Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode 22: The Newest Labeling Lie (GMOs)

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Episode 22: The Newest Labeling Lie (GMOs) · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's anathema to the federal bureaucracy.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: They they do not like uh differentiation.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: What they want is sameness, they want one size fits all.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: It is a real problem when one state passes something like a GMO restriction.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Then, you know, how does how does little Debbie's get get hoho cakes into Vermont?
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: One state does it, and then you have a domino of all the states jumping in.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: So this is why it's so threatening to the orthodoxy, to the to the big uh federal narrative and the industrial in the industrial food complex is the the fear of of dominoing um once one state takes the lead, dominoing through the other states, then suddenly you've got a you know you've got a political revolution on your hands.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Hey everybody, welcome to another edition of Beyond Labels.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Dr.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Cena McCullough with my amazing co-host Joel Salatin.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, Joel.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, Cena.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought today we would talk about one of our favorite topics, more labels.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: There is a new label on the market.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: As of January 1st, 2022, the USDA has a new label for genetically modified foods, but we're no longer calling them genetically modified foods.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now we're calling them bioengineered foods.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: So this new um label comes from the the law that Congress passed and President Obama signed into law.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's called the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: And in it, um, Congress directed the Secretary of Agriculture to write these this new regulation for how bioengineered foods are going to be labeled.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: So this was something, if you remember, there was like a state-level um, there's a series of state-level labeling initiatives, right, where certain states wanted to go ahead and mandate GMO labelings in their state.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you remember Vermont did this.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and this this law that was passed is actually in response to that state level, the state level labeling initiatives, all right.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, see, you know, whenever whenever a state takes the initiative on something like this, and this happens with um with like uh cottage food laws, food sovereignty laws, all these kinds of things, uh we we we have we have so much lost federalism in our country right now that whenever a state takes the initiative on something like this, uh the the the federal the federal level tries to come in and and override it.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: And we see that in not just food, I mean, you know, housing.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, we've seen it in the abortion fight right now.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, the the the the grand experiment that our country initiated to to have a small federal and a big state presence has morphed into a small state and a big federal.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and and that's uh that that's that's a real problem.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, uh it that this is not unique to GMO.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is this is ubiquitous, you know, within the you know, within the culture.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's exactly right.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: And um what I would love to do with you in this conversation is um let's just outline a little bit for the listener what the new label is, um, just to you know pass on that bit of information, and then let's talk about the bigger issue with labels, and then let's provide our solution for all these labels.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I want to point out real quickly, just like you mentioned, um, if you look at that law that was passed by Congress in 2016, the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard, there is actually a section in here called State Food Labeling Standards.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: And it's where the they literally say in this law that states cannot directly or indirectly establish under any authority um any requirements for labeling um GMOs, basically, in their state.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: So they have effectively infringed upon states' rights there, right?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: And they're and they're listing it under the under the guise of, oh, they can do this because of interstate commerce, right?
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's their distorted perception of the interstate commerce clause in the Constitution, where you know it should be they can they regulate imports, um exports and between states, right?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: At least my strict reading of the Constitution, that's the um authority that the federal government has.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: But now they've distorted that commerce clause and said, oh no, now we can regulate within the state, within the factories, you know, within the slaughterhouses, we can regulate all this.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so, in essence, you have that the federal FDA that is now over even all the state's organizations when you know I argue this in my first book that the federal FDA is actually illegal.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it's but the exactly what you said is what they did in this in this law, um, this GMO law, the Congress actually took the power from the state.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: So now states can't actually have their own labeling of GMOs.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the the the notion of a um of a sovereign of a sovereign community being able to determine, I mean, community in this side in this case being a community the size of a state, uh, the the idea that a community would actually uh think for themselves and create what they want and don't want um their their peep their people to know about or you know uh uh deal with is uh is anathema.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's anathema to the federal um, you know, to the federal bureaucracy.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: They they do not like uh differentiation.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: What they want is sameness, they want one size fits all.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: So so the the problem is, I mean, it it is a real problem when one state passes something like a GMO restriction, then you know, how does how does Little Debbie's get get ho cakes into Vermont?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: How does, you know, how does Procter and Gamble uh get here, how does, you know, how does somebody uh get in there?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so it does definitely um uh hamper trade, but of course that's that's the that's the whole state's idea um that that one state does it, and then you have a domino of all the states jumping in.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: So this is why it's so threatening to the orthodoxy, to the to the big uh federal narrative and the industrial in the industrial food complex is the the fear of of dominoing um once one state takes the lead, dominoing through the other states, then suddenly you've got a you know you you've got a a political revolution on your hands.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah, and that would be dangerous for them, right?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yes, it'd be hard for the lobbyists for what you know it's much easier for those lobbyists to go to the you know people in Congress uh, you know, and offer them backdoor deals and whatnot than to go to each different state.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it definitely makes it more difficult for the industrial complex there.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, so let's let me tell you a little bit about the this new bioengineered food label.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, we know, let me preface here, we know that GMOs are used in um up to about 80% of all conventional processed foods in the US.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: So they have a large presence in the marketplace.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: We know many polls have shown that people want these foods labeled, the foods that are made with genetically modified ingredients, they want them labeled.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: So people asked for um, well, not all people, we didn't, but a lot of people asked for Congress to step in, right, and create a labeling law.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: So here's an example of um what you get when you ask Congress for when you ask the federal government to, you know, to help um regulate your food.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so what what Congress uh or what they've decided is the bioengineered means um that's the the food has to contain detectable modified genetic material.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, this isn't this is really critical.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Has to contain detectable modified genetic material.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, what that means is this new label is gonna exclude many products.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, many products such as ones that are made with newer GMO techniques like CRISPR or Town or RNAI.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: Those are all techniques that are currently untestable.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so without commercially available test, we can't detect the modified genetic material.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: So those foods would not um we would not require this bioengineered food label.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so there's your first loophole.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: Then um another issue with this new bioengineered label is that um many times when you when you have highly processed foods, right, like in our grocery store, we have a lot of processed foods and we have a lot of highly processed foods that contain highly refined ingredients that are made from genetically modified materials.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the process of highly refining them often leaves no detectable modified genetic material, right, in the final product because it's so highly processed.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: So those products will also not require a bioengineered label.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Some of those examples would be things like sugar from sugar beets.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: And according to the FDA's own website, genetically modified sugar from sugar beets is used to make more than half of all granulated sugar that's in grocery stores.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, another exemption would be um canola oil, genetically modified canola oil.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And um I read another um another complaint that corn syrup itself would not be required to be labeled as bioengineered again because you can't detect the genetic material in the final product because it's so highly processed.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: So you already have go ahead, Joel.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds like you want to yeah, you know, I I I can't help but just uh to point out that that we in in the um whatever in the authentic food space, we make a big deal uh differentiating between raw ingredients or or unprocessed ingredients versus processed ingredients.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Not not just because well, for one of the one of the reasons is because we know that processing it apes it apes many of the nutrients, the enzymes.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, from from something as simple as pasteurized milk uh all the way to you know to something as changed as you know, uh, well, corn corn syrup in Snickers bars, okay?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the fact is that when you when you highly process something, um it changes all of the nutrient ratios, the balances, and all these things that are supposed to be part of our body's metabolic capacity to assimilate all those nutrients in that food.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And and we know that many of them work synergistically.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this this fatty acid helps, that's fatty acid, this one helps that one, you know, uh butter helps you digest this, and you know, you get you get these synergies, whereas in how it's so we promote we promote whole foods as much as possible.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Not the not the supermarket chain, but the but unprocessed uh uh whole foods.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: And and so here here we have a test that actually uh that actually incentivizes so here we want a GMO test, and what we get is something that incentivizes processing um beyond uh beyond whole detection.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, on our farm, we actually the um the corn and soybeans and the grains that we use, for example, in our uh our chicken and and pig feeds, every batch is actually tested for um glyphosate contamination.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we're GMO free, and there it's tested for that.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that's fairly simple to test for in the raw state.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: But after going through the heat and the extraction and extrusion processes in highly processed, what you end up with is this this kind of you know conglomeration out the end that doesn't that doesn't test well.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it I mean you're absolutely right.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: It definitely is incentivizing people to you know utilize this um what I'm gonna call this loophole, you know, in this new in these new regulations.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: And um someone might actually ask, okay, well, so there's DNA in our food, like wouldn't that be a good thing to degrade that because we're gonna be eating DNA?
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: But um this this is one thing that really comes to mind for me.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um when you talk about one of the benefits of consuming whole foods, you know, and um as close to the way that um that God provided them for us, like the natural raw form.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we're beginning to understand that um there's micro RNAs in foods, right?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: Little tiny micro pieces of RNA.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, so you have DNA and then it gets transcribed into RNA, all right?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: So there's RNA in different foods, and you actually consume those, you eat them.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um we think that they're encapsulated in something that's probably like an exosome, so we can make it through digestion.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then what happens is it actually we think those microRNAs actually help regulate your genes.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: So they help turn on and off different genes.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: So we've seen this in the literature, this in the published peer-reviewed scientific literature.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: We know that consuming rice, for instance, turns on certain genes and off other genes.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: So we think that um this is part of a protective mechanism.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: So you know how plants can signal to each other, like when there's when there's a threat in the environment, you know.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um they they can signal to each other through different ways, you know, um chemicals are released and whatnot.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we think that one of the ways that plants help us adapt is through these micro RNAs.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: So it's pieces of their you know genetic material that we're consuming that are giving us an adaptive advantage.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: And this is one, for me, critical reason to consume whole foods in close as close as possible to their natural state.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: So and and now what we're seeing is the federal government come in with these new standards, and like you said, they're incentivizing our food producers to process the foods even more um highly, to make it more highly refined, so so that they can avoid the label.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Do you do you think, Cena, that in your research, do you think that this uh this this RNA factor, this adaptive uh factor, does that get whatever, uh reduced or challenged uh in the efficacy of that be challenged in highly process in highly processing?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, absolutely, because um they degrade very quickly.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, RNA um DNA degrades very quickly.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: If you think of even um the mRNA vaccines, right, they had a very difficult time trying to keep that RNA stable, right?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Did different temperatures and they had to like, you know, freeze them, and I mean all the hoops they had to go through just to try to get that RNA to be stable.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, RNA degrades very quickly, especially uh with the application of heat.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: So absolutely, these highly processed foods, um, you know, I don't like to guarantee anything, but it would be very difficult to see that you're gonna have any kind of microRNAs left after the highly processed foods that we have on the growth, uh, you know, the way that they process them.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, here on the farm, uh, you know, I I travel a lot and and talk to a lot of farmers, and uh very, very often, uh, for example, chicken chicken feed especially is fed in in uh pelletized form.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it some sometimes it's called crumbles, sometimes it's called pelletizing.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and I've always encouraged farmers not to use that.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, whether it's organic or inorganic, it doesn't matter.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: I've always encouraged farmers not to use pelletized feeds because the heat, the heat to uh to compress and then you know, and extrude those pellets, it's it's extremely high heat.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and while the you know the industry says, well, that's more digestible because the animal doesn't have to do any work, you know, it's already all you know broken down.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that's like saying, well, you know, let's all eat, you know, let's all eat uh Snickers bars because Snickers are more easily digested than you know than a than a an apple.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and and of course that's the whole point that your body has to work at it a little bit uh and exercise a little bit to actually um to actually uh break out uh these all these wonderful nutrients.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you know, we don't want to be consuming things that just digest very easily because you they tend to have to lead to a higher um insulin response, right?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: These are these tend to be more what we call high glycemic index foods.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so if they are digesting very quickly, they're more than likely going to have an insulin spike.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: And insulin is one of the most um inflammatory, natural-made compounds that we know of.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: So you don't want to be consuming those kinds of foods, um, you know, occasionally as a little treat, sure, but not on a daily basis.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, let me give you a couple more examples of other um ingredients that could be exempted from this bioengineered, uh, bioengineered food food label.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, additives like flavorings, colorings, thickening agents, and binders.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: So even if they're derived from GMO crops like corn or soybeans, um, some organizations are saying that those um those categories are actually going to be exempted because of the way that they are so highly processed, um, you know, and there's the heat and the processing destroys the genetic material.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: So all of those categories are going to be exempted.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: The problem is those categories appear in probably tens of thousands of different products in our grocery stores.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: So there's another whole category of problematic, in my opinion, ingredients that are going to be exempted.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let me give you an example of the complexity of this of this new regulation.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: All right, and this is actually an example the USDA gave.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I want to move on to um the bigger picture and our solution.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: So here's the here's the USDA's example of how this rule might impact labeling.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: They used a can of pork stew as an example.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: So pork stew obviously contains multiple ingredients.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um now, if the if pork is the predominant ingredient listed first on the ingredient panel, the product would not be subject to this new labeling law, um, even if it contained ingredients like sweet corn that were genetically engineered.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: If the stew lists water, broth, or stock as the first ingredient and pork appears as the second ingredient on the ingredient panel, the product would not require the label either, even if the third ingredient was genetically modified corn.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that's because they overlook water, stock, and broth.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: So if the stew contained more corn than pork, though, the ingredient panel will list corn first and the disclosure would be necessary.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: So literally, it's the order in which the ingredients appear.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: So if corn appeared first in this stew list of ingredients, right?
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's the predominant ingredient, then that pork stew container has to be labeled.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: If if the corn was, let's say, second or third, it doesn't actually have to be labeled because the predominant ingredient was pork and or um the water stock or the broth.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: So literally the ingredient can still be in there, but because it wasn't one of the predominant ingredients, it doesn't have to be labeled.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, isn't that crazy?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's just yeah.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the the the sleight of hand, the sleight of hand is so uh, well, as Paul Harvey used to say, it's so obvious it doesn't require elaboration.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you just uh you you realize that people people um create this uh this was this was done this was done with intention that this is this is not oops you know we we didn't realize what we were doing uh this was done with an and and that's what I think you and I uh both really try to encourage folks to realize uh um we've got to quit being duplicitous duplicitous people you know we've got to understand that there are huge uh financial and emotional and powerful interests that want to um sandbag sandbag any effort to create authenticity uh you know to uh any of these things and and and so um when you sit down and say well the government ought uh the government ought to um I I never do that you know uh well the only thing I say the government ought to get smaller but but but but but it but as far as the government ought to whatever you know to to to take care of this problem generally um it's you know it it it's not it's not better out the other end it's not and just like you said so this is an indication of what like you're talking about that they're not trying to be consistent and they're not trying to be transparent so there are several options for how a company can um use the label okay so they're they're gonna a company is compliant if they follow any of these options they can use the bioengineered symbol which is a USDA um USDA agricultural marketing service developed a new symbol and get this so it's this circular green symbol it has kind of a non-discriminate crop with the plant on it with a blue sky and a sun right like bright pretty colors it looks happy and it says either bioengineered or derived from bioengineering so there's that that label they can stick on their on the food or they can list some a text disclosure that can say something like bioengineered food or contains a bioengineered food ingredient or they can put a phone number or or a text number it would say like text this number for bioengineered food information right that would be on the package or they can put on um a scannable code so you'd have to have your phone and and scan the code and it would pop up information on it and very small um manufacturers can actually direct the consumer to a website where they have to go to find the information.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: So could you imagine like I can't imagine being in the grocery store with my kids right including my toddler and they're just grabbing stuff and trying to get them to not like grab glass containers and drop them on the floor and here I am trying to pull out my phone or look up the website and see does this contain genetically engineered ingredients?
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: Plus um the whole concept of genetically engineered ingredient right that's misleading because people don't aren't very familiar with that one.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: People now know genetically modified or genetically engineered and now they've changed it to bioengineered right isn't this the tactic though right when when we get onto something and then and and they're starting to get pushed back then they they change the name of something right to add even another level of complexity.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact the Center for Food Safety is suing the USDA over this label for a multitude of reasons some that we just discussed that you know the word bioengineered that that is misleading and I thought you would find this interesting Joel they said one of the reasons why they're suing is because this new um the new regulation which I looked it up it's like 63 pages to read for in order to figure out the new regulation and what's in it says it fails to follow the 2010's Plain Writing Act.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I looked that act up I kid you not Joel in October of 2010 Congress passed an act this was the purpose it says the purpose of this act is to improve the effectiveness and accountability of federal agencies to the public by promoting clear government communication that the public can understand and use.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: So Congress literally had to pass an act pass a law to to demand that the organizations these government organizations write laws in a way that the everyday citizen can understand them.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like is that not telling you they they know it's too complex right they know it's intentionally confusing.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: They know and and you know the the I think Cena the worst uh the worst part of this is that all of this uh the the the effort the effort the lobby effort that goes in by sincere you know look I'm not detracting this sincere minded people that really think oh finally you know we're gonna we're gonna finally be able to have you know uh transparency in the food system we're gonna know something what the the the once you see how this comes how this as we would say how it shakes down what you have is not something that offers more transparency or understanding it actually it actually lulls people into a false sense of knowledge that's right that then then precludes precludes them even searching for anything else because to actually to actually follow the yellow brick road here is so complex nobody will follow the yellow brick road and so you you're you're intentionally obfuscating it so much that the average person will just will just you know not follow through and a s and and and and so it it's a society lulling uh lulling thing rather than a a societal uh whatever exposure thing and uh that's probably the worst part of the you know the outcome I completely agree and you know I so I looked back in in my book because I th I was reading this law and I said you know I think I wrote about this law you know you know we write about so many things we kind of can kind of can forget everything we write about.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I looked back in my book and you know I have a whole section on just this law that when they passed it in 2016 and I called it the labeling war because you can tell just the way the law was written this was going to be deceptive right you can tell that lobbyists have were going to have their hands all over this and what you just said was my biggest concern this was going to lull us back into a false sense of security just like people got lulled into the false sense of security when the FDA was created in the first place you know it was like cheered nationally that oh now our food's gonna be safe right and look what's happened.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's exactly what happens with these laws is that people think oh okay there's now now the um the uh USDA is in charge they're gonna have this uniform label all I gotta do is go out there and look for that little happy seal which is not the case but as you've as you have heard just from me trying trying to understand the law myself right and I'm used to doing this right and even I'm looking at it and I'm like what like there's so many different exceptions I would not know myself to go in there and be like okay now which product does have it which one doesn't and um I want to talk about our solution but I want to bring up something that you've already touched on.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: I want to elaborate on this just quickly I think the big problem here is that we have what appears to be it seems like we have a fourth branch of government right an unelected unaccountable fourth branch of government called the bureaucracy right this is um this is Congress created these things so like Congress created the FDA the USDA so they created this bureaucracy and then it seems like what they do is they write these laws and they hand more power over to the bureaucrats.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: So for instance in the law we're talking about the National Bioengineered food disclosure standard if you read this law it says it talks about the secretary the term secretary means secretary of agriculture they gave powers to the secretary of agriculture to regulate the promulgation of this law I mean they basically said the Secretary of Agriculture is over this whole thing.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: So if you read the law the secretary gets to decide the amount of a bioengineered substance that may be present in a food in order for the food to be called bioengineered.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: So you know that's the stew example right so they get to set all these things they get to define what actually bioengineered means.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: So here we get the loophole with the new technologies not included and they get to decide how it's going to be labeled and what qualifies.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: So we have this bureaucracy where Congress knowingly created it and knowingly keep hand keeps handing over more and more power to these bureaucrats and it's like well what are we going to do about it?
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because we can't fire them we can't vote them out of office but that bureaucracy just keeps growing and growing.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah I think out here in the country Sena we call that the fox guarding the hen house yes so so wow this this has been uh really enlightening Sina thanks for kind of unpacking a little bit of this for us it it certainly doesn't give us a you know give us a a good feeling about you know where our you know where our government is headed and and how it uh does anything and so it it obviously begs the question well so what do we do about it?
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know where do we where do we find things and um I think we're gonna we're gonna bring this podcast to a close and we're gonna fire this topic up for next week uh and talk about solutions to this.