Latest / REAP/SOW / Did MAHA really go from dominant to done?
Transcript
- Theodore Ross: Welcome to Forked. I'm Theodore Ross, Editor-in-Chief of the Food and Environment Reporting Network, and I'm joined by my co-host, Helena Bottemiller Evich from Food Fix. On this episode, some parts of the media pronounce MAHA D-O-A-P-D-Q, but is it possible that they're F-O-S? We discuss. We also talk about the staggering, stunning, holy guacamole adoption of GLP-1s by Americans and the rise and risks of compounded weight loss drugs and direct-to-consumer pharma. Finally, a pool full of pickles for a proper purpose. Helena, welcome back to Forked. How are you? Helena Bottemiller Evich: I'm doing well. I'm in cool Bellingham, Washington. High of 70 today. Theodore: Oh, very nice. Very nice. I see, and I remember this for those of us who watch the podcast, behind you is that ship, which I love. Helena: I need to get the story behind this. I will next time. Theodore: All right, well, there is a lot going on in food land, so why don't we jump right in? What do you say? Helena: Yes. Theodore: Oh, actually, you know what? Let's not jump right in. Let me make a little bit of an announcement. Helena: Housekeeping first, always. Theodore: A little housekeeping. This episode is coming out on 7/14. Then we have one that's two weeks later, which is the 30th, I believe. I'll have to check that. Those are the last two episodes of this cycle of Forked. We are going to take off August as the Europeans do and not do Forked for a couple of weeks, and then we'll be back out on an exact date TBD in September with some new cool stuff and some new cool people, and it'll be great and it'll be worth the wait, and that's that. All right, with that and that bit of housekeeping done, let's jump right in with the Double Take, which is something that is in the food news that makes you do a double take. Sometimes it's bad. Sometimes it's surprising. I think this one fits into that case. I saw that there was a Gallup survey, I was reading about it in the New York Times, that showed that 15% of Americans had reported using a weight loss drug at any point and that 11% of the entire freaking country, adults only, were currently taking one. That, just for a little context, was up from 3% who said they were taking an obesity drug in 2024. Helena, everybody is taking these freaking pills and shots and things. Helena: Yes. The scale of adoption has surprised me. I knew that this was going to affect food demand, and I knew this was going to be a major force. I think I've mentioned this before. I started covering it really early because Wall Street analysts were paying attention to this about how it could affect the demand for certain products because all these companies need to grow every quarter. They need to sell more of whatever snack or whatever they are selling. I paid attention to this really early, and I knew it would be big. I did not expect it to be this big. 15% of adults already using a GLP-1 or have tried a GLP-1, 11% using them currently is astonishing. It's very likely that we have passed peak obesity. Theodore: That's in the article. Helena: Obesity went down for the first time ever during the Trump administration. We talked about that recently. Just the scale of adoption, this is going to show up in the population-wide data that we are going to see from CDC. It always lags a bit. This is an astonishing number. The food industry is really having to change how it approaches the market because of this. Theodore: I want to talk about obesity for a second. We talked about this on a previous episode about who or what did or did not cause the drop in obesity rates, but it does appear to be dropping after a peak of 39.9% in 2022. We are, according to recent data, at 36.4%. What I thought was interesting, because this did not show up in the previous data that we were talking about, was that the diabetes rate seems to be stabilizing as well. Now, GLP-1s theoretically are anti-diabetes drugs. Helena: Yes. They were initially developed to be a diabetes drug. Yes. Theodore: The fact that it is having an impact on obesity and a long-term disease like diabetes, that's some meaningful stuff, man. That is not a minor thing. Helena: Some of the data around the non-weight loss effects, they're even more interesting. Some of the stuff coming out about cardiovascular risk prevention. Theodore: The immortality stuff, right? We're all going to live forever on this stuff. Helena: Well, I got a lot of heart disease in my family. Theodore: Mine too. Helena: I pay attention to cardiovascular disease risk factors and also the fact that they're seeing such significant reductions even if people don't lose weight. Even if they're non-responders on losing weight, they can have cardiovascular benefits. Then also there's inflammation benefits. A lot of this we don't really understand. It also flags to me, A, how much these metabolic diseases are interconnected and also how our medical system doesn't always understand how this all works. We are still trying to understand how these drugs are even working in all these different mechanisms. It's a fascinating time. Theodore: I had an interesting introduction to that. When I was in graduate school, I had a part-time job doing medical transcription. That was my work to help pay my bills. This was for my mother, actually, who is a neurologist. This was back in the old days. I had a little foot-pedal thing with a tape where you'd play it, and I would just type it up. She had a little mini tape. Helena: From her appointments? Theodore: Yes. She would tape it. This was pre-electronic medical records. Helena: Now it's all AI transcript. Theodore: It is. At the time, she was somewhat ahead of the curve, where she would tape every interview, and then I would write it up. What I realized, especially this is neurology, it is different for the gut. Neurology, it is a lot of art to go along with that science. The doctors who are out there taking care of us, they're acting in very practical ways. They see the symptoms, they take away the symptoms; hope that's probably a difficult byproduct of Western medicine that we're not always treating the systemic problems. They don't always 100% understand exactly why something does what it does. This is one of those cases where this is way out in front of knowledge. Who knows? The two things that popped up in my head when reading about this new data was, one, the widespread use of compounded weight loss drugs. What that means is custom-made drugs, not Wegovy or Ozempic, not the stuff from the FDA-approved stuff. This is companies that are making drugs themselves that are not regulated. Helena: They're basically mimicking them. Theodore: Yes, and they're not regulated in the same way. There's a lot of potential risk there, although it's a lot cheaper, so you can understand why people may use it. I think also the other thing that's emerged dramatically here, although it wasn't created exactly for this, is direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical services. The first one of this, and this was created directly for obesity drugs, is LillyDirect so that they could sell you directly the weight loss drugs. I don't totally have a position on that one way or another, but there is an economic profusion of these kinds of companies out there, whether it's Eli Lilly or Hims & Hers. What's some of the names of these companies? Fridays and WeightWatchers Clinic and RO. Not only are we creating new pathways of medicine, we're creating very, very different systems to provide care to people because these are telehealth companies essentially that are sending you these drugs. Helena: There's also so much marketing for these GLP-1s. I don't know if you've noticed. Theodore: Were you watching Wimbledon? Helena: A lot of the podcasts I listen to are adding ads for different brands. There is so much marketing for them. We've always had that in the US. We're one of the few countries that allows direct-to-consumer marketing or just consumer-facing marketing for pharmaceuticals. I think adoption is only going to grow. It'll be interesting to see where the ceiling is for this. Medicare is now expanding access for people who want it for weight loss. For a long time, it's been approved for these other conditions, like if you have sleep apnea or certain things. Expanding Medicare access for weight loss, I think it's going to be $50-a-month copay or something if you have a Medicare Advantage or some other plan along with your Medicare. I don't know. I'd be curious how you even project how many Americans, particularly older Americans, might now get on them or in the future get on them because we now have more options that are not injections, which was a barrier for a lot of people. Theodore: Their pills. Helena: Bringing down the price. $50 a month for copay is a heck of a lot better than when they first came out and people were paying like $1,000 a month, $1,200 a month. They didn't have insurance coverage. Theodore: You're talking about the marketing. This is a few days ago now, and this is going to be out in a week. I was watching Wimbledon, where Serena Williams played in the singles. I think she had to pull out in the doubles because she got hurt. To no small degree, that was a form of marketing for GLP-1s. Helena: She's all over this. Theodore: I believe her husband started or is directly involved in Hims & Hers. She is on GLP-1s. I believe she's advertised it and lost a lot of weight, got into great shape and played in the singles. She lost, but she looked pretty good. Helena: I can't remember what the relationship is there, but yes, there's been a lot of chatter about that. I think we're only at the beginning of this era and there are more generations of these GLP-1s that are coming on the pipeline that could be even more effective. We'll have to see. I think this is a real factor for the food industry. I think it's fair to say that the introduction and adoption of GLP-1s has had more of an impact than any food policy. Theodore: Oh, for sure. Helena: For sure. Not even close. Theodore: One final stat that really stood out to me that was in the New York Times article from Gallup was that 91% of the people in this survey was 5,000 adults. Helena: Yes, but that survey is a big one. Theodore: 91% said they were aware of these medications. That was up from 80% in 2024. That's a lot of people. 91% of the people in the United States. I don't know if you remember way back when Jay Leno used to go out on the street to these men and women on the street interviews where he'd ask people very basic questions about the Constitution, and people would be like, "I don't even know what the Constitution is." That 91% of Americans know anything about anything, as a collective, that's shocking. That is a big, big amount of awareness for a country that's not always aware of stuff. Helena: Yes, yes. It's mainstream. It's here. I do think we're at the beginning of the GLP-1 era. We'll have to see where it goes. Theodore: We're at the beginning of the GLP-1 era. Helena: Faster and bigger than I would have anticipated, but it's definitely something to watch. By the way, I think maybe we've already mentioned this, but Robert F. Kennedy Jr. used to be super anti-GLP-1s. Theodore: Yes, I know. Helena: You don't hear that anymore. [laughs] Theodore: You do not hear that anymore. You don't hear much from old RFK Jr. these days. They have him in a bunker somewhere, undisclosed area, maybe in New Mexico, maybe not. Underneath. Wherever they keep the aliens. He's under the aliens right now. Helena: He's done a couple swing district events this spring, but definitely lower profile than previous times. He did some pull-ups the other day. Theodore: Really? Helena: He did some pull-ups. I think he had shoulder surgery. Theodore: How was his form? Was it good? Is good form? Helena: The form seemed fine, but of course, people on Threads clipped the last one, where it looked like he couldn't do a single one. They were like, "Oh." Then I was like, "Why did you do that?" You can clearly go find the full clip where he does a few. I guess he hadn't done it since he had children. Whatever. The man is over 70 years old. Why are we pretending to dunk on him? [laughs] [unintelligible] do a pull-up of all the things. He could still do a pull-up. I can vouch for that. Theodore: I think all is fair. All is fair in pull-ups. Pull-ups in social media. I don't think a cleverly edited pull-up video. Yes, sure. Helena: Come on. Let's not have misinformation about pull-ups. We got enough on our hands to sort through. Theodore: He deserves it. That's fine. I think it's okay. We can make fun of him about pull-ups. Anyway, let's move on to our next segment, the Forks and Knives, which is what we like to think of as the main meal on Forked. The thing that is happening in food policy and politics. For me, what I was struck by recently was there were a couple of articles in different publications, basically, pronouncing the MAHA movement kaput. I'm going to read you the two headlines. One, this was in Rolling Stone, Are MAHA and MAGA headed for a divorce? The other one was, this is the New York Times, Has the MAHA movement given up? I felt this is an interesting thing to think about and to talk about from a media perspective, how quickly you can go from MAHA has taken over the university, it turned the election, Trump couldn't have been elected without him. RFK Jr. is probably going to be the next president. The next thing you know, in July, it is Dunsky over DOA pretty fast. I was reading your newsletter. Helena: I'm also anti-question headlines, unless you for sure answer the question. Theodore: That's a truism. It's a truism for those of you out there in listening land. Helena: Like a shrug emoji. Theodore: The idea was that when you come up with headlines, especially for covers of publications, you should never put a yes or no question on there because the idea is, I never totally bought this rationale, but the idea was that if the answer was yes or no, somebody would look at the cover, say yes or no, and then not buy. Their curiosity was satisfied and so they wouldn't purchase it. Maybe that does not hold true in the post-everything, certainly post-media era. Helena: It might not be the print headline too. I don't know. I don't get either of those magazines in print. Theodore: We can forego some of the pontificating about the overall strength or weaknesses of MAHA nationally. At FERN, we have a lot of reporting coming up about the political fortunes of MAHA. I think there's plenty to think about. I want us to talk about what's happening with the things that MAHA has tried to do. You wrote a really good newsletter at Foodfix.co, you guys should all check it out, a little bit over a week ago now when it comes out, about the failure, the preemption movement in Congress. How do you connect all these dots together? Helena: If you just go through the agenda items, things are either stuck, or have a very unclear timeline, or have been pushed back. When you look at the to-do list left for MAHA on food policy, it's things like closing the grass loophole, or tightening up food additive regulation. That's now a year delayed from when they originally wanted to do it. They've pushed the timeline back to later this year. We'll see. I think it's even possible that could be dead. I don't know. It's been impossible to get a status update, which is never a good sign for policy. That was RFK's number one priority coming in, and he set on food. Let's set aside. [crosstalk] Theodore: By the way, we're going to be coming back in September, after we go on hiatus in August. Autism will be done. That's the promise. They will have fixed that whole thing. Helena: So many promises. The number of promises that have been made are really astonishing. Grass reform, high priority, maybe by the end of this year. We'll see. That's been pushed back. UPF definition, the definition for ultra processed foods, it's this wonky inside baseball thing. [crosstalk] Theodore: But important. Helena: They said that was imminent. Now it seems not imminent. It seems like end of the year, if at all. There's been a lot of pushback on that. There's a rule to update school meals and align them with their big update to dietary guidelines. That was supposed to be out in the spring. Now we're looking at maybe it's going to the White House for review mid summer, which would put it into fall or end of the year release. Theodore: Has any of that been seen? Helena: So much of this is getting pushed back. Theodore: By the way, sorry to interrupt, but the school lunch stuff, do we know anything about how they're going to try to implement this in public school systems around the country? It's interesting. Helena: We do know that there's a lot of hesitancy to give more money, and Congress would really have to intervene to get schools a lot more money. They keep saying things like schools could do more with the money they have, which is one of those things that's both true and untrue. Yes, of course, every school could be doing better, but also serving fresh, less processed fare requires more staffing, requires more equipment. Some of these schools still don't have kitchens, or the kitchen equipment was ripped out. The level of investment required to make school meals less processed is in the billions or tens of billions of dollars just for equipment and infrastructure. Theodore: It's a radical change and radical changes is not easy. It's not easy to do. Helena: It's doable, though. The country can do whatever if you invest in it and make it a priority, but I've seen no attempt from Congress to do that. They have this update on school meals, which, okay, maybe by the end of the year. All of these big things are just getting pushed back. The email subject for the newsletter that went out today for paid subscribers was Moving Goalposts. We're just moving it. We're moving the deadlines. We're moving the timelines. The truth is that they don't have that much time. These rulemaking processes take a long time. They're struggling to get proposed rules out. Well, proposed rules are just the first step, then you have to read all the comments, you have to respond to them, that usually takes a year, then you have to do a final rule, then you have to implement it. There's not a lot of time left on the clock for them to get these big things done. That's a couple of things we've mentioned. There's plenty of other promises that have been made that are nowhere in sight, like [unintelligible]. There's so many other things. Theodore: Politicians make lots of promises. Some of them, they want to fulfill and can't. Some of them, they don't really care about filling and they don't. I think one of the things that we could talk about is the role, especially when it comes to things like food safety, dyes, chemicals, self-processed foods, the role of industry. There's the group that you have been covering and writing a little bit about. What is that? What are they called? Helena: AFIT. Americans for Ingredient Transparency. Theodore: I was going to say the acronym and wait for you to tell me that I said it wrong, but you beat me to it. This time I can't get it wrong. That's a conglomeration of large, large companies, General Mills, Kraft Heinz. Helena: Trade groups. Theodore: Nestlé, Tyson Foods, Coca-Cola, Pepsi Company, and more than a dozen food industry trade associations. It seems to me that you could make the argument that the failure, or at least the delays of what MAHA is up to, is based on pushback by industry. That's probably a big role of it. Helena: Oh, huge role. Oh, yes. No question. Theodore: Absolutely. The question is, how do you slot that into the context of Trumpian anti-regulatory instincts? The Trump administration is not built around regulating, and these things are all about regulating. Two, that this doesn't really accord with what Republicans traditionally are. That's one of the great contradictions of the MAHA movement in the presence of the Republican Party is it's all new for them, and maybe they're not buying it. Helena: That's been the central tension all along. We've talked about it so much. There's this inherent tension between the promises that were made on MAHA, particularly in the food space, and the tradition Republican ideology of governing. They're very incompatible in a lot of ways. I think where they start to align a little bit more is when they talk about things like incentives. If they're going to change incentives in the healthcare system, okay, great. We haven't really fundamentally done that either yet. We'll see. There's a whole other area of CMS, or all the healthcare policy. That's a whole other thing that they're trying to change. They've made so many specific promises on food. Almost none of them have been implemented. Asking the food industry to remove food dyes is one where they have made a lot of progress. A huge chunk of the food industry has committed to doing this, but that's still not the same as having fully done it. Even Takis, those bright blue snacks. Theodore: I have children. I know what Takis are. [laughs] Helena: They're so blue. They are bright blue. They have committed to totally removing synthetic food dyes by the end of this year. I posted on X the other day, "This really undermines anyone saying this is still too hard because Takis' snacks are about as bright. We'll see. Maybe they won't be as bright." In that way that is real progress towards their goal. They said they were going to do that. So many of these other things you look at, they have not made progress, and it's unclear what the path is forward. The tricky thing about blaming the food industry, which there is no question, food industry is fighting tooth and nail. Behind the scenes, I heard in today's newsletter they're going straight to the White House to push back on the ultra-processed food definition. All this industry opposition does matter, but the real difference here, or the real notable dynamic, is that RFK came in promising to not listen to corporate interests. He came in saying, "We are going to be the ones that don't listen to these special interests." It's a really hard argument to be like, "Oh, well, the food industry's fighting so hard." It's like, "Well, you guys have the power. You're the decision-makers," so how far that excuse goes is an interesting question. Theodore: That's interesting to talk about. One of the reasons why we've got RFK Jr. in the bunker somewhere is because they don't want him talking about vaccines. He came into HHS. He came into public view on a two-pronged MAHA perspective and promise. One of them is fixing these here foods that we eat in this country, which probably needs fixing. Then the other part was the vaccines. Helena: Just not popular. It's not popular. Theodore: It's also a little closer to his heart. Helena: Oh, I think so, yes. Theodore: He really wants that. It is not popular, and it is harming the ability for him to do anything about the foods. It is the problem of being a completely ideologically driven figure like RFK Jr., is that, if you don't follow through on the ideas, what are you actually doing? It reminds me of you read about millennial movement where a belief that the universe is going to end at the millennium. Then how do these movements keep going on after the earth does not disappear, where you're not all raptured? We're all still here. It's 2026. What do you do? They do find ways to keep going. That is the question. What is the way for MAHA to keep going? Or is the New York Times and the other pontificators at Rolling Stone, are they right about this stuff? Helena: Well, I think MAHA was always destined to eventually change into something else, morph into something else. I don't know what it's going to be called. Theodore: Why do you think that? Why would you say that? Helena: Because MAHA, the name, is born out of the Alliance, right? Theodore: Oh, yes. Helena: If this alliance is on life support, and let's say RFK leaves or is pushed out or whatever happens in this next chapter, I think it morphs into something else, but the grassroots energy, the voter support, it's hard to see how that disappears. The polling is so clear. Theodore: I think that's real. The rules of the game have changed. Helena: It will be interesting to see what happens, whether or not you see Democrats pick this up more. Iowa is really interesting to watch. I know you guys are working on a story there. Theodore: Two stories. Helena: Oh, good. The fact that you now have, I believe, both of the candidates, the Dem and the Republican, are both anti any liability protection. Is that right? Theodore: They're all running on water. That's the thing. I don't want to scoop myself. Helena: It's fascinating. That is a MAHA issue. Theodore: Absolutely. Helena: Maybe we don't call it a MAHA issue. Theodore: It has changed the game. It's changed the dynamic. Helena: Maybe these are health voters. Maybe it's really an anti-corporate populism that we're only talking about in terms of these certain things. I don't know, but there is something fundamentally that is realigned that has emerged. That all seems clear to me, but I don't know where it goes from here. I don't think it's that MAHA is dead. It's that this alliance probably can't hold. [crosstalk] Theodore: What are they going to do? They wouldn't have an obvious political home. I suppose theoretically the folks who are leading the MAHA movement, let's say absent major political intervention, voter interference, we have a change of power in Congress. Helena: They're already working with Democrats. Theodore: To some degree, but not to the same amount that they're working with Republicans. Helena: On the Hill they're mainly working with Democrats. It's Anna Paulina Luna, the Republican from Florida. Massie's on the way out. They're still working with Massie and then Pingree and Booker. Those are the four. Two of them are ours, and two of them are Dems. It'll be interesting. I don't get the sense that these MAHA leaders particularly care which party it is that moves forward on their issues. I'm going to separate that from the people closest to RFK. I think they're fully on board with Republicans. Theodore: That's an important point because he is the messianic leader and the charismatic figure at the center of this. Helena: For sure. Theodore: He threw his lot in with the Republicans. There's no going back. Helena: For sure. I see a lot of these MAHA leaders that are more rank-and-file grassroots leaders, they are working with Democrats. Theodore: They're swinging. They could swing. Helena: [unintelligible] is working with Democrats. That makes them a little bit more independent. It's going to be interesting to see. I don't know. Theodore: I agree. It always is. Everything's interesting. Helena: I don't know where this is going. Probably it'll be called something else in the future. Or maybe it'll splinter. Maybe the right takes part. Left takes part. I don't know. Theodore: I don't know that you can change the name. I think names are important. Helena: No, maybe not. Maybe it outlives. It's broadly known, I guess. Maybe they need to. Theodore: Very polarizing like a lot of things in American politics. I think we've chewed on that a little bit. The real answers to it are somewhere down the road. It's fascinating stuff. I would like us to go on to our last section, which is the Good Vibes. Something cool, nice, hopeful, a note of hope. Something that isn't horrible that's happening in the food system. I have a good one this week, but if you've got one, you can go first. Helena: No. What's yours? You go. Theodore: I came across this in my travels in the internet. It's about a woman named Serena Neel. She is an influencer. She has millions of followers across YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. She's out in Utah. She filled a pool with 50,000 pickles and then went swimming in the pool. Now, these were some pickles that were donated by a company called Josh's Pickles. Somehow Josh had 10,000 jars of pickles that had frozen and then unfrozen, which made them unsellable, and according to him, inedible and undonatable. Instead, what they did was they filled a pool and she took a little dip in the brine, as they say, and then they took it to a company nearby called Recyclops, which is a recycling company, and they turned them into renewable energy. This is a quote from an article about them, "They removed all the oxygen, captured the released methane, and fed it straight into the natural gas pipeline, powering homes across Utah with pickles." Helena: That's wild. Theodore: That's my good vibe because I like pickles. Helena: I like pickles. Theodore: It's mostly because I like pickles. It's not so much the natural gas part of that. It's the I like pickles. Helena: Wow. That's a good one. Didn't know any of that. That did not come across my algorithm. I will say, so my good vibe is I am fully in the, I always forget how to say his first name, Erling Haaland, the 6'5" Norwegian soccer player. Theodore: Oh, yes. He's a nice guy. Seems like a nice boy. Helena: I am fully in the algorithm now. I've been in the World Cup algorithm for a while. I watched the Norway-Brazil game, and I watched it with Brazilians. My brother-in-law is Brazilian. It was a very sad game for the crowd I was with. Now I am fully in the Haaland algorithm and I am getting served lots of content about what he eats. He eats 6,000 calories a day and he eats a lot of tomahawk steaks and raw honey, and he drinks a lot of raw milk. Theodore: Very MAHA of him. Helena: The MAHA people, some of the influencers are starting to pick up on this and they're making their own content saying, "Hey, look, this amazing soccer player is drinking raw milk." It had this interesting MAHA crossover. I will say I think Haaland is getting his raw milk from very, very small dairies, not these raw milk dairies that are scaled up and selling to lots of people and having lots of recalls, by the way, and outbreaks. Maybe a difference there. I'm not a microbiologist. Theodore: Caveat emptor for him. I'm not too worried about his gut biome. He'll be all right. Helena: It's different than feeding it to a little kid, I guess. Anyway, a lot of commentary on his diet. Have you seen the highlight clips of that guy? It's insane. Theodore: Yes. I watched the game. I'm familiar with him. I'm not a huge soccer fan, but yes. Helena: It's very cool to watch. I'm a tall person and watching tall people, we were always told we couldn't play soccer because we were too tall. Theodore: Because you're too tall. Helena: Unless you wanted to be goalie. Which didn't sound as fun. It's fun to watch him. It's been fun. You can go check out his dietary commentaries. [unintelligible] Theodore: At 5'8" I'm a little resentful, but I'll allow it. It's okay. I don't hate him for being tall. Helena: 6'5", you don't see soccer players that tall. Theodore: That's true. We have a couple of good notes then. I feel good about that. It's a summer, and maybe we're just feeling optimistic. Helena, I'talked about it a little bit, but why don't you tell folks out there about your newsletter? Helena: Yes. Read the newsletter. I know people still like to read and listen to things. We're not all dying of short form content. If you want to get more into food policy, go to Foodfix.co. You can read it. It comes out twice a week. You can get the free edition every Friday. Just put your email in there. There's a lot going on even though a lot of this stuff is frozen. A lot of these policy ideas, I use the term policy-making purgatory today, but there's still a lot to watch. Theodore: I agree. Well, Helena, as always, it's been a great conversation about food policy and politics and pickles and soccer players, very tall ones. I appreciate it and I appreciate you and I will see you in a couple of weeks. Helena: Yes, it's been fun. Talk to you later. Bye. Theodore: Forked is a production of the Food and Environment Reporting Network. Our executive producers are me, Theodore Ross, and Tom Laskawy. Our producer and video producer is Amanda Vicari. Our hosts are Helena Bottemiller Evich and me, Theodore Ross. To find out more about FERN and donate to support our independent nonprofit reporting, go to www.thefern.org. [END OF AUDIO]