.
36:29
And we're going to get it done.
36:31
We'll see soy milk on the shelves at school meals by the next school year.
36:35
Well, again, I want to thank both of you.
36:37
You are very busy people.
36:39
I feel honored that you've taken the time to appear on Unchained TV's Truth Files.
36:43
And I do want to also say, PCRM, thank God for you standing up to these guidelines and
36:53
challenging them legally.
36:56
That's what's needed.
36:57
And please keep us posted on your efforts.
37:00
I'm going to put it up one more time so people who joined us late can see that PCRM
37:06
is petitioning Health and Human Services and the United States Department of Agriculture
37:12
to withdraw dietary guidelines over unlawful industry influence.
37:17
And I also want to give a shout out to Friends of the Earth.
37:23
And if you look here, that's their very strong news release that is filled with so many points
37:29
about why these new guidelines are really terrible.
37:34
And one of the points we didn't get to is the toxic chemicals that are in meat and how
37:39
if people increase their meat consumption, that could create other problems.
37:45
But I do want to give a shout out to Friends of the Earth for being an environmental organization
37:51
that is looking at the food issue, because I cannot tell you how many environmental organizations
37:58
I come into contact with that don't want to see no evil, hear no evil.
38:03
They have events where they're serving meat.
38:05
They're not looking at this issue at all.
38:08
And I just hope what Friends of the Earth is doing rubs off on some of those other
38:12
environmental groups, because food is an environmental issue.
38:16
So thank you so much, both of you, very much for joining us on this edition of Truth Files
38:23
with me.
38:24
And I would love to have you come back as we continue to bring the real information to
38:32
the people that is truly being ignored by mainstream media.
38:36
See you next time.
39:06
Bye.