Kai Rex hit the nail on its head. Real food, grown in real living soil tenanted by lots of small critters tastes and nourishes differently, better, than food grown in depleted soil, fertilized with chemical fertilizers. GMO seeds developed by the same companies that make huge profits from the sale of pesticides and herbicides are diminishing the nutrients in the foods that we buy. Take a look at "The Third Plate" by Dan Barber, he talks a lot about healthy plants ability to ward off pests and disease and how stressed plants, growing in depleted soils can survive with herbicides and pesticides but lack the minerals that we need from them leaving our bodies undernourished even as we stuff ourselves into obesity in an effort to survive. Thanks for scratching the surface of the disaster that our food system is in, I hope to hear more and better informed discussion about this vital problem.
I'm a couple months late to this, but great episode, Matt & Dave! The portion on bird flu and Cal-Maine, combined with the continuing surge in egg prices, prompted me to a go a bit deeper into Cal-Maine's public financial reports and data on layer supply. I wrote about it here: https://yallstreet.substack.com/p/fowl-business
You know my sister she has a farm and she grows food and I started to eat the food that she grows on her farm and then I eat the food at the store It tastes vastly different and I can’t stop thinking about what is actually in the food at the store
40 year farmer here, as an FYI. In response to your comment, I don't think it is so much what is "in" the widely available commercial food supply. i.e. grocery stores, massive stores like Walmart, etc. It is far more a result of the quest for maximum returns & profits. For example, I grew sweet corn, cantaloupes,. watermelons and many other vegetables for 20 years for both direct retail sales and wholesale to distributors; but it was all for local sales and consumption. None of it traveled over 100 miles. So I looked for varieties that had great taste, or sweetness, for example, as qualities I was looking for in the crops I planted. The seed catalogs, however, focused on ship-ability and shelf-life as the primary attributes. That is because most fruits and vegetables are grown literally thousands of miles away and need those attributes to be salable to the end user. With cantaloupes, for example, sweetness and shelf life are inversely proportional. The sweeter the melon, the shorter the time a ripe melon will wait for consumption. This is true for MANY other crops. This will remain true as long as we rely on Fla., the southwestern states, and California to supply these goods. But -- and this is a huge "but" -- if price is the primary factor in food purchase decisions, it will not change. Great food can be grown almost anywhere locally, but it most likely would be more expensive. I personally believe it is worth the extra cost, but to each his own.
Hello,
I’d like to suggest a few potential monopolies and oligopolies for coverage next season. Here’s the list, from less to more frivolous.
In medium-lift rockets and orbital tourism: SpaceX
In wind turbines: GE Vernova, Vestas, Nordex and Siemens
In electric trains: Alstom, Siemens, and Kawasaki
In diesel locomotives: Progress Rail and Wabtec
In buses: New Flyer, North American, Gillig and El Dorado
In deep-sea cable laying: Global Marine, Prysmia, NEC, SubCom, KCS
In high-purity quartz mining: the owner of the Spruce Pine mine in North Carolina
In geographic information systems software: ArcGIS, Mapbox and ESRI
In local TV and radio: Nexstar, Gray, Tegna, Hearst, Scripps, Sinclair and IHeartMedia
In comic book publishing: Marvel and DC
In live-streaming: YouTube and Twitch
Kai Rex hit the nail on its head. Real food, grown in real living soil tenanted by lots of small critters tastes and nourishes differently, better, than food grown in depleted soil, fertilized with chemical fertilizers. GMO seeds developed by the same companies that make huge profits from the sale of pesticides and herbicides are diminishing the nutrients in the foods that we buy. Take a look at "The Third Plate" by Dan Barber, he talks a lot about healthy plants ability to ward off pests and disease and how stressed plants, growing in depleted soils can survive with herbicides and pesticides but lack the minerals that we need from them leaving our bodies undernourished even as we stuff ourselves into obesity in an effort to survive. Thanks for scratching the surface of the disaster that our food system is in, I hope to hear more and better informed discussion about this vital problem.
I'm a couple months late to this, but great episode, Matt & Dave! The portion on bird flu and Cal-Maine, combined with the continuing surge in egg prices, prompted me to a go a bit deeper into Cal-Maine's public financial reports and data on layer supply. I wrote about it here: https://yallstreet.substack.com/p/fowl-business
Would love to see how this compares internationally w/countries at similar GDP... EU, Japan, etc.
You know my sister she has a farm and she grows food and I started to eat the food that she grows on her farm and then I eat the food at the store It tastes vastly different and I can’t stop thinking about what is actually in the food at the store
I wish more people in America would grow food in their yards and then sell it to people in the neighborhood or community
Yes I agree
40 year farmer here, as an FYI. In response to your comment, I don't think it is so much what is "in" the widely available commercial food supply. i.e. grocery stores, massive stores like Walmart, etc. It is far more a result of the quest for maximum returns & profits. For example, I grew sweet corn, cantaloupes,. watermelons and many other vegetables for 20 years for both direct retail sales and wholesale to distributors; but it was all for local sales and consumption. None of it traveled over 100 miles. So I looked for varieties that had great taste, or sweetness, for example, as qualities I was looking for in the crops I planted. The seed catalogs, however, focused on ship-ability and shelf-life as the primary attributes. That is because most fruits and vegetables are grown literally thousands of miles away and need those attributes to be salable to the end user. With cantaloupes, for example, sweetness and shelf life are inversely proportional. The sweeter the melon, the shorter the time a ripe melon will wait for consumption. This is true for MANY other crops. This will remain true as long as we rely on Fla., the southwestern states, and California to supply these goods. But -- and this is a huge "but" -- if price is the primary factor in food purchase decisions, it will not change. Great food can be grown almost anywhere locally, but it most likely would be more expensive. I personally believe it is worth the extra cost, but to each his own.
It's not fully ripe, because they pick it too early. That, I think, is most of the huge difference (saying having grown food).