Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #166: Largest Shake Up in FDA History: What it Means for Your Food Safety

Transcript

Episode #166: Largest Shake Up in FDA History: What it Means for Your Food Safety · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure what's going to change here.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like, even if I was a person who wanted the FDA to get involved, which I'm not, but let's say I was like, yay, the FDA now is doing this huge reorg and they're changing all these things, and now they're going to do all these assessments.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so so what am I thinking, Joel?
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: If if I'm a person who's doesn't do all these deep dives, but I see these headlines saying, Oh, largest re-org in history.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And now they're doing post-market assessments and they're cracking down on the chemicals that are in our food.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think I'm gonna feel relieved?
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be like, yes, my food's safer.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: The entire uh um whatever persona, the whole thrust of the press releases is man, we're we're gonna get tough.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna get tough.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: Posturing before the peasants to send the peasants into further drowsiness.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, everybody.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Joel Salatin with my collaborator, Dr.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: Cena McCullough, with another episode of Beyond Labels.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for being with us today.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Cena's been uh doing her normal fishing around, and uh she has found a new program launched by the Food and Drug Administration, known as the FDA, called the Human Foods Program.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: And it has uh a lot related to what we've talked about more than once on the program, the grass labeling, generally recognized as safe grass, G-R-A-S.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm gonna let Cena take it away and um start the discussion.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Joel.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, so October 1st, the FDA uh published a statement saying that they are marking a new chapter.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: They are pleased to announce that today the Unified Human Foods Program um has been launched.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: It is now in effect, and that program is a quote, new model for field operations and other modernization efforts.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: According to the FDA, this is the single largest reorganization in the agency's modern history.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: It will impact more than 8,000 employees, and it will touch almost every facet of the FDA.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, this is a major uh overhaul of the FDA.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, they've created this new department um under human foods program, and this is what they want to deliver on.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: They said that in order to more effectively deliver on the mission to protect and promote our health through science-based approaches, they're going to prevent um work harder to prevent foodborne illnesses, to reduce diet-related chronic disease, and to ensure the safety of the chemicals in our foods, right?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Which here they're largely talking about the grass chemicals.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: They said that they are confident that this new world-class human foods program is going to better protect and support consumers and improve the employees' ability to carry out the FDA's public mission.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, one of the things that they did, they said an important part of what they did is that they renamed the field operation unit from the Office of Regulatory Affairs to Office of Inspections and Investigations because now they want to focus on inspections, investigations, and imports as the core mission.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: So that they can better improve the consumer experience.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we're gonna dive into a little bit more about what this means, but this Joel was prompted because of the um, do you remember when there was the baby formula incident?
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, where they, you know, basically there wasn't there was contamination at um uh at Abbott Nutrition's infant formula manufacturing plant.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: This was in Michigan, and and this was uh it was it led to a chronobacter, and a whistleblower is the one that released this information.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so the response was to pull the baby formula off the market, and then it led to a supply shortage.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're saying this is in response to that, and also in response to organizations and people um challenging the EPA, saying that they're not doing their job and citing, for example, grass.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: So once again, just like we talked about, the EPA was moved to enforce their regulations because of lawsuits, right?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: A similar situation is happening here.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: The FDA is saying they're responding now from people saying they're not actually doing the job that that the EPA claim, I'm sorry, that the FDA claims they're supposed to do.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: So let's go over a couple things they're gonna do.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: One thing that they said they're gonna do is they're gonna enhance their oversight of the food.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: So they are going to create a more thorough review process for grass substances and food additives, ensuring that the safety data is carefully evaluated.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, this is um, I believe what they're calling part of their new post-market assessment of chemicals in the food, such as grass chemicals.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, just for the people who don't remember grass or maybe didn't hear that that podcast, in brief, as Joel mentioned, grass is generally recognized as safe.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is what came about from um the passage in 1958 of the food additive amendment.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: It contains the grass exemption.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: It what that means is that if something is considered grass, it doesn't have to go through FDA approval.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: It can actually be um deemed safe by a quote-unquote expert.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then the company can start adding that chemical to the food supply, and they don't even have to notify the FDA that they're putting this chemical in the food supply.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: And there's roughly 10,000 food um additives in uh, you know, chemical additives in the food supply.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: So roughly 10,000 chemical additives in the food supply.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it's estimated the majority of these, especially in the last decade or so, got on the market by this grass loophole.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, this grass exemption has become a loophole.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: So there's thousands upon thousands of chemicals now in our food supply that the FDA may not even know exist.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: So Sina, just so we don't run ahead of anybody here, uh one, for example.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: Monosodium glutamate, MSG, would that be considered grass?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: So perfect example.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Monosodium glutamate is grass.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the the thing about it is that in studies, we know that monosodium glutamate is an excitatory neurotransmitter that can damage and actually kill cells, including brain cells.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, I I'm not being, I'm not an alarmist, right?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that if you eat Doritos that has monosodium glutamate, you're gonna keel over from you know the toxic consequence to the nervous system.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm saying is that these chemicals are put in the food supply often without any um toxicity testing or real safety testing, and there's certainly not long-term safety testing done, and there's certainly not testing done on when you combine these chemicals together in the food.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody looks at that.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And one reason is because we don't even know what chemicals are out there, because the process is voluntary to notify the FDA and the people.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm not being if if we just take if we just take MSG, just as an example, um, in 1940, Americans consume 1 million pounds of MSG.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: And the whole country consumed 1 million pounds of MSG.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: Today, Cena, today, America consumes 300 million pounds of MSG.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: That's all that's about that's almost a pound per person in the US on average in a year.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: That's a lot, that's a lot of chemical.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and it it doesn't go through any testing because it's generally recognized as safe.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so it can be put in any food product, anything you want, just uh put it in.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so, so like you said, they don't test, you know, once it's grass, they they don't test for the difference between ingesting a tenth of an ounce per year versus 14 ounces a year.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: That's not it that it doesn't even hit the radar.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no one's looking at these things.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, it would be really hard even to be able to isolate it because there's so many different compounds that people are consuming.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: So the legal issue, right?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if somebody going and suing a company for putting one chemical in the food that they think damaged them physically, um, that's a hard case to prove because we're in a toxic soup of chemicals, you know?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: So the onus on the company to um explore more safety testing is not very high.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, this is what the um what the FDA has said.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, so so let me not jump too far ahead.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Let me bring you along with my train of thought here.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so so if you if you talk to the government accountability office, um they will say that when it comes to grass, Congress actually messed up.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because when the food edited amendment was passed and the grass exemption was in that amendment, Congress didn't declare who's responsible for determining if substances are grass or not.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: So in that leadership vacuum, the food manufacturers started to determine whether an ingredient or a substance that was added to the food is grass.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And the way they do that is they hire some experts, or they get some experts to basically declare it grass.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And there's studies that have been published that show that these experts, by and large, have ties to the companies, right?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Ties to industry.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: So once they declare that it's grass, it goes directly to the into the food.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I said that's voluntary, but here's the kicker the FDA is the one that made that process voluntary, okay?
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Which sounds crazy, right?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because now you have the FDA saying, oh, now we're gonna do like we're gonna have more post-market assessments of these chemicals, even though they declared it regularly, they declared it voluntary for the companies to even tell them if the company was where they if the chemicals are in there.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And if you look at the FDA's policy on grass, they have voluntary non-binding recommendations for industry.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that's in quotes.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: These are non-binding recommendations, where the FDA actually says, quote, it is your responsibility to ensure that substances added to the foods you manufacture or distribute comply with all applicable regulatory requirements for substances added to food.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that is the FDA's policy on grass.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: So my point is this I'm not sure what's gonna change here.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like, even if I was a person who wanted the FDA to get involved, which I'm not, but let's say I was like, yay, the FDA now is doing this huge re-org and they're changing all these things, and now they're gonna do all these assessments.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so so what am I thinking, Joel?
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: If if I'm a person who's doesn't do all these deep dives, but I see these headlines saying, Oh, largest re-org in history.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: And now they're doing post-market assessments and they're cracking down on the chemicals that are in our food.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think I'm gonna feel relieved?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be like, yes, my food's safer.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: The the the entire the entire uh um whatever persona of the press releases, uh the whole thrust of the press releases is man, we're we're gonna get tough.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna get tough.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so so everybody so so it it just um it just uh uh you know posturing, posturing before the peasants to send the peasants into further drowsiness.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly, exactly.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so let me let me tell you what the FDA said.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so in in regarding this new program, okay.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a couple quotes from the FDA.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: One of them is from um Jim Jones, who is actually the head of this new program.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, Jim Jones is the head of the human foods program.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: He is an economist.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: He has a bachelor's degree in economics from University of Maryland and a master's degree in economics from the University of California at Santa Barbara.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what he says we're entering another fiscal year where our um programmatic needs to meet our public health mandates are greater than our available resources.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, we don't have enough money.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and then and this is what they what the FDA has said also in response to um how they're gonna do this, okay?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: How they're gonna implement this new program.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: The FDA said that while it is committed to improving safety oversight, the post-market review process will be limited by budget and current law.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I just told you what they think the law is, how they interpret the law, where they said the law says it's the company's responsibility.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And if you go deeper, which we've done on this program, the FDA also says it's the responsibility of the people.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's a responsibility of the people to demand safety of the products from the company.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: So to me, I'm reading between the lines here, and I'm like, oh, now they created this whole re-org involving like what I say, 8,000 different employees, largest re-org they've done to tackle all these problems.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: But number one, they're already saying they don't have enough money.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: And number two, they're saying they're restrained by the current law.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm reading it two ways.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: One, yeah, it's based on their own interpretation of the law and the fact that they made it voluntary.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: The notification process is voluntary, made that possible by the FDA.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, what does this mean?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Are they gonna try to now expand?
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Are they gonna try to overreach now even more than they already have?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because we got to implement this, right?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Babies died very, very sad and unfortunate, right?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, babies died in part because of their incompetence.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we have all these chemicals in the food supply that are making people sick.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so who's gonna not want to support that?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be like, oh yeah, let's give them more money.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, let's let's let them have more regulations because this is this is not okay.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like what's happening, right?
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I I completely see where they're going, but let me give you one more example and then I'll turn it over to you of how the FDA handles things.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: So another grass chemical was brominated vegetable oil.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, BVO, brominated vegetable oil.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: This was in Mountain Dew, for instance.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's still in over 600 products sold in the United States, and that's according to the USDA.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, it has been removed from Mountain Dew more recently, but again, it's still in 600 products sold in the United States.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, brominated vegetable oil is a patented flame retardant for plastics.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: It was banned in Japan, it was banned in India, it has been banned in the United Kingdom since 1970, it's been banned in the European Union since 2008, but in the US, brominated vegetable oil has been in our food supply since the 1920s, and it actually wasn't until this year that the FDA actually banned BVO, brominated vegetable oil, from our food supply.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: The FDA released a statement this year saying that BVO is um is no longer considered safe as a result of studies that were done in collaboration with the NIH or the National Health Institute.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: And they did find potential for adverse health effects in humans.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, what'd they find?
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: They found that it could damage the thyroid gland, leading to hypothyroidism, weight gain, and depression.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Joel, how many people do we know that have issues with thyroid problems, issues with weight, and that are depressed?
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying it's directly from BBO, but you can't overlook this when now finally, after decades and decades of consumption and other countries banning this compound on scientifically sound evidence.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now the FDA is finally saying, oh, we think it could cause these issues, so let's stop it.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it's still in the food supply.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's not going to be taken out of the food supply until next year.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's the you know, the grace period.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: The companies have time to get it out of the food supply.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's so by August 2nd of 2025, it's supposed to be gone.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: But this is this BVO is a perfect example of our blind trust in the food supply.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, BVO was originally a grass chemical.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: And like like most of the chemicals that we read on the ingredient list, and I used to do this too.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like I used to do this.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'd go into the grocery store, and occasionally I would look at an ingredient list.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: And if there was an ingredient that I couldn't, like I didn't know where it came from, for instance, or some chemical compound, I didn't know how it was processed.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: I assume somebody looked at it for safety because it's on the grocery store shelf, right?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: And my tax dollars go toward the FDA and the USDA, who are supposed to protect our food supply, or at least I thought.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so I trusted him.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what we have now.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: We have this, um, it's like it's been passed down from generation to generation, like an heirloom.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: This veil of trust, right?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Ever since was it 1906 when the FDA was first born?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: There was this veil of unearned trust that came down over the eyes of Americans.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like and it was unearned, it was an unearned veil of trust.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like we've passed that down from generation to generation, like a family heirloom.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: And this is just one more veil that's gonna come down over the eyes of Americans with this new program, right?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: This new human foods program.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's not gonna do what they're saying that it it's it's gonna do.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it and and I'm gonna throw this over to you, but I'm thinking this may actually, this may actually, if they actually do something, right?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: I hope they do nothing, right?
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: As as as a as somebody who understands how this bureaucracy works and how it creates problems, and then it tries to scoop in and be the hero of those problems, furthering this unearned veil of trust.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: I hope it does nothing because these are the three things it's going to focus on, Joel.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: Microbiological food safety.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: So working to advance strategies to prevent pathogen-related foodborne illnesses in close collaboration with other regulatory agencies, states, industries, and stakeholders.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds good on paper, right?
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody wants pathogens in their food, but I can see a case, and I I am I am totally theorizing here.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I don't have any evidence for this.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: I can see them further in the case for raw milk, going after raw milk on this.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: The point number two, the the food chemical safety, the one I talked about, they're gonna focus on food chemical safety.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is grass, and dietary supplement policy.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Dietary supplement policy, and on the coordination of regulatory and scientific issues for food made through innovative techniques.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so focus on food chemical safety.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's grass.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: I just told you how they think about grass, dietary supplement policy.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm praying that they're not going to come after like homeopathics and herbals even more.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: And foods made through innovative technologies.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I read between the lines and I think that's lab meat, right?
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's this cultured food, this this cell cultured food that we're coming up with, um, and and fake meat.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then the third thing they're focusing on is nutrition.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: They have this nutrition center of excellence that they said elevates and empowers action on nutrition science, policy, and initiatives to help reduce the burden of diet related chronic diseases, improve health equity, and then ensure the nutritional adequacy and safety.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Safety of infant formula.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: How have they helped us to reduce the burden of diet-related chronic diseases so far?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: Them, along with the USDA, gave us the food guide pyramid, which is now my plate.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: This fueled chronic disease.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: They have they also, FDA is responsible for food labels.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: So what did they all give us in the bioengineered label?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now you have all these loopholes and carve outs for foods labeled as genetically engineered, right?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: So now no one really knows.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's like this blurry space of what's genetically modified or not.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: And they gave us the nutrition facts panel, which we've talked about extensively on this program, where the focus is on calories, saturated fat, cholesterol intake, things instead of like what would be really helpful to decrease the burden of chronic disease if they were still gonna have a label on these foods, would be labeling things like are there antibiotic residues in this food?
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Are there actually grass chemicals in this food?
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Was this food grown in sewage sludge from KFOs?
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like these are the things that I want to know.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: These are the potential toxins in the food that if they are going to be labeling something, at least label something that would help us identify which foods have toxins in them so we could decrease our burden of this of chronic disease.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: But what what do you say, Joel?
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: Am I just ranting now, going off my left field?
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: I was just waiting I was just waiting for you to take a breath.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you get me all fired up, Joel.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, well, the my my favorite phrase for sure that you said was that the veil of trust has been passed down like a family heirloom.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's profound.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: Very well done.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: Well done, Cena.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: That was that was pretty good.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: So so one of the things right at the beginning, when you're uh talking about Jim Jones, um, and by the way, wasn't that the name of the guy that uh that drank the coop that fed all the people the Kool-Aid in uh Paraguay or whatever it was?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh or Guyana, I guess Guyana.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so so uh you said that the FDA says that ultimately the people are responsible.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: Food safety.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well, well, if that's the case, just eliminate the FDA.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh if I mean, if if the FDA says ultimately you guys are responsible, well, then why don't they go, you know, go off somewhere and and um not be on the dole and just let the people do it.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_02: The other thing was that caught my attention during your um your explanation there was how many, how many of these grass, I don't know, maybe you do, um, how many of these grass chemicals were actually developed in the 1920s and 1930s that when the 19, what is it, 1958, when the 1958 Food Additive Amendment went in, this stuff had been in the food supply for what 30 year 20, 30 years, and so all of that just got lumped in to this grass.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: So things were grandfathered in, and but grass itself was actually designed to be a good thing, it was designed to kind of cut some red tape, so things like um water and vinegar and salt, those were what was supposed to be exempted by grass, and it just turned into a loophole.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: There's by far, um, there weren't, I don't have the exact number off top of my head, it's in my first book.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but by far, the majority of the chemicals that have been added to our food supply came after 1958.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_02: I was just wondering because you know, there there was a time there where we just didn't have the testing.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: I I think I think the the awareness, the cultural awareness of what was happening to our food in the 1920s and 30s and 40s.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it was it was all my goodness, refrigerators were new, spam was new, uh, then it morphed into TV dinners and the whole the whole kind of you know convenience uh washing machines, we got indoor plumbing.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, think about the the uh the excitement of the of the of our grandmothers, okay, uh during the time when they went from a washboard to a to a ringer washer, and then my goodness, to an actual washing machine that had cycles that you could just throw the clothes in and walk away from it.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I mean, you know, Teresa, my wife, grew up with a ringer washer.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they they they had to wash them in this thing, and then they ran them through the you know, the um the rollers, you know, to to to to press out the water.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, and I mean that that's in our lifetime.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so, and so if we go back yet one more lifetime to say my grandmother's lifetime, the the um well, I I I guess it would be similar to the to the euphoria, to the almost you know, uh euphoric um uh emotions of of our time today around artificial intelligence.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, look look look look at how euphoric the the mainline culture is over AI.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, it's it's gonna do this, it's gonna do that.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: I'll be able to sleep in my car and take a trip, you know, um, and you know, without anybody at the steering wheel, um, all these things.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: And and and what and so as as this you know, as this technology developed, people weren't weren't thinking about these chemicals in their food.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: It was it was um it was an exciting time.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: Exciting time of of develop.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we wow, I can turn a faucet in the kitchen and get water, you know.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_02: I can I can get a can of spam and um and and and you know uh wonder bread and make a sandwich, you know.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: It was it was a time, and and we're like that, aren't we?
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: P we're we're we're we we we become so quickly enamored of the latest, whatever, bright, shiny thing.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and then it takes two generations later, and the hippie movement and the you know and and Lamas and all uh the you know the La Leche Leagues and all these, you know, it it took all that to start bringing that pendulum back.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, maybe maybe all these aren't what they're cracked up to be.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: But then, but then I mean what I'm hearing from you is that yes, while while a portion of the culture kind of started waking up, you know, uh to all this, the the main part of the culture just kept going headlong, and and the chemicals became more sophisticated, um uh more more whatever, um, you know, in intervention in the actual food pathways, in the nutrition, and uh, and and the the and the main narrative was, well, let's just let's just uh keep going as fast as we can go down this path.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: When I hear things like you know, microbiological food safety, I'm thinking sterile food.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, everything is heading towards sterility.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you can speak to this better than I, but but our microbiome is not sterile.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: We don't want sterile.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: You put sterile stuff in a compost pile and it doesn't, it doesn't rot.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: And if it won't rot, if it won't rot, it won't digest.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: We don't want sterility.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we you know that's why I drink out of the cow tank.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because I I want to I want to feed all the sort of you know good bugs into my thing.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so suddenly you have, like you said, you said raw milk, uh, but I'm thinking, you know, um really good microbiologically active everything from kombucha to uh to cheese to charcuterie to I mean think of all these these wonderfully um um you know petri dishes of bugs uh that that artisanal and craft fermenting and and um you know long long um you know long chains I mean you know uh um prosciutto uh you know all these things.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: I mean these are these are historic, but man, they are not sterile and they are full, they are full of microbes.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Remember we had um Dr.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: Hazan, Sabine Hazan on the program, and I recently quoted her um that it's it's you know, disease forms from many different layers of the onion, right?
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: But without a doubt, on the physical level, we can tie every single disease that we know of, we can tie it to a loss of microbiome, a loss of um robustness of the microbiome.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: So diversity of microbes and quantity of microbes.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we're losing that in our culture.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: And like you said, part of it is uh through the sterile food that we consume.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you're exactly right in that we we don't want the food to be sterilized.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um we you so eloquently in one of our previous podcasts talked about the need for microbials in the processing plants, right?
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: So so that's the that's probably where the FDA and the EPA see this, that we need to sterilize the food because you know we don't want to make the people sick, and because it's so huge now, the you know, the processing of all these foods, whether it's animal or you know, the plants here in the in the ultra-processed food, you do have to be concerned about the microbes getting getting imbalanced and turning into pathogenic microbes because of the mere method and the way that they do it and the sheer volume.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: So there's that competing interest with them.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I think they don't see it.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I think some of them just automatically apply that over to the small farm.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, it must be the same.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: They're raising animals and their food's raw.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we got to protect them too.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, I can see from their perspective how they're just passing down what they knew across the whole spectrum of farms from you know, yeah.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, uh Dr.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: Zach Bush, Dr.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: Zach Bush talks about this a lot, uh, about the the the ability of nature to adapt to a new to a new context, to a new set of circumstances.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: And uh we're not talking about you know, species evolution here, we're talking about adaptation.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so, for example, you know, a corn-fed cow um gets a higher, you know, her uh her pH change, pH changes in her rumen.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so the E.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_02: coli, which is part of her digestive, you know, digestive microbial community, which is necessary for good digestion, that E.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_02: coli um mutates, it adapts to a higher uh a more acidic pH.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so um so here, if we ingest some of that um E.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_02: coli, normally under a normal, like a you know, a grass-fattened uh beef animal, their pH is going to be about seven, about seven pH.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it hits our stomachs at what is it, like five and a half or something.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_02: You know, our ours is a lot more acidic uh pH.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: We immediately kill that that E.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_02: coli.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: But if the E.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: coli comes to us in an in a higher acid adapted um um genetic capacity, then suddenly it hits our stomach, which would kill its, you know, its its grass-fed cousins, but instead it kills us because it's already it it's it's adapted to a higher uh a higher acidic environment.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: And and that that happens all over.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, these these um you know, uh Chick-fil-A just made big news, whatever it was, two months ago.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I remember well, uh, what it was like six or seven years ago when they said within 10 years, uh we're committed to being antibiotic free in our chicken.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: Two months ago, they made a big announcement can't be done.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_02: We're we're we're leaving that.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: We're leaving that.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_02: So I want you to realize, you know, when we when we talk about drugs and pharmaceuticals, actually, animals get way more than humans in our in our big industrial feeding systems.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so um those those drugs and those pharmaceuticals, those mRNA vaccines and all that stuff, that is that is again um mutating, it's mutating the material.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'll just say that it's mutating the material uh and whatever else, whatever is in that material, it is mutating it to a place that uh that we don't want.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so the answer is not sterilize the material so no life comes to us, it is rather to change the production model to where the life that comes to us is a life that nourishes flourishing, not a life that is mutated to a place of detriment.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: You said that so beautifully.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and this is a great discussion because what this really leads to, if you're applying this to the human foods program, is if there's going to be a program, you'd want somebody at the head of the program that's aligned with your principles, right?
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's aligned with that understands these nuances, and most people do not.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so I will tell you this human foods program is I printed off the org chart for it.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: It actually is a centralization of power.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: So they now have 12 offices, 12 different offices that are now under the deputy commissioner of human foods, which is this Jim Jones.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: And on the FDA's own website, it talks about what his new responsibilities are.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it says that he will he's overseeing all FDA food safety and nutrition activities.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: He exercises decision-making authority over all of the program's entities, including resource allocation, risk priority prioritization strategy, policy, major response activities involving human foods.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: So much power for one person, right?
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: Over these 12, over these 12 different offices.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and you can read the offices, it's I mean, it's it's a lot.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like they said, over all, this is their words, all FDA food safety and nutrition activities.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: So everything is gonna come from his bias.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: What does he believe?
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what he believes.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: He's an economist.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really know what he's believing, but it will shape everything that's happening and it in that entire department, which is gonna shape what happens with the grass chemicals, it's gonna shape how the FDA responds to chronic diseases, it's gonna shape how they respond to potential pathogens in foods.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, this is kind of a more of a red flag as to the power that we give these people because he's a bureaucrat.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: We can't unelect him, right?
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: We we didn't elect him.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: So so it's it's it shows like like you're saying before, we're now even more removed from the food.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're one step further removed from knowing what's in the food, but also being able to fight for our food, right?
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: So so so Joel, as as the small government libertarian, just like we did in the other podcast about the EPA, what would be your solution to the FDA?
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I should just differentiate between federal and local FDA if you see a difference.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I I I do.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_02: I I see I see a huge difference between federal and and then versus state and local.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, when this country was set up, it was to be a 50-state experiment.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_02: That was the idea.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_02: And the federal actually, the constitution gives the federal, you know, the the enumerated powers, and there aren't very many, very, very few.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_02: But over the years of of um of of growth in the in the federal government, it has gradually taken on more and more and more and more power until I mean you almost can't pee without a license.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so here we are with this extremely uh uh dominant federal government.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why that's why things are so um uh have have risen.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, here I don't want to get political here, um, but the reason things have gotten to such an acrimonious spot now is because the is because it's a it's a it's um it's a winner-take all deal now.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_02: When you arrogate to the federal level things that were supposed to be done at the local and state level, it's a it's it's a winner-take-all thing, as opposed to the battles that could be fought at the smaller level, state and local level, these battles could be fought, and there could be lots of different accommodations from state to state on you know what's what's acceptable, which which is, by the way, one reason I don't agree with the people that are angry at California for outlawing, for example, um, you know, crated crated pigs.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: And uh boy, everybody, you know, all the the conservatives went ballistic, you know.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, California shouldn't be able to tell Iowa how to raise pigs.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_02: Well, they're not.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_02: They're just saying we can't sell crate-raised pork in California.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's not mandating it to Iowa uh at all.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so I break with all my conservative friends over this.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, this is this this is actually the way it ought to be.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_02: If a state wants to do something, let them do it.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_02: And and of course, you know, the conservatives are suing California, taking it to the you know, U.S.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_02: Supreme Court uh to try to stop California from being able to enact something that its people want them to enact.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_02: I don't care if they want to um let them do what they want to.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's fine.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's California, it's it's not here.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_02: And if I don't like California, if I live in California and don't like it, I move somewhere else.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh or I or I fight in California, which makes it a much smaller battle.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_02: See, the problem is when it's at the federal level, every battle is a war instead of being a skirmish.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what divides the country so much is that that these decisions that were supposed to be skirmishes on the local and state level are now are now wars at the federal level.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_02: And that's that's what's so changed.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_02: So my answer to the FDA is is is number one, um uh it's not a federal, it's not a federal uh issue.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_02: If if a locality or a state wants to take some of these things on, that's perfectly fine.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_02: But number two, again, if you had, uh I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say an army, but I don't mean an armed army, I mean an army armed with social media, pen, paper, and cameras and uh and and and and uh calculators, okay, to to go out and do the assessment, um we we would have power in the marketplace.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_02: And and the fact that we have these agencies that are that are supposedly looking out for our best interests, how many of these, how many of these debacles, how many Tony Faucies, how many of these things do we have to have before people finally wake up and realize, you know what, every responsibility I give to the government, they mess up.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_02: So, so let's not give the government these responsibilities.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_02: Let's us take back these responsibilities and um you know and and and make a change.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't think for a minute, I don't think for a minute that our food supply is safer.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_02: I'll just, yeah, uh our food supply is safer than it was in 1870.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_02: Not for a minute.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: Now, were there problems in 1870?
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there were a few.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_02: But but but people found out about them, you know, and I'm not gonna buy that guy's food anymore.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's not good.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_02: Or or some neighbor spied him, you know, doing something.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, but that's not good.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um our food system.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: is is not safer.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_02: It is more sophisticatedly opaque than it was in 1870.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_02: And that's not a good thing when your food system becomes sophisticatedly opaque.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was just thinking as you were talking that, you know, one of the reasons the FDA was born in 1906 because of food adulteration was adulteration of honey.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: People were remember people were trying to pass off real honey.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was like glucose, you know, with like a B in it.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_02: And but but but but again again Cena people found out about it.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: They found out found out about it and and and the perpetrators could have been run out of town I mean I don't mean literally run out of town but but but basically shunned society could have said you know you're done banks don't loan them money uh you know you're done as a business boom and it it wouldn't take very many of those complete collapses to you know to get you know to get the industry to um you know to take care of itself and and furthermore you can have private certification underwriters laboratory triple A I mean there are tons of of independent certification programs around that are completely voluntary individualistic and and non-government aligned and they they work they work beautifully yeah you know you're absolutely right because uh the example I gave with the honey um wasn't enough to push the people to back a federal food and drug administration and there's also incidents back then of candy that uh had like a toxic I think it was a dye or something but it was like candy with a toxin on it that I believe even killed somebody if I'm recalling correctly and even that wasn't enough for the people to call for government to oversee their entire food supply as you know it wasn't until Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle that came out and that which was largely fictional but that really the reason why the American people finally decided to hand over that authority of the food to the to the government was out of fear.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so how do you stop the people from taking it back right you put the veil down you make them so they're not afraid so swoop in oh look this bad horrible thing happened and you know what and we created that but you know but but don't don't don't pay attention to the fact that we created it in the first place.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: Just pay attention to the fact that now we have our Superman cape on and we're swooping in to save the day again and these are all and they're using all the right words all the fancy words you know like that they're they're talking about you know how great this program is and um the biggest re-org and everyone's gonna be like yeah you know they're not gonna be afraid they're gonna read it and be like yes we won they're finally doing something about it so I'm saying lift that veil up don't be duped by the fancy rhetoric you know like lift it up and keep being the watchdog over our food um I know we're out of time but let me just ask you for clarification.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_00: So so you're not okay with the federal FDA but did you say you're okay then with if the people of the state want a local FDA absolutely so local FDA is fine if the state wants it.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah absolutely absolutely if a state wants to do it that's fine and and and and there will be some states that might want it and some states that don't and and and remember Cena these things are not in in um they're not in vacuum uh for example for example a state that doesn't want a v FDA might be so liberty oriented that they'll say you know what not only that we're gonna let we're gonna let people um transact uh food direct producer consumer food sales without any government oversight at all you know we're talking about congressman thomas masse's um um constitutional amendment well when when you when you put those two together suddenly you have an explosion of cottage industry options small scale localized cottage industry options when you start talking about dropping the veil that's how you drop the veil more than anything is by creating these neighbor to neighbor uh uh food transactions and and so so uh again we you know we're so linear Sena we're so linear we we look at this issue and we don't see how how this affects that or that could affect this this we're just looking at that one issue and and so when we look at the you know food and drug administration grass that sort of thing and and the and the all that stuff um you know we just look at that by itself we're not looking at that in conjunction with in conjunction with the criminalization of raw milk and the criminalization of backyard pig sausage and the and and and goodness for that matter you know the the the the the in the funny money and um you know um the whole you know foreign policy and and uh I'll get all the back back in that but but but the point is you know we we are we are creatures living in a a a broad context you know of things and um both both policy and freedoms and all those things and you can't just we we tend to be one you know one trick voters or one you know um we we can agree with somebody 90% of the time and they say one little thing off and suddenly I'm out you know epox on them we we tend to be single issue type things and life isn't like that you know um the you know our soil and our river here creek that goes through our farm you know it's it doesn't start here it doesn't end here the people upstream uh are part of that and and their decisions are partly made because of Ukraine the Middle East who's in policy what you know uh the local tax burden do the do we build a new school or not well then how much taxes is that so how much do I have to do to pay my taxes and now I can't make this decision because of my tax bite is that high and and you know fuel prices you know all of these things are part of our decision making context and and and you can't just take you know the FDA out in isolation and say well um if if we fix that it'll all be okay it it it it there's not one thing you can fix and make it all okay and goodness knows by this time all of our listeners and we love you to death you should all understand that a government solution is the last resort for anything there are places for government solution you know national defense court system um you know law and order that is a place for you know for um for the federal but if you look at the constitution there's not very much that's authorized at the federal level not very much most of the constitution is a is not an authorization it's a constraint yeah it's a constraint on the power of the federal government there's very little constraint on the power of state government very little constraint on power of local and that's where I say you know as far as you know there there are some things I wouldn't mind enacting at the local level that I'd be considered a socialist or a communist.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_02: But if a locality wants to do something fine the problem is when that's done at the federal level now suddenly everybody in the country has to go into that box.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where you get the kind of vicious um vicious fighting that we have going on in our country.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_02: If if if we would quit arrogating it to the federal level and and the reason we got so much money now involved in politics is not because suddenly politics are so important or or or so you know uh people have more money it's because it's because the stakes are so high and every freedom is now for sale if if we if we didn't have our freedoms for sale we wouldn't have a K Street.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_00: The reason we have a K Street is because all of our freedoms are for sale and so if those came back to the state level transparency would increase the size of the conflicts would decrease and I think we'd have way more civility in the culture if we brought those major wars back to a state and local level that's so profound and just to hear you say our freedoms are for sale that I've never heard it phrased that way and that really just like hit home to me that oh my gosh like I got to get up and do something about it because that's that's not okay.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like I don't want my freedoms up for sale like you know oh those are precious and dear to me right so okay we gotta we have to wrap it up so do you have a question for our community I do so so you've now listened to this podcast about the FDA's uh plan if you're like me and you think that this plan will actually um go after go after things that they shouldn't go after which is what they usually do um what do you think will be the first uh non-sterile item that the FDA will focus more attention on to either ban license you know whatever you want to call it uh what will be the first food item that the FDA will go after in this new um expansion era wow that's a good one all right thank you so much for your insights Joel and for you know allowing me to get on my soapback for just a few minutes doesn't happen often all right we've enjoyed you all and we we are hoping to see you next week