Unpacking the truth about ultra-processed plant-based alternatives, food politics, RFK Jr., and more | In Conversation with Marlana Malerich - The Disclosure Podcast

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SPEAKER_02 (00:31):
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(00:52):
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(01:13):
Hey, everyone, and welcome tothis episode of the Disclosure
Podcast.
In today's episode, I amthrilled to be joined by Milana
Malaric.
Milana is an expert when itcomes to information around
plant-based alternatives, theultra-processed conversation,
and around sustainability andfarming and agriculture in
general.
She has a BA in environmentalstudies from St.

(01:34):
Mary's College of California anda master's in science, which is
in relation to environmentalstudies, global food security,
global food systems, andsustainability from the of
Edinburgh.
Milana also was awarded the BestDissertation Prize for her work
on household food wastebehaviour during the COVID-19
pandemic.
Milana has been working in theintersection of food and

(01:55):
sustainability for over 10 yearsnow, and she is a co-founder of
the Rooted Research Collective,which is a group of
multidisciplinary academics whoare working to sort of transform
research insights intodata-driven and strategic
policies that can be implementedto help create a sustainable

(02:15):
plant-based future.
Milana is currently workingtowards her PhD, and I am so
thrilled to be joined by hertoday.
So thank you so much, Milana,for joining me on the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 (02:25):
Thank you, Ed.
It's great to be here.

SPEAKER_02 (02:27):
I want to talk about a wide range of different
things.
I mean, there's so much we cantalk about, obviously, and your
work really encompasses such awide variety of different
subjects that we could probablyfilm five, six hours worth of
content and only really scratchthe surface.
But I guess what I think isprobably of most interest right
now is maybe this conversationaround UPS, ultra-processed

(02:48):
foods.
I know that you published areport last year looking at
ultra-processed foods and, ofcourse, the conversation around
plant-based alternatives onultra-processed foods.
But before we dive into that,maybe the first question is, how
do we define what anultra-processed food is?

SPEAKER_01 (03:04):
Yeah, so that question is a bit more
contingent than you might think.
And a lot of researchers aretrying to figure out this at
this moment.
Ultra-processed foods are kindof what you think about when we
think about junk food.
So generally, that's how they'represented in the media.
So think about like crisps, hotdogs, cakes, and processed

(03:28):
candies and things like that,sodas as well.
And that's how they're presentedin the media.
Actually, the designation ofultra-processed foods is a bit
more complex.
And in order to kind of delveinto the varying definitions of
ultra-processed foods, we reallyneed to talk about the NOVA

(03:48):
system.
So the NOVA system was createdin 2009 by Dr.
Carlos Monteiro.
He was a Brazilian researcherand...
The kind of quick history andbackstory there is he noticed
that there were a lot of foodscoming into Brazil, coming from

(04:08):
the global north, coming fromkind of global multinational
companies, and they wereundermining the local food
system.
And so that's kind of theimpetus for his creation of the
NOVA system, which was putsfoods into different categories
based on their level ofprocessing.
The NOVA1 classification isminimally processed or

(04:32):
unprocessed foods, and these aregenerally like vegetables, whole
cuts of meat, things along thoselines.
The next level is NOVA2, whichis processed culinary
ingredients, and this is maybelike your oils, butter, fats,
things along those lines.
And then the thirdcategorization, NOVA3, is

(04:54):
processed foods.
So these are foods that resembleNOVA1 foods.
So for example, like a processedmeat or a canned fish, something
along those lines.
And then we get to NOVA4.
These are the ultra-processedfoods.
And they have a somewhatcomplicated definition.
They tend to be obviouslyheavily processed.

(05:16):
Some of the other definitionsinclude a wide range of
ingredients that you wouldn'tusually find in your kitchen.
And they tend to be higher insalt, fat, sugar content and may
encourage overeating.
So those are the kind of broadcategorizations.

SPEAKER_02 (05:36):
So I guess what's interesting about this
conversation is when we talkabout ultra-processed foods, The
initial thing is to say, well,look, this is obviously a
conversation that has lots ofmerits.
We should be shifting away fromthese foods.
And that clearly makes sensewhen we're talking about
shifting from cookies, donuts,and sweets to say fruits and
vegetables and pulses and such.
But I suppose one of the thingsthat perhaps your research has

(05:59):
touched upon, well, I know itcertainly has, and is an area
that my work touches upon fromwhat people say to me, is the
idea that plant-basedalternatives become a factor in
this narrative because they areby definition ultra-processed.
And I suppose if we have thissort of broad perspective that
ultra-processed is bad andunprocessed is good, then that

(06:19):
leads to the conclusion thatsort of alternative meat
products must therefore be badfor us as a consequence of them
being ultra-processed.
Is that too simplistic or doesthat ring true?

SPEAKER_01 (06:29):
I mean, I think that sums it up.
And that is one of thecontentions with the Right, yes.

(07:05):
But nutrition is really notconsidered.
And that's why we have productsthat may be less healthy and are
less healthy, such as likebutter or red meat in a NOVA one
or two classification, whichthen kind of, in my opinion,
creates this artificial haloaround animal products.
Whereas plant-based meat willoften end up in the ultra

(07:28):
processed category.
But when you're looking at it atthem compared to their animal
counterparts, they tend to behealthier from a nutrition
perspective.
So it's very complicated.
I

SPEAKER_02 (07:39):
mean, it is complicated.
I suppose the issue is it's soreductive.
If we're not looking atnutrition outcomes or health
outcomes and nutritionalprofiles of these foods, and
we're simply categorizing thembased on whether or not they
technically fall under theultra-process category, that's
not only unhelpful when it comesto sort of looking between
unprocessed and processed.

(08:00):
It's also unhelpful when we'relooking at different types of
processed foods, because surelynot all ultra-processed foods
are the same in terms of theirhealth outcomes anyway.
Obviously, cookies and donutsare going to be worse than other
foods that might be classifiedas ultra-processed.
So how do consumers makeinformed choices when the
information they're being givenis often so simplistic?

SPEAKER_01 (08:22):
Yeah, and I think that's part of the trouble.
And we're seeing this even inresearch that's come out
recently in the last, I think inthe last year, there was a
really large overview ofdifferent papers that were
identifying the healthimplications of ultra-processed
foods.
And you might remember some ofthe headlines from this paper.
It was like 32 differentdiseases associated with

(08:45):
ultra-processed foods, includingheart disease and diabetes and
even mental health issues.
It was a there were some prettyscary conclusions in that
overview.
But then when you look at thepaper and the breakdown of the
different products they werelooking at, you can see that not
all ultra-processed foodscontributed to those health

(09:07):
outcomes.
Some of them, such as fortifiedbreads, that was one of them,
actually had the alternateimpact.
They tended to make people morehealthy.
So even in these studies, whatwe're seeing is The results are
inconclusive.
We can say generally a lot ofultra-processed foods may

(09:27):
contribute to unhealthy dietaryoutcomes.
But it really depends on thecategory of the product.

SPEAKER_02 (09:34):
MARK BLYTH Yeah, absolutely.
It's interesting you say that.
I think there is this, Isuppose, wider grouping of these
foods, which inevitably leads toconclusions that are not
necessarily substantiated.
And I remember last year, Ithink it was, there was this
study that was released.
And it was looking at fourdifferent categories
ultra-processed plant-sourcedfoods, unprocessed plant-sourced
foods, and then unprocessedanimal-sourced foods and

(09:56):
ultra-processed animal-sourcedfoods.
And in the ultra-processedplant-sourced foods, there was
meat alternatives, but it onlymade up 0.2% of the calories
that were consumed.
And within that same categorywas sweets and biscuits and
cakes and vodka as well wasincluded in that category.
And soda, I think also.
Yeah, I remember that study.
Yeah, and...
Unsurprisingly, it showed thatwhen you increase the intake of

(10:18):
these foods, your risk ofcertain chronic diseases was
shown to increase as well.
But the headlines that were runwere all about the alternatives.
And I remember the Telegraph, ofcourse, the Telegraph ran this
article.
It was an opinion piece by afarmer and it was headlined,
vegans are slowly killingthemselves because of this
study, which showed that theincreased intake of these

(10:38):
foods...
increased the risk of certainchronic diseases, even though
only 0.2% of it was meatalternatives.
And within the meat alternativeswas tofu, which is not, by most
standards, even ultra-processed,and certainly is not considered
to be unhealthy.
So even within the meatalternatives, which only made up
0.2% of the calories consumed,were healthy alternatives.
Well, more objectively healthyalternatives.

(10:59):
But it's crazy that we can thenlead with these headlines and
consumers see this and theirperception of this study is, oh,
by the way, these alternativesare going to kill you.
And what was also overlooked iswithin all four of the food
categories looked at, theunprocessed plant-based diet was
actually shown to be thehealthiest and reduced chronic
disease risk.

SPEAKER_01 (11:15):
That did not make the headlines.

SPEAKER_02 (11:17):
Did not make the headlines.
So really the headline shouldbe, hey, you know, unprocessed
plant-based diets are thehealthiest for you.
Processed plant-based diets,when they contain obviously
unhealthy foods, are not goodfor you.
Right.
Fair enough.
But that's not what the consumerwas given or the reader was
given.
So it sort of perpetuates thisassumption and this narrative,
which is really negativelyimpacting the progression of the

(11:38):
plant-based food sector andindeed even the progression of
people making healthy choicesmore generally.

SPEAKER_01 (11:43):
Absolutely.
And this narrative has reallytaken hold in our public
perception.
There was a study that came outrecently that indicated that a
third of all consumers associateplant-based products with being
ultra-processed.
This sort of identifying allprotein as ultra-processed has
been growing.

(12:04):
I think the Boston ConsultingGroup identified it early on,
maybe three years ago.
And then there was a study thatour team did as well, which
looked at ultra-processed foodsand plant-based diets.
And you can really see sort ofthe increase in conversation
around this in online discourseand also the declining sentiment

(12:26):
around plant-based diets.
So we are definitely in a timeright now where this narrative
has taken hold in the publicperception and is really
complicated for many

SPEAKER_02 (12:37):
reasons.
Yeah.
I suppose maybe one thing issometimes people, when you sort
of start to defend alternatives,they correctly say, bang on,
these foods aren't thehealthiest foods you can
consume.
Clearly there are issues aroundthem.
So is there a sort of a nuancedperspective here which sort of
maybe starts to reframeplant-based alternatives as not

(12:57):
being as bad as maybe peoplesay, but clearly can improve in
certain ways as well?

SPEAKER_01 (13:03):
So the study that we did a couple of years ago that
you referenced, kind of one ofthe big outputs was its quality
and quantity, not category.
So plant-based products arenuanced.
They have different ingredientprofiles.
And, you know, a plant-baseddeep fried nugget is still a
plant-based deep fried nugget.
And if you're eating thatinstead of a bowl of broccoli,

(13:24):
I'm not a nutritionist, but Imean, you know, there are health
implications there.
But when you look at theresearch that's looked at
plant-based products and ultraprocessed foods and has tried to
kind of dig into the nuance thatexists there, we see that
overwhelmingly plant-basedproducts are healthier, the meat
products that they're trying toreplace.

(13:47):
So there was one study thatlooked at like Nutri-Score
labeling and the plant-basedburger that contained soy and
mycoproteins, so fungus-based,found its way into the B
category, which is more healthy.
A pea-based burger found its wayinto the C category, so slightly

(14:09):
less healthy.
But the beef burger ended up inthe D category, which is one of
the least healthiest.
However, the beef burger wouldbe considered like a more whole,
unprocessed product, whereaslike a mycoprotein burger would
be considered ultra-processed.
So it really has to do with thequality of the product, not the

(14:30):
processing category.

SPEAKER_02 (14:31):
It's interesting.
I guess that's one of thedangerous elements of this is We
know from nutrition science thatprocessed meat is among the
worst.
But the nutrition science alsoshows that unprocessed red meat
still contributes to chronicdisease.
Maybe not as much as processedmeat, let's say, but still
significantly so.
And that the consumption ofunprocessed red meat is still
going to be potentially aproblem causer if you consume

(14:54):
enough of it throughout yourlife.
But I feel, at least from theconversations that I see and
that I'm involved in, that nowpeople have the perception that
Choosing an unprocessed red meatburger, for example, is going to
be healthier than choosing,let's say, a Beyond Meat burger.
But that's not what the actualscientific literature shows.
But people aren't driven by thescientific literature.

(15:16):
Let's say they're driven byemotion and they're driven by
sensationalism and they'redriven by viral content online.
And it's easy for influencersand for people who create
content to speak abouthalf-truths and to miss out
important pieces of informationand to create a wider narrative
that informs people in such away as to create the assumption
that these foods are going to beworse for you, when in actuality

(15:37):
the research that's been done sofar and is continuing to be done
shows that even though they'renot necessarily the healthiest
foods, there's still a step inthe right direction from the
animal-based counterparts there.

SPEAKER_01 (15:46):
Absolutely.
And again, it really depends onthe product that you're
consuming.
And I will note that one studythat was done in the UK showed
that I think it was about athird of all the plant-based
products were higher in sodiumthan they should have been.
But something also to note thereis that when you're buying a
plant-based meat burger, it'salready been pre-seasoned.

(16:09):
The sodium content has alreadybeen added into the product.
And so if you're buying...
Beef mince, all of thoseingredients are added later on.
I haven't seen any studies thathave compared sodium content
post-cooking the products to seeif maybe it's a little bit more
aligned.
But it's something to keep inmind.
And I don't want to suggest thatjust because something is

(16:31):
plant-based, it's automaticallybetter for you.
But the research certainly showsthat generally these products
are healthier than the animalproducts that they're trying to
replace.

SPEAKER_02 (16:41):
That's actually really interesting.
I've never...
considered that before that Isuppose when we when we buy
pre-made food pre-packaged foodor we're buying these
alternatives there is theseasoning already added in the
sense they're pre-seasoned butif you're buying something like
like a mince or something you'reseasoning it during the cooking
process or for people who do soit would be interesting to see
if those levels are comparableby the end of the cooking

(17:03):
process if people are justbuying sort of a beyond mince or
a plant-based alternative minceand they don't season through
the cooking but people who arebuying the in-process red meat
maybe are What does that meanfor the ultimate product at the
end of it?
Fascinating.
I've never really considered it.

SPEAKER_01 (17:16):
I really want someone to do a study on this.
So if any of your listeners areinterested, I would love to.
I'm just very busy right

SPEAKER_02 (17:24):
now.
Yeah, well, I can imagine.
But that would certainly bequite interesting.
Perhaps then we can talk aboutthe issue of marketing.
And we were speaking beforeabout sort of this artificial
halo that's sort of emergedaround unprocessed meat, let's
say.
But I think maybe part of theproblem...
maybe you'll agree or disagree,was that there was this
artificial halo aroundalternatives, maybe six or seven
years ago, where they were beingpositioned as this incredible

(17:47):
revolutionary food technology.
Did that open the door to thiscriticism in a way that
potentially wouldn't havehappened if they were kind of
positioned as more of analternative from an ethical
perspective or even maybe asustainability perspective?
Did these companies sort of openthe door to allow this sort of
rhetoric to emerge?

SPEAKER_01 (18:06):
Yeah, that's a really interesting question.
It's something I think about alot.
I don't know.
I mean, it is possible that someof the early positive response
was due to the hype cycle.
It's a new product.
It's really innovative.
It's really exciting.
And people were kind of happy tojump on board.
It was kind of like an eliteproduct, too.

(18:28):
You had to go to a specialrestaurant to get it.
And But it's also possible thatthe incumbent product, meat, has
such a stronghold on our cultureand history and nostalgia that
as soon as some of these kind ofrumblings started to emerge, it
was a lot easier for people tojump on board with this idea

(18:48):
that it was ultra-processed andmaybe not healthy for you and
maybe eating...
conventional meat is better foryou?
I don't know.
I guess that's my answer.
But what we are seeing now iskind of a diverting in the
industry.
So we're starting to see somecompanies try to position
themselves as more healthy byincluding less ingredients or

(19:11):
more healthy by kind ofpromoting themselves as not
processed in the same way, whichkind of reinforces the the
complications that we've alreadytalked about with processing not
being a really good indicator ofnutrition.
But I also, from like a businessperspective, can understand why
they might be trying todifferentiate.
This narrative has really takenhold and consumers are afraid of

(19:33):
ultra-processed foods.

SPEAKER_02 (19:34):
It's interesting when you're saying that.
The example that springs to mymind is the example of plant
milks.
I think generally speaking,there's this idea that plant
milks are mostly okay.
I don't think they come underthe same criticism as meat
alternatives.
but they do come into somecriticism.
And one of the criticisms theycan face is around sort of
additives.
And one of them is gel and gum.

(19:56):
And people go, oh, gum, right?
This obviously means it can't begood for you.
And there are certainplant-based companies and
certain plant-based milkalternatives that kind of
position themselves as beingthese great healthy products
because they contain threeingredients.
So maybe almonds, water and apinch of salt or something.
And they go, right, theseproducts are healthier because
we don't have the junk, thefillers, the additives.
And you go, OK, well, that makessense.

(20:16):
That aligns with the sort of thecommon rhetoric that exists now
around these foods.
And then you go, OK, theseplant-based alternatives, these
milk alternatives that have,say, gel and gum in them.
You go, okay, well, does thatmean it must be worse then?
And then you realize actuallythe reason the gel and gum's in
there is so that calcium can befortified or can be added.
So the plant milk canessentially be fortified because

(20:39):
without it, the calcium wouldkind of separate, sink.
So it allows it to be dispersed.
It allows you to have a smoothtextured plant milk.
And you go, okay, so gel andgum, right?
And I was looking into this andit just completely blew my mind
because Gellingham is consideredto be a safe food additive.
And they did a study where theygave people quantities that were
30 times higher than you'd geton average through diet alone.
And even at quantities 30 timeshigher, there was no negative

(21:02):
health outcomes that were shownduring the study period.
So then you go, right, you havethis safe food additive that you
can consume in far higherquantities than we do and still
not have negative healthoutcomes.
And it's added into the plantmilk so that we can get calcium
in there and it can befortified.
So then the question becomes,what's healthier?
An almond-based plant milk,let's say, that's just almonds,
water, pinch of salt, or analmond-based plant milk that's

(21:25):
those ingredients, let's say,but also gel and gum and
calcium.
And I think what alarms me ispeople will assume that the
minimal ingredients milk isgonna be better, but you're
missing out on an essentialnutrient.
And if you're going from cow'smilk to a plant-based
alternative, and let's say yourmain source of calcium was dairy
before, predominantly the cow'smilk that you had in your
cereals, whatever it may be, andyou're not replacing that, then

(21:48):
you could end up becomingdeficient in an essential
nutrient.
And it becomes this paradoxicalthing where it's actually the
food that's technicallyultra-processed that is
ultimately the healthiest onebecause by consuming that,
you're getting an essentialnutrient that you wouldn't get
otherwise.
And I go, I was thinking tomyself, this is kind of scary
and dangerous because peoplehave been misinformed and in a

(22:11):
way, much to my frustration,some plant-based companies are
perpetuating this narrative justto try and promote their own
products, which seems...
unethical because it's maybeactually harming consumers then
that's a personal as you couldprobably tell that's something
that I was reading about and Iwas going ah this is this is not
this is not acceptable I don'tthink

SPEAKER_01 (22:29):
no and I think that brings up a really important
point is that these additivesoften are there for like
biofortification orfortification of some in some
way and that reminds me of anexample I was at an event the
other night and I was talking toa nutritionist about this and
she works in like low salt.
Like she's trying to help folksthat are at risk to like reduce

(22:53):
their salt intake.
And some of the additives theyuse instead of salt to make
foods still taste appealingwould technically kind of move
the product through the ultraprocessing categorization or
processing categorization andland them in ultra processed
foods.
But for consumers who are atrisk of high sodium, it's really

(23:14):
important that they choose thatproduct.
And so if they're coming to theyou know, to the store with this
idea in mind that they need toreduce their ultra-processed
food intake, they might be,similarly to your milk example,
choosing products that are,like, putting them at risk for
high sodium because they'retrying to avoid something that
is more processed because itmight have an ingredient that

(23:35):
they don't understand becausethat's one of the designations,
right?
Like, ingredients we don'tunderstand, long ingredient
list, ingredients not found inour kitchens.
So it's incredibly frustrating,right?

SPEAKER_02 (23:47):
Yeah, it is, isn't it?
And that's another great pointthat you touch upon, which is
there's this idea that if youcan't pronounce something or
spell something, you shouldn'tbe eating it.
Right.
Which basically rules out almosteverything because the chemical
names for most things are beyondmost people's spelling
comprehension, you know, mineincluded.
I look at sort of the technicalnames for B vitamins and vitamin
E and omega-3 fatty acids.

SPEAKER_03 (24:09):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (24:09):
And you look at those and you go, right, where
do I even start with this?
But these are essentialnutrients.
But if instead of saying A-L-A,it said...
alpha linoleic acid orsomething.
You go, oh, alpha linoleic acid,acid, that doesn't sound good.
I surely don't want to beconsuming that.
And you can prey uponpeople's...
Ignorance sounds like a strongword.
Being ignorant is not inherentlya bad thing.

(24:31):
We don't know everything.
And so we're always ignorantabout things we don't know.
And people are undeniably goingto be ignorant around chemical
names and certain scientificnarratives and topics because,
yeah, these are complexsubjects.
But if you're a campaigner, youare someone who is looking to
create misinformation campaigns,you can use that to your

(24:52):
advantage and prey upon people.
And we were speaking a littlebit outside before about a
Center for Consumer Freedom.
One of the things, and I'll letyou speak about them in more
detail in a moment, but one ofthe things that they did really
well is weaponizingmethylcellulose as an ingredient
that you should be avoiding.
And they said, methylcellulose,when you consume too much of it
can cause diarrhea or somethinglike that.
And it's like, yeah, sometimesit's prescribed to people who

(25:14):
are constipated and it'sactually prescribed to people,
but consuming methylcellulose inthe burger is not going to cause
you to have diarrhea or havethese health ailments.
I'll let you speak about theCenter for Consumer Freedom
because it's a fascinatingexample of how that can be
weaponized in such a way.

SPEAKER_01 (25:29):
Yeah, absolutely.
The methylcellulose debate isreally Fascinating.
I mean, methylcellulose is just,it's cellulose, right?
Which is what cell walls aremade of in plants.
Absolutely.
Anyway, Center for ConsumerFreedom is a really interesting
example of the way this has beenweaponized, and I think very

(25:50):
successfully weaponized.
The organization is headed by aman named Richard Burnham, who
has ties to tobacco.
And I mean, you can find allthis online.
It's actually a really darkhole, but...
I wish I never had to go down,but I had to for research.
Basically, they set up thisorganization, Center for
Consumer Freedom, and theyreally started promoting these

(26:12):
ideas that plant-based productswere unnatural, really
highlighting ingredients thatconsumers didn't understand,
like methylcellulose, and had areally successful campaign.
They did a Super Bowl ad.
They had big adverts inprominent newspapers.
And I do think that some of thisultra-processed narrative can

(26:35):
be, and it's like hold on thepublic and its connection to
plant-based can really beconnected to that specific
campaign.
It is also known, and you canfind out online, that some of
the members of Center forConsumer Freedom are connected
with Meat Lobby.

SPEAKER_02 (26:51):
I like to think of these people as sort of
mercenaries for hire.
This guy runs Center forConsumer Freedom.
He's worked with sort of anti-He's worked with alcohol
companies or the alcoholindustry to sort of go push back
against...

SPEAKER_01 (27:04):
Mothers against drunk driving.
How can you go against mothersagainst drunk driving?
And also, did he go against PETAas well?

SPEAKER_02 (27:11):
This really highlights, I think, how well he
works and how well hisorganizations work.
There's this campaign calledPETA Kills.
And a lot of people nowassociate PETA with being an
organization that kills animals.
And the reason for that is theyhave sort of shelters.
And often what PETA do is theytake animals in that no other
shelter will accept and theyeuthanize them.

(27:31):
And actually Ingrid Newkirk, Ithink is her name, the founder
of PETA, she originally startedworking with animals in an
animal shelter and sheeuthanized the animals herself
because she saw other peopledoing it and thought that they
weren't treating them withrespect.
And so she did it in a waybecause she knew that she could
be as compassionate as possible.
So her roots are actually inthat.

(27:52):
Anyway, the idea of euthanizinganimals is a really complex one,
especially when we talk aboutdogs and cats.
It makes most peopleuncomfortable.
But the problem isn't that PETAhave shelters where they take
animals that have terriblebehavioral problems who can't be
rehomed and euthanized them.
The problem is that we have asystem that allows people to buy
pets, raise them terribly, abusethem, give them behavioral
problems, and then just dumpthem on someone else and make

(28:12):
them someone else'sresponsibility.
But what the Center for ConsumerFreedom did really well is they
perpetuate this narrative ofPETA kills because it makes PETA
seem hypocritical that theyeuthanize pets, essentially.
It's really taken hold.
And a lot of people...
view them this way.
And whenever I see Peter beingmentioned, it always comes with
this, Peter kills or Peter putsdown animals.
They kill healthy animals.

(28:33):
And it's this sort of halftruth, which is, yeah,
technically they do euthanizeanimals, but that's missing the
bigger picture of what'sactually the systemic problem
that's creating this situation.
So yeah, but again, it justshows how effective these
campaigns can be.
Now, I'm not, you know, Peter dothings that I don't agree with
in terms of sort of certaincampaigns and certain marketing
things and certain I don't agreewith everything they do, but I

(28:54):
do fundamentally think it'sterribly unfair that they've
been criticized in this way.
But yeah, I remember thatmethylcellulose thing.
I think it was a spelling beeadvert that they did in the
Super Bowl.

SPEAKER_01 (29:05):
It was, yes.
And they had children on a stagedoing a spelling bee and they
said spell methylcellulose andthey couldn't do it.
And they were like, don't eatanything that you can't.
spell or understand or somethingalong those lines.
And then the last line is thissmiling kid spelling bacon,
P-A-C-O-N.

(29:27):
And that was the point.
And I mean, that was I thinkthat was 2019.
I think

SPEAKER_02 (29:31):
it was.

SPEAKER_01 (29:31):
Yeah.
And, you know, I actually I duginto the records.
I tried to see how much moneythey spent on these adverts.
And like in the grand scheme ofthings, it really wasn't that
much money.
But I don't think we can dismissthe impact that these types of
campaigns have had.
Like I said earlier, a third ofall consumers in the EU right

(29:52):
now associate plant-based meatand plant-based products with
ultra processed foods.
This narrative has clearly takenhold.
How much of that ismisinformation from
organizations like Center forConsumer Freedom versus how much
of it is maybe consumers notfully understanding the product,
not understanding whatmethylcellulose actually is.

(30:12):
Yeah, kind of preying on, yousaid ignorance earlier, but just
like, you know, Lack ofknowledge.
I think I also want to say likethe ultra processed framework.
For me, from like a consumerpsychology perspective, it makes
sense that it's taken off.
It's really black and white.

(30:32):
And people are like exhaustedwith trying to figure out what
to eat and what's the rightthing to eat.
And all of a sudden they havethis really easy framework.
It's like if it's whole foods,it's good.
If it has lots of ingredientsand it's processed, it's bad.
Easy.

SPEAKER_02 (30:50):
I think that's it, Milan.
You've nailed it.
People want some simple, easyadvice.
Of course, they've got busylives.
They've got to raise families,got to go to work, got to pay
their mortgages.
They've got all these otherconsiderations.
And we can't expect people tosit down and go through health
information, nutritioninformation.
It's unreasonable and unfair.
So people want simple, easymessaging that creates this

(31:14):
often very simple binary thatallows people to make these
decisions and not really thinktoo much beyond that, but is
there a class problem related tothat?
Does that sort of marginalize orinherently sort of look down
upon people who maybe don't havethe time, freedom, or financial
resources to consume sort ofmore unprocessed foods?

SPEAKER_01 (31:35):
Yeah, for sure.
I was on a panel last year atAva, and we were talking about
ultra-processed foods,plant-based meat.
And I think it was Dr.
Garrett Broad, who was also onthe panel, and he brought up
this point.
Processed foods do play acrucial role in key calories for
folks that are potentially notable to.

(31:56):
I mean, fruits and vegetablesand whole foods are more
expensive than these products.
And we need to acknowledge thatprocessed foods play a really
important role in folks feedingtheir families and getting key
calories.
There also was this interesting,I think in Colombia in the last
year, they've started to taxprocessed foods or high-fat,

(32:19):
salt-sugar foods.
And I read this article, andmaybe I'll find it afterwards.
You can include it in the links.
But they were interviewing folkswho were lower income that just
kind of would grab food on thego as they were coming and going
from work.
And that tax has really...
undermine their ability to getenough calories to just kind of
go about their day.

(32:40):
It's like punishing.
Maybe reformulation is betterthan taxation.
I mean, that would be an idea.

SPEAKER_02 (32:47):
Well, this is it.
Why is the consumer beingpunished?
Shouldn't it be on the companiesto create healthier products, to
change the fat content, to takeout saturated fat, replace it
with an unsaturated fat, tomaybe add some fiber to those
products?
It kind of summarizes soperfectly the inherent...
inequality that exists, that youhave people who maybe struggle

(33:08):
to make ends meet anyway, whohave been punished because the
foods they can afford are notmade as healthy as they should
be.
And the fault of that is becauseof the companies who are mass
producing this food as cheap aspossible.
It just seems ridiculous to methat we're still in this mindset
that it should be the consumerwho's punished for that.
When maybe you should increaseregulation, maybe we should have

(33:28):
a process that sort of meansthat these companies are
incentivized themselves tocreate healthier foods rather
than rather than the consumerbeing punished that that's the
foods that they've been offered.

SPEAKER_01 (33:37):
Yeah.
And there's a new, I completelyagree.
And I've yet, I haven't seen asmuch like focus on the
companies, but there was a newannouncement from Gavin Newsom's
office in California where hesuggested that they would start
working with companies toreformulate products.

(33:58):
He is using the ultra processedfood word, but I think when I
was looking at it, It's moretalking about high-fat salt and
sugar, which is HFSS products,thinking about how to reduce
those products in school mealsand things like that.
So there are different ways wecan approach this, but I don't

(34:20):
think that passing on the coststo the consumer is the right
way.

SPEAKER_02 (34:24):
No.
It's interesting you mentionedsort of the American political
scene right now.
Obviously, what's happening inAmerica right now is...
is probably fairly unpleasantfor a number of reasons.
And I think from our perspectivein relation to what we're
talking about today, one ofthose reasons would be RFK Jr.

(34:44):
There's a lot of credibilityaround sort of his broader
messaging points.
And what I mean by that is weneed to make food healthier.
We need to improve what childrenhave been fed in schools.
These are sort of rallyingmessages that everyone broadly
agrees with, that the issue iswhen you actually listen to the
things he suggests and what heactually represents.
It's easy to make sort of broadtalking points that you have
sort of bypassed some consensusaround and most people agree
with.

(35:05):
And that unfortunatelylegitimizes his actual more
particular viewpoints.
And I saw a video with him, twovideos actually, One was him
talking about scary things thatare added into foods.
And one of the things hereferenced was the technical
name for vitamin B2, which is anessential nutrient.
And he read it out and he said,it contains this.
And you think, what, B2?

(35:27):
Which just summarised everythingso perfectly.
And then to make matters worse,he did an interview with Sean
Hannity from Fox News.
And this interview, it's mad.
It's in a fast food restaurant,a fast food restaurant.
And during the interview, aserver gives him a cheeseburger
with fries.
processed meat with processedcheese with processed bread and
fries and he's talking about howit's great because the fries are

(35:51):
fried in beef tallow and notvegetable

SPEAKER_01 (35:54):
oil right excellent

SPEAKER_02 (35:55):
so this is the man who's going to make America
healthy again he doesn't knowwhat vitamin b2 is and
essentially he thinks it's badand he says that eating fries
and cheeseburgers and fast foodrestaurants is okay if they're
fried in animal fat

SPEAKER_01 (36:06):
versus seed oils versus

SPEAKER_02 (36:07):
seed oils I mean actually that's an interesting
conversation the seed oils sideof things that seems to be a
really important part of thewhole misinformation campaign
that's sort of leveled againstplant-based alternatives.

SPEAKER_01 (36:20):
Yeah, and just in general it's really taken off.
So I'm working our team atRooted Research is also working
on a nutrition misinformationstudy with Robbie Lockie at
Freedom Food Alliance and wehave been able to access like
800,000 rows of data from MetaInstagram One of the themes is

(36:43):
seed oil.
And we're still working throughthe data to just try to better
understand what exactly thenarrative is there.
But it does tend to be a bigpart of these carnivore diets,
ancestral diets, and ketogenicdiets.

(37:04):
Seed oil is really demonized.
And to bring it back to the NOVAsystem, seed oils would be
further along in the processing,whereas beef tallow would be
considered more of a whole, lessprocessed food, which again kind
of reinforces this idea thatprocessing is just one way of

(37:28):
looking at it and probably notthe best way of determining
whether a food is nutritionallysound.

SPEAKER_02 (37:34):
It's really interesting with the seed oils
thing because I wrote a book acouple of years ago and did an
updated version.
I included seed oils, sort of adiscussion around seed oils in
it.
And when I was approaching it,my view was, I kind of thought
that what I'd write is, yes,seed oils aren't great for you,
but you can avoid them if youwant to.
And then when I was looking atit, I've completely fallen for

(37:56):
this seed oils thing, becauseactually the evidence around
seed oils is completely theopposite of what people say.
People say seed oils causeinflammation.
And that's not true.
They're not pro-inflammatory.
People say they increase therisk of chronic disease, yet
compared to saturated fats,animal-based saturated fats,
they're reducing chronic diseaserisk.
The problem is not the seed oil,like if you have sort of a

(38:16):
vegetable oil at home that youmaybe use in a salad dressing.
Yeah, if you fill up bigindustrial fries with it and
you're frying over and over andheating up and cooling it down,
you're going to have problemswith it.
But that's just because of theprocess, not the actual oil
itself and the idea of usingthat seed oil.
And I couldn't believe just howmuch my impression had been
warped around it.
And I watched a video thismorning, actually, of this sort

(38:37):
of left-wing commentator who wascriticizing RFK Jr.
for the things I justreferenced.
And even he said, well, beeftallow instead of seed oil, fair
enough.
But have you seen what's in thebread buns he's consuming?
So even these people who aresaying RFK Jr.
is spreading misinformationstill accept that element of the
misinformation, maybe becauseit's so prominent, so strong, or
maybe feeds into maybe a biasthat they already have.

(38:59):
I'm not...
I'm not sure why are we sosusceptible, I guess, to that?

SPEAKER_00 (39:03):
This is a great question.
I

SPEAKER_02 (39:06):
do not know.
It's hard, isn't it?
Well, what is it?
It's like, is it because peoplewant to eat animal products?
And if we're being told animalproducts are bad, that makes us
feel guilty or negative byeating them.
But if we're told, actually, no,that's not true.
Animal products are fine.
It's the seed oils that are bad.
That's reaffirming to us anarrative we want to be true
rather than the narrative thatis true.
Is there a sort of motivatedreasoning in there?

SPEAKER_01 (39:27):
I mean...
Yes, I would agree with that.
I think that...
So my research right now isfocused on the plant-based
industry and consumer acceptanceof plant-based products.
And I think that's a reallyimportant framework.
We need to better understandconsumer acceptance and how the
industry is responding topressures from the meat industry

(39:48):
and changing consumerperceptions.
But one of the things I thinkabout a lot and I really want to
integrate into my research isthe...
compelling cultural value of theincumbent product, which is
meat.
And if we're not recognizing thevalue it holds in culture,

(40:08):
nostalgia, even like religion,masculinity, and understand the
history of the role meat hasplayed in our society, like, I
don't know how well we canaddress what's happening right
now and transition people awayfrom It has a stronghold on us.

(40:28):
Like it is associated withwealth and prosperity and all of
these things and has been likethis isn't a modern thing.
I love food history.
So in another life, I'd love tobe a food historian.
And there's some reallyphenomenal books just about like
food.
early days in like colonizationof the Americas and the types of

(40:51):
diets that were imported and howthey were meat heavy and why and
all of these belief systems thatexisted.
Anyway, I will go off on atangent if I carry on.
But all that to say, we have torecognize the hold that it has
on our culture.
And potentially that's whypeople are more likely to
believe like a steak ishealthier for you than a

(41:15):
Mycoprotein burger.

SPEAKER_02 (41:17):
Do you think then that the sort of the health side
of things is potentially alittle bit of a facade, that
that's not really the reasonpeople are making these choices,
but it's a convenient thing tojust kind of say, oh, I'm not
being driven by emotion orirrationality.
I'm not being motivated by thissort of cultural behavior that's
so ingrained I might not even beconscious of it.
It's because I've heard thatplant-based alternatives are

(41:38):
bad.

SPEAKER_01 (41:39):
Like maybe there's the subconscious leaning because
of all of the things I justmentioned, and then the health
side.
conversation just makes sense.
But it's interesting too,because I mean, when you look at
consumer studies, consumers alsochoose plant-based for health
reasons.
So there's kind of this likediverging group of people, some

(42:00):
that believe that eating lessmeat is good for you and they
might choose plant-based becauseof health reasons.
And then there seems to be thisother sort of mindset value set
where consumers choose don'tthink eating plant-based meats
is healthy and actually likeeating more meat is healthy.

SPEAKER_02 (42:18):
There is an interesting disparity, you're
right.
With vegans, sometimes I've doneevents and vegans will say, part
of the problem is we shouldn'thave these products.
If we just had whole plantfoods, then we would just bypass
all of this and we wouldn't haveto be dealing with this and
that.
And we wouldn't have to dealwith people saying veganism is
not good because you have to eatprocessed foods.
How much of a role do you thinkalternative proteins play?

(42:39):
And if someone was to say toyou, it'd be so much better if
we didn't have cell culture orwe weren't going to have cell
cultured meat and we didn't haveplant-based alternatives and we
just had fruits, vegetables,nuts, seeds, legumes, whole
grains, the most healthy foodsthat we can consume.
Would that be better or do thesealternative proteins, are they
important enough that thiscriticism will be bearable in

(43:01):
the long run?
I

SPEAKER_01 (43:02):
mean, there is research that suggests that
plant-based meat productsoperate as like a stepping stone
for consumers that are trying toeat less meat but want something
that is familiar to the foodsthey usually eat.
I've heard this argument a lot.
Like, why don't we just eat morebeans?
Why don't we eat more tofu or...

(43:23):
even tempeh or some of theseother things.
And I think maybe a driver fromthe early days of the industry
was that consumers will replacethese meat products with our
products, and everybody's goingto be happy, and it's going to
satisfy their taste buds, andthey're not going to miss meat.

(43:43):
And I don't think that has fullybeen the case.
But there is research thatindicates it operates as a
stepping stone.
But there's also, like I wasreading a study from maybe like
four or five years ago whereconsumers were asked what kind
of alternative meat productsthey might like to see on the
shelves.
And more than anything, theyactually wanted more like

(44:05):
bean-based alternatives, likemore whole food products versus
like something that tastes likemeat.
So I'm also curious to see howmuch...
How much the early days of theindustry were driven by this
really cool technology that wecan make this product that
tastes like meat versussegmented consumer studies.

(44:27):
I don't know.
I can't really speak to thatbecause I'm not sure, but I'd be
curious.

SPEAKER_02 (44:31):
Certainly so.
I guess it's interesting how...
fundamentally, people felt alittle bit let down by
plant-based alternatives.
There was a lot of hype aroundthem and some of them are
genuinely really good.
And I think sort of the dairyalternatives are really strong.
Maybe cheese obviously has a bitof work to do still.
I mean, there's plenty of badplant-based cheeses out there,
but there's also plenty of goodones.
But in milks and yogurts andsuch, I think what's interesting

(44:53):
about milk is maybe People don'tdrink soy milk or almond milk or
oat milk with the expectationthat it will be like cow's milk.
We kind of view them as aproduct in and of themselves.
And we don't think, oh, soy milkdoesn't taste like cow's milk,
therefore it's not a goodalternative.
It's sort of flavoursome in itsown right.
I never used to like cow's milk,so I'm a little bit biased in

(45:14):
two ways.
I think it's much nicer, soymilk.
But with alternatives, there'sthis expectation that they have
to replicate the meat thatthey're sort of closely aligned
to.
Do you think there's...
a way of maybe thinking aboutthese foods as sort of a novel
food in itself, something that,yes, we want them to taste like
beef and chicken, but are theyenjoyable as a new product in
and of themselves?

SPEAKER_01 (45:34):
Absolutely.
But I do think that part of thereason why we're in this
predicament is because the veryearly days of alternative meats
really promoted these productsas, like, it's beef made from
plants.
You know, you can substitutethem for any of your recipes.
You know, this really, like...
This idea that this product isnew and novel, but you can very

(45:57):
easily replace it into yourdaily diet just the way you
would be eating meat.
And so I think it was marketedin such a way that then created
space for consumer letdown whenthose products didn't exactly
meet those expectations.
Now, I think the marketingstrategies will probably have to

(46:17):
shift because a lot of theseproducts are not meeting the
taste requirements thatconsumers want.
Taste is a huge barrier.
When we look at consumerstudies, it's cited quite often.

SPEAKER_02 (46:30):
I think you're right.
It is the foundation on whichthese products will succeed or
fail.
And actually, when I was askingthat previous question about,
should we view tasty foodswithin their own right?
That's...
I realised as I was saying that,there's kind of a little bit of
me sort of accepting these foodsaren't the same, you know, and
me kind of rationalising, well,they don't have to, they can be
nice as their own things.

(46:50):
That in a way sort of signifiesthat even from my own
perspective, they've mostlyfailed to kind of match the
flavour and maybe even thetexture of the foods that I used
to consume when I used to eatanimal products.
But without meeting thosestandards, there's probably
going to be the problem wherethey won't.
But then does that create anunfair...
an unfair situation whereplant-based alternatives have to

(47:11):
taste the same as animalproducts, but a lot of the time
to get that flavor requires themto maybe be a bit fattier, to
maybe be a little bit lesshealthy because they're
replicating something that isn'thealthy.
So it's like, we have to have avegan beef burger or a vegan
bacon, that isn't ultraprocessed, that is healthy if
you analyze it, but it has totaste the same as something
which is a class one carcinogenand which is filled with

(47:34):
saturated fat and which isclearly one of the most
unhealthy foods you can eat.
So it's like plant-basedalternatives are stuck between a
rock and a hard place, right?
How do we bridge that gap?

SPEAKER_01 (47:42):
I mean, I think we're kind of seeing some
examples of that with two of themain plant-based meat companies
in the US, so Impossible andBeyond.
They've kind of responded tothis idea push back in two
really different ways which arefascinating so beyond has
created this these products thatare using avocado oil they have

(48:04):
less sodium they they've been umi think they're designated heart
healthy you know like they'vethey've just really moved into
that um space of being a healthyproduct i haven't tried them so
i'm not going to speak to likethe taste um But that's kind of
how they've responded.
And then we see kind of on theother end of the spectrum,

(48:25):
Impossible, which has reallydoubled down on taste,
enjoyment.
Like the products are fatty.
They are salty.
I really like their hot dogs.
I think they're delicious.
And it also could be due totheir different...
I don't know what their consumersegmentation looks like, but I
know from...

(48:46):
From a friend of mine that worksat Impossible, like 95, 96% of
their consumers also eat meat.
So they're really trying toappeal to consumers that eat
meat, like meat, enjoy it, butmaybe want an alternative every
now and again.
Whereas Beyond is maybe pivotingto be a product that is more

(49:06):
regularly used in daily lives.
I don't know.
These pivots are happening.
This is such a...
This industry is just emergingand we're already starting to
see these like differentiations.
It'll be so fascinating to seehow well they do, how they
continue to pivot.
Yeah, it's a really exciting andalso like complicated time in
the industry because we're stilllearning so much about what

(49:28):
consumers want and need.
And we'll probably have to justdifferentiate products based on
different consumersegmentations.

SPEAKER_02 (49:36):
Oh, yeah.
It's fascinating to know thatthere's that sort of...
disparity between the twoapproaches and like the
directions that are both goingin.
We don't really have impossiblehere.
I think we've got like thenuggets and such, but sort of
their sort of main products likethe beef with the heme iron and
such, we don't have here, atleast not yet.
Hopefully, I presume that thatwill hopefully change if there's

(49:57):
sort of regulatory approval atsome point.

SPEAKER_01 (49:58):
Yeah, I know they have started looking into
regulatory approval.
I don't know where they're at inthe process, but yeah, because
of the genetically modifiedprecision fermentation angle.
I think it's going to take alittle bit longer here.

SPEAKER_02 (50:14):
Certainly, yeah.
And maybe that speaks to sort ofthe wider political differences.
How much of a role does politicshave in terms of the eventual
success of these alternativeproteins?

SPEAKER_01 (50:25):
I don't know what it's going to look like in the
US.
This is a really complicatedtime.
And I think RFK and the Mahamovement, I don't know what they
have said about alternativeproteins yet.
plant-based proteins andcultivated meat eventually in
the future.
But I can't imagine that that'sgoing to be a top priority.
Wow, I don't know.

(50:48):
What do you think?

SPEAKER_02 (50:50):
I think if you look at America, which is the easy
one to look at, at leasttemporarily, if you think about
RFK Jr., he talks against seedoils.
He's promoting beef tallow.
He is an advocate for raw milk.
These are not things thatnecessarily bode well in
anyone's favor.
And obviously he's now part ofthis sort of wider sort of

(51:13):
populist right wing movement.
And if you think about otherpeople involved in that, you
think about Governor RonDeSantis in Florida, who has
banned cell cultured meat, whoviews alternative proteins,
veganism, all these things aspart of this sort of broader
woke culture that he wants tofight against.
I guess part of the problem is,and we see it here as well, but

(51:35):
especially in America, I thinkveganism, the idea of consuming
plants over animals, has becomea part of the culture wars.
And this weaponization of thenarrative soy boy, the idea that
consuming tofu and soy productsis sort of some weak, lefty,
liberal thing to do.
You're feminizing yourself.
And it plays into what you weresaying earlier about masculinity
and culture and these biggerattitudes.

(51:57):
And if we establish that some ofthe biggest drivers of these
sort of cultural norms andbehaviors and mindsets that are
so deeply ingrained that they'reinfluencing people in ways that
they're not even conscious of.
And then we understand thatveganism and meat eating is also
a part of this.
We're not really just dealingwith this sort of surface level

(52:17):
of discussion of are plant-basedalternatives healthier?
What does the science show?
What is the best diet from asustainability perspective?
These are sort of surface leveldiscussions because You know, we
can talk to people who may beideologically more aligned.
Maybe they're environmentalists.
Maybe they are sort of maybemore left wing.
Let's say they're a little bitmore open minded to think about
animal rights and animal ethicsand such.

(52:37):
We only make up a fraction ofthose people.
I mean, as a movement, westruggle to engage people who
are environmentalists, who aremore interested naturally in
social justice and ethics andhow our behaviors influence
those around us.
And if we can't even necessarilyget through to these people who
are more ideologically similar,my goodness, what chance do we
have with people who areideologically opposed in all
these different ways and whoreductively label what we're

(53:00):
discussing as being woke andthat just shuts down any
critical thinking, any sort ofsincerity is shut down by just
labeling something reductively,which is the ultra-precious
thing is a reductive label, butthe woke label is so reductive,
so simplistic and sodisappointing that this is,
political discourse.

(53:21):
This is work like what you do,the research you do, the hours
and the expertise that you andyour colleagues pour into
researching this stuff and youpresent it to people and then
you'll have someone in Texas whowouldn't even look at it because
it's woke.

SPEAKER_01 (53:32):
That's what we're dealing with.
Immediately written off as wokeresearch.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, I think it's been verysuccessfully politicized as
you've very well laid out.
And I think it really does haveto do with these layers.
Like you said, there's theseconversations about health,

(53:52):
nutrition, and processing.
But then there is, you know,hundreds and hundreds of years
of like cultural attachment tothese products that plant-based
is trying to replace.
And if we don't talk about this,we're never going to get to this
place.
And one of the things that I'velooked at in my research is, so

(54:16):
I use like business theory andmarketing theory to kind of
explain plant-based adoption.
But I'm also curious about likefood theories.
And there's one by PierreBordeaux who wrote Distinction,
which is a social theory oftaste and how you choose foods.
And he really speaks toideological attachment to meat

(54:39):
and class and how differentgroups of people eat and what
that means for their likeidentity, right?
And there was a study that cameout that used his theory to
apply kind of a theoretical lensto folks in urban poor areas in

(55:02):
the U.S.
or, you know, urban economic,like lower economic status.
And one of the most interestingthings that came out of that
study was that people weretalking about the foods that
they ate.
And if they could still put meaton the table, they believed they
had not reached rock bottom.
Meat was a signifier of stillhaving a social status, even in

(55:28):
these really economicallydevastating areas.
Vegetables and fruits did notreally play a role, but meat
played a role in them feelinglike they still could make it.
Fascinating.

SPEAKER_02 (55:41):
That

SPEAKER_01 (55:42):
is.
Did

SPEAKER_02 (55:42):
they sort of conclude as to why that could be
the case?

SPEAKER_01 (55:46):
I mean, in history...
eating a lot of meat isconsidered, you know, it's
associated with wealth,prosperity.
And that like really struck mebecause it's like, even though
they're not explaining why,there's this mindset exists
that's ancient, you know?

(56:06):
So

SPEAKER_02 (56:07):
in essence, they were using meat as a substitute
for a lack of empowerment, moregenerally, socially speaking.

SPEAKER_01 (56:15):
An indication of...
We haven't hit rock bottom.

SPEAKER_02 (56:19):
Yeah.
Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01 (56:20):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (56:20):
Speaks to just how powerful it is as a symbol.
I guess that's meat is a symbol.
It's not about...
Obviously, people view it fromthe perspective of getting
protein and calories.
And there is...
That does exist.
That's why people will eat it.
But that's not necessarily thebiggest reason.

SPEAKER_01 (56:36):
No.

SPEAKER_02 (56:37):
Or at least...
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (56:39):
It's not the primary reason or it's not the only
reason.
And there was a New York Timesarticle that really exemplified
this because there was, I can'tremember his name, Sean Baker
maybe.
Sean

SPEAKER_03 (56:50):
Baker, carnivore

SPEAKER_01 (56:51):
guy.
I think so.
He's a carnivore diet advocate.
And one of the lines in thearticle really kind of
exemplifies this because he saidsomething about I get to eat
like the royalty used to eatevery day.
Right.
Like this idea that like thefact that he eats like giant
amounts of meat is this likeclass identity like attachment

(57:15):
and I mean he talks about likemasculinity and testosterone but
then there was like this like Ieat like royalty and I'm like

SPEAKER_02 (57:23):
oh it's so sad isn't it yeah and you think what what
are you what what do you lackwithin yourself that makes you
feel the need to substitutethat.
And that's an interesting thing.
I've spoken a little bit aboutmasculinity in, I think I did an
episode a long time ago aboutmasculinity.
And one of the things that Ithought was interesting was how,
if we associate meat withmasculinity, then that suggests

(57:44):
to me that by eating meat, youfeel like you're substituting a
lack of masculinity, like youhave an insecurity there.
You know, in the same way that,you know, as vegans, we
substitute B12.
So we supplement B12 because weknow that in our diet naturally,
we're not going to necessarilyhave B12.
So if I'm eating meat tosupplement masculinity, does
that mean I think that I'mlacking masculinity?
It reeks of insecurity to me,not of confidence, of maturity,

(58:08):
of authority, of autonomy.
It seems the opposite.
I look at that and I hear yousay, he says this, and I think,
that seems weak, ironically,that you would speak in such a
way as to say, well, it makes mefeel like royalty.
What's the aspiration there, tobe tyrannical, to be
authoritarian, to rule overothers?
What's the aspiration here?

SPEAKER_00 (58:27):
I have no idea, but meat helps him feel that.
It's fascinating.

SPEAKER_02 (58:32):
He clearly feels like he's lacking something
generally, which is interesting.
And I suppose that is the widercarnival thing.
It's not just about meat.
There's a sort of a widergeopolitical, sociopolitical
context around it, which playsinto maybe some conspiratorial
thinking around the WorldEconomic Forum or the idea that
as Maybe government guidelinesand nutrition guidelines are

(58:55):
pointing us towards moreplant-forward diets.
That in a way is signaling thatplant-based diets are part of a
wider conspiracy because theseauthorities that may be
carnivores and people who havethat persuasion would naturally
distrust.
Well, these people or theseorganizations they distrust are
starting to promote plant-baseddiets more, which is
legitimizing their carnivorediets to them more.

SPEAKER_01 (59:16):
Yeah.
Exactly.
It's just very strange, circularthinking, but you definitely see
that when you're looking at...
Like carnivore influencers,there is this strong thread of
like, don't trust theauthorities.
Authorities are lying to you.
Trust me, buy my supplements,you know.

SPEAKER_02 (59:35):
The classics.

SPEAKER_01 (59:36):
Yeah.
One of the things we'll do withthis study that we're working on
right now is we're identifyinglike the main influencers that
are spreading nutritionmisinformation.
But a second part of that is tolook for potential vested
interests, see how many of themare connected or selling their
own products, just to see howmany of them have a vested

(59:56):
interest in spreading thismisinformation.
But yeah, the carnivore thing isparticularly worrying.
I mean, it's bizarre, but alsoit has serious public health
implications if it's widelyadopted.
Yeah.
So hopefully with some of whatwe do and what some other
researchers are doing, we'llraise more awareness around it.

SPEAKER_02 (01:00:18):
Do you think that it is becoming widely adopted?
Is it sort of just a socialmedia trend?
You know, it gets clicks becauseit's a little bit novel, a bit
controversial, a little bitunusual.
Or do you think that is sort ofpermeating into general society?

SPEAKER_01 (01:00:31):
This is purely anecdotal evidence, but I have
noticed in the last year or so,When I talk about it, someone
will be like, oh, my cousin isdoing that.
Or, oh, my friend at work isdoing that.
Or, I just tried that.
It didn't really work, but I didit.
You know, purely anecdotal.
I don't know.
But I don't think that was thecase like five years ago.

(01:00:52):
People weren't just randomlyadopting meat-based diet.

SPEAKER_02 (01:00:56):
No, I guess, yeah, that's true.
And I guess the problem is theyhave been legitimized.
And there's a certain irony,which is, They're sort of
positioned asanti-establishment, but then you
have Joe Rogan, the largestpodcaster in the world, talking
about them.
You have Elon Musk, the richestman in the world, one of the
most influential people in theworld right now.
He talks about carnivore diets.
Again, we have RFK Jr.
promoting sort of more red meat,less plants.

(01:01:18):
This isn't an anti-establishmentway of thinking.
Mark Zuckerberg, at what pointdo we recognize that this is the
establishment now in terms ofthe upper echelons of political
power and influence in the U.S.
especially?
It seems strange.
There's like a disconnection.

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:32):
Yes, but they've positioned themselves as, I
mean, from the very onset ofthis political party, they've
positioned themselves as counterto establishment.
So anything that they arepushing forward is going to be
seen as such by those folks thatfollow them and adhere to their
values.

SPEAKER_02 (01:01:49):
Is the picture rosier in Europe?

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:52):
I think so.

SPEAKER_02 (01:01:54):
Okay.
In what way would you say that?

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:56):
I think that it's a really scary bar to compare it
to, so...
Everything looks better.
Everything looks better.
I know that, you know, the UK atleast has seen some decline in
plant-based uptake.
There's less new consumerstrying the products.
And this is according to someresearch that's come out from

(01:02:16):
GFI.
But in other countries likeGermany, for example, we're
seeing, you know, a rise inplant-based uptake.
I think what Denmark is doingwith the Danish action plan for
a plant-based future is reallyincredible.
There's definitely likecoalitions happening.
Even here, like Plant Futures,IndyCore is working with a bunch
of industry leaders to promoteplant-based in this really

(01:02:38):
cohesive messaging strategy,which is the first of its kind.
There just seems to be moreenergy.
I'm also here, and I'm not asinvolved in...
in the US as it used to be andavoid US politics every once in
a while for mental health.

SPEAKER_02 (01:02:55):
Exactly, to retain

SPEAKER_01 (01:02:56):
some semblance of sanity, I think.
I think it would be interestingto hear from someone who maybe
is more entrenched in what'shappening in the US.

SPEAKER_02 (01:03:07):
In terms of what you referenced in Denmark, you
referenced something thatthey've done that's that you
find particularly notable?

SPEAKER_01 (01:03:13):
Yeah, so the Danish action plan for plant-based
future is incredible.
This is the first of its kind,like a country-wide strategy for
increasing plant-basedproduction, consumption,
education around plant-baseddiets.
And I think what is particularlyamazing about this is that it

(01:03:33):
really had bipartisanparticipation.
So there were organizations fromanimal, traditional ag, the
Vegan Society, Denmark also wasinvolved policymakers lobbyists
lobby groups the politicalgroups came together to produce
this action plan and I'm notgoing to get it all right I
haven't read the entire plan ina while but I think what's

(01:03:56):
really interesting is theyactually put money towards these
things so there's like anincentive for farmers to grow
more plant-based productsthey're establishing like chef
training for vegan food umThere's a few other like
initiatives that really aren'tjust like, oh, we're going to do
this.
It's like, we're going to dothis.
We're going to put money towardsit.

(01:04:18):
And it's like bipartisan acrossall of these different groups of
people.
I think it's a phenomenalexample of what can be done when
we like.
work with people that maybe areoutside of our value system.
And they've done a really greatjob.

SPEAKER_02 (01:04:33):
And it's fascinating that it's in Denmark, because we
conventionally, from a foodperspective, associate Denmark
with pig farming, quiteintensive pig farming, and pork
products.
And we import a lot into thiscountry.
And so the agriculturalperception is actually not
necessarily one that you'd thinkwould lend itself to the more
plant-forward attitude, butwould be more sort of maybe
entrenched in more traditionalviewpoints around agriculture.

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:55):
I think that's what's really exciting too.
It's like in a meat heavycountry, this is possible.
And I spoke with the head of thevegetarian society there last
year.
So it's been a while, but when Italked to him, they were
thinking about ways to implementin different countries in
Europe.
So I'm not sure where they're atnow, but yeah, it'd be good to

(01:05:19):
follow up and see.

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:19):
Certainly.
And from a UK perspective,There's recently been, I think
it was cell cultured meat forpet food, has been granted
regulatory approval.
And I think it's now available,at least they were doing a
trial, I think, weren't they?

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:33):
It is, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:34):
Yeah.
Does that sort of signify abroader shift in terms of the
UK's perspective on cellcultured alternatives?

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:44):
Yeah.
My own personal opinion is itmight be, I think it's fantastic
that it exists.
I do wonder about it being a petfood first.

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:54):
Oh,

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:55):
right.
Interesting.
Like a transition to like humanfood.

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:58):
Oh, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:59):
It's an interesting idea.
And then my co-founder at RootedResearch, Alice Johnson, she's
at Aston University.
She does cell culture biologyand working on lab-grown meat,
actually growing meat on likemycelium instead of other
scaffolds.
Anyway, she could explain itbetter.

(01:06:20):
But...
We were talking about thisrecently, and we're seeing some
of the same narratives aroundcultivated that we're seeing
around plant-based, which isthis ultra-processed, fake food.
And so culture is still a waysaway from getting to mass
market, right?

(01:06:40):
But I really hope that we cannavigate this UPF debate now
with plant-based so that we havebetter tools once Cultivator
reaches market.
Because in some ways, I almostfeel like it's a harder sell for
some people.
I'm hopeful, but we really haveto get the marketing and
narrative strategy right thistime.

SPEAKER_02 (01:07:00):
Absolutely.
So do you have any ideas forwhat sort of an effective
narrative would be?
How do these companies go aboutavoiding repeating the same
mistakes or being implicated inthe same criticisms.

SPEAKER_01 (01:07:11):
Do intensive consumer marketing studies.
Segment your consumers.
Better understand how thesegroups respond to different
language.
When we're talking about theseproducts, find out what their
values are.
Are they in it for health?
Are they in it for theenvironment?
Are they looking for a cheaperproduct?
Whatever it might be.
Segment your consumers.

(01:07:33):
Study them.
Identify narratives thatresonate with consumers and
educate to the best of yourability.
And also focus on the taste.
So one of the other things thatI think the plant-based vegan
community struggles with isthere was a study that came out
last year or two years ago thatshowed that an online discourse,

(01:07:55):
vegans when we're talking aboutfood, we're talking about
identity.
When omnivores are talking aboutfood, they're talking about
taste, and pleasure, andcommunity, and nostalgia.
And it's really hard to makethat jump.
When you're talking aboutidentity here, and then you're
talking about taste and foodover here, where is that

(01:08:16):
overlap?
So I would also say tocultivated companies, and I know
some of them have alreadystarted doing this, bringing in
chefs early on to identifyreally delicious ways to cook
these products and emphasize theflavor.
because it's tasty.
I actually had a chance to trycultivated chicken in Singapore
a couple of years ago.
Yeah.
And it was fine.

SPEAKER_02 (01:08:37):
Yeah.
Would you say, did it taste likeactual chicken?

SPEAKER_01 (01:08:41):
It tasted like turkey to me.
Like turkey.
From what I remember ofThanksgiving holidays.
Yeah, of course,

SPEAKER_02 (01:08:46):
of course.

SPEAKER_01 (01:08:47):
That's interesting.
I mean, I'm probably not thetarget market.

SPEAKER_02 (01:08:51):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:08:51):
But yeah, it's convincing enough.

SPEAKER_02 (01:08:54):
Kind of fills me with great sadness in a way.
Well, two things fill me with abit of sadness, which is
sometimes vegans are sort ofquite critical of cell cultured
meats.
And they seem sometimes morehung up on the idea of whether
it's technically vegan or not,and whether vegans should eat
it.
And I think we kind of missedthe point, you know, it's not
really for us.
And if you don't want to eat it,then that's absolutely fine.
Don't, by all means, don't.
But sometimes I feel like we canbe our own worst enemies in

(01:09:17):
terms of how we approach thingsthat could be generally quite
beneficial.
But it also fills me withsadness because cell cultured
meat in a way is two things.
I think it represents some ofthe most amazing things about
our species.
We're so clever.
We're so clever.
Just think that we can takecells from an animal and produce
meat.

(01:09:37):
Isn't that just absolutelyincredible?
Like, how did we get so smart?
And yet the irony is the reasonthat we quote unquote need this
is because we're so smart.
deep rooted in emotion andtransgressive behaviors and
myopic worldviews.
And it's almost like we needthis incredible symbol of the
best of our species,progressiveness, technology,
science, to try and overcomesomething that represents, I

(01:10:00):
think, some of the worstattributes of our species now,
violence and animal cruelty andenvironmental harm and blah,
blah, blah.
And I guess it's that sort ofthat challenge of kind of been
really excited for something, alittle bit apprehensive about it
in terms of its necessity.
And then also, I suppose,worried about how we as a

(01:10:20):
community then overcome some ofthese narratives.
And I already feel tired ofhaving to talk about how this
real food thing and this ultraprocessed thing.
And yet really, if we talk aboutcell culture, which in terms of
its potential is probably thebiggest thing that we have in
front of us right now in termsof positive potential.
Yet there will be probablysignificant significant
criticism leveled against it ina way that maybe even surpasses

(01:10:43):
some of the stuff that we'vebeen discussing today.

SPEAKER_01 (01:10:44):
Potentially, yeah.
And I agree.
It's incredibly complicated, butI think it goes back to these
layers that we were talkingabout, right?
Like taste and price and health,but then this cultural
attachment.
And I'm not sure we can untanglethat fast enough.
So cultivated meat might...

(01:11:07):
bridge that gap in a way thatplant-based isn't really able to
do that, as long as, like Isaid, we get that narrative
right and the messaging rightand really understand what
consumers are worried about andwhat they're interested in.

SPEAKER_02 (01:11:21):
How much do you think ethics plays a role?
I'm somewhat biased because Ibecame vegan for ethical
reasons, and that's the biggestpoint that I try and argue with
people is But I also know thatthere's a lot of hesitancy
around ethics when it comes tohow products are marketed, in
terms of how we promoteplant-based diets.
A lot of people think that'sprobably the most controversial
thing.
What do you think the role ofsort of an ethical conversation

(01:11:43):
is in relation to promotingalternatives as opposed to sort
of the philosophy of veganism,let's say?

SPEAKER_01 (01:11:48):
I think people don't like to be reminded that some
people find their ethics...
Or some people find themunethical.
Right.
You know, and I'm not convincedthat's the approach.
We are tackling hundreds andhundreds of thousands of years

(01:12:10):
of like entrenched ideas aroundthis product, meat.
And people don't like to be toldnot to do something and why
they're wrong for doing it.
And...
I think the messages are goingto resonate with different
people in different ways.
The ethics message resonateswith me as well.

(01:12:32):
But some people, it'll be theenvironmental method.
Some people would just be like,this tastes amazing and it's
affordable and I'm going to eatit.

SPEAKER_02 (01:12:39):
Right.
And I suppose if cell culturedmeat becomes commercially viable
and is scaled up, could itbecome cheaper than meat from
animals?

SPEAKER_01 (01:12:48):
Yeah, it should.
It's just going to take a while.
Take

SPEAKER_02 (01:12:51):
a

SPEAKER_01 (01:12:51):
while.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (01:12:52):
Do you think the consumer has that patience or
does the market have patience?
Because I guess there'sinvestors, there's lots of
money.
They're going to want to see areturn at some point.
Is there the capital and thewill to wait to that point?

SPEAKER_01 (01:13:05):
You know, Mark Post, I think he was the original
creator of that$300,000lab-grown beef burger.
Yeah.
He was at a GFI conference maybethree years ago, and I think he
said, like, we've got another 30years ahead of us.

SPEAKER_03 (01:13:20):
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (01:13:21):
Which was, honestly, for me, like, quite a relief,
because I'm like, finallysomeone's just saying it like it
is.

SPEAKER_03 (01:13:26):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:13:27):
Like, we've got to work on this for a while.
And we're already seeing, like,at least in the plant-based
alt-protein movement, there's adecline in investor interest.
Maybe these things aren'tpanning out in the same way that
they used to.
Yeah.
I think we're going to getthere.
I'm really convinced we will,but I don't know what it's going
to look like in between.

(01:13:47):
But we have to.
We have to find an alternativeto what we're doing right now.

SPEAKER_02 (01:13:51):
Certainly.
This is the thing,

SPEAKER_01 (01:13:52):
isn't it?
This is just not tenableanymore.
We cannot carry on.

SPEAKER_02 (01:13:56):
No.
I mean, that's the sort ofbottom line law of this, is that
change isn't something that wehave much of a choice over.
At a certain point, the changeis just a reality of the fact
that we have a system that can'tcan't continue, at least in the
way that it is, especially as wehave growing populations
globally.
We have a growing population ofhumans, but we also have per
capita meat consumption rising.

(01:14:16):
It's this double whammy.
And vegans, I think one thingthat we struggle with is we
obviously have made gains, let'ssay past 15, 20 years
especially.
But then if you think about therise in population globally,
it's like there's this sort ofparallel happening where you
could have more and more vegans,but you've also got more and
more meat eaters.
And on top of that, you havemore and more meat eaters coming

(01:14:37):
consuming more and more meatbecause per capita consumption
is increasing and so clearlysomething has to change in a way
that we haven't been able toachieve so far and I guess
that's where this idea ofalternative proteins and
technology is so importantbecause without it we have the
same tools, the same messaging,the same conversations that
we've had for 20, 30, 40, 50years and we can see that that

(01:14:58):
is just not going to be enoughto get to where we need to be
especially if we want to see anend to the crux of the problem
which is this rampant systemicabuse of animals and the
terrible catastrophic damage itcauses and the infectious
diseases it results in theantibiotic resistance that comes
as a consequence the idea thatwe are going to combat all of
those things without somethingradical and new and

(01:15:20):
transformative I think isidealistic but probably maybe a
little bit naive and so thatspeaks I guess to the importance
of us addressing this and maybeas vegans not falling into the
trap of perpetuating thismisinformation.
And yeah, there's always goingto be nuance.
We have to establish that thesefoods aren't the best and
they're not quite where we needthem to be.
And yes, we should reducesodium.

(01:15:41):
And yes, there are thesecriticisms and some of them are
valid, but maybe not in the waythat we're told that they are or
the scope of that.
But they also serve a reallyimportant point, which is people
have this deep attachment toanimal products and we need to
meet them where they're at interms of hitting those sort of
desires that they have to havethe same flavors, the same
texture, And to be able to, andyou said memories earlier,

(01:16:03):
that's so true.
It is nostalgia.
It's this memory of meat and thefestivities and traditions and
family meals and first dates andall of these things play into
this perception.
If we take that away from peopleand don't give them something
else, we're asking them toremove a piece of their identity
in a way that maybe they're notwilling to do.

(01:16:24):
And there is that.
And I think you're right.
That's how cultured meat thingworks.
perhaps we can evoke thosememories in a way that shows
that this is just a continuationof that.
It's not actually a new thing.
It's just a different way ofproducing the same thing.
There's a power, I suppose, inmeeting people there and
appealing to that side of themas well.

SPEAKER_01 (01:16:41):
Yeah, I completely agree.
And I think as, well, as avegan, I am on board with
cultivating meat.
Like, I think we need this as astepping stone.
So I think you put itbeautifully.
So we can just...

SPEAKER_02 (01:16:56):
We can, we can end that.
You're very kind.
Maybe just one very finalquestion.
In terms of the ultra processedfoods thing and the narrative
around plant-based alternatives,do you see that there is a
positive in terms of this?
Does it incentivize companies tomaybe change, to improve their
messaging?
Does it sort of maybe provide anincentive for companies to not
be complacent, but to continueto improve and meet the

(01:17:19):
challenges of these evolvingnarratives?

SPEAKER_01 (01:17:22):
Yeah, I think so.
And we are already seeing someof that.
I think that I think thechallenge is we can't we the
industry has to be careful notto push back on ultra process
being good too hard becausewe're Accidentally or

(01:17:44):
intentionally aligning withcompanies that are doing that,
like Nestle and Coca-Cola andthese like multinational
companies that are reallypushing this narrative.
So this is, it's a very touchyline, but we also have to
recognize that like...
There's a lot of nuance thatexists here.

(01:18:04):
And maybe consumer education ispart of it.
Maybe we've just missed the bowon that one.
I don't know.
Companies have theresponsibility to respond to
their consumers and give themwhat they're asking for.
So maybe that meansreformulations.
Maybe that means changes insodium content, like we
discussed earlier, like thereare high sodium contents in a

(01:18:24):
lot of these plant-based foods.
I think it's an incrediblycomplicated issue.
situation right now andplant-based is kind of
struggling to respond to it inways that are meaningful.
And we'll see.

(01:18:45):
We'll see what makes sense.
And maybe the UPF thing is likea fad and maybe we'll move past
it.
I don't know.
It's having a moment right now.
That's all we know.

SPEAKER_02 (01:18:54):
It is.
And I suppose with most things,there will be a natural
pushback.
And obviously, in terms of theplant-based sector, this is why
your work is so valuable,because it is pushing back
against some of thesenarratives.
It is providing nuance whereit's desperately needed.
And as a consequence, it'sarming people with a more
nuanced and understandingperspective knowledge base

(01:19:15):
around this to kind of getthrough that simplistic binary
of bad versus good and toprovide a little bit more
context that empowers consumersto be able to make choices with
a broader understanding aroundit.
So that's why your work is sovaluable.
And that's why I'm very gratefulthat you've joined me today and
have provided all the insightsand have really, in many ways,

(01:19:35):
we've touched upon so manythings that go beyond just
ultra-processed foods fromidentities to cultures to
politics there's so much herebut that's why as you say it is
complex and um and i appreciateyou taking the time to to break
it down and to inform us moreabout this important work that
you're doing thank you for thankyou for joining me

SPEAKER_01 (01:19:55):
my pleasure thank you so much

SPEAKER_02 (01:19:59):
thank you so much for listening if you've enjoyed
this episode make sure tosubscribe to the disclosure
podcast on whichever platformyou listen to it as doing so
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Leaving a review and sharing thepodcast is also really helpful.
And if you'd like to support thepodcast and my work more
generally, you can either make adonation through the link in the

(01:20:20):
show notes or sign up to my substack where I post weekly and
share my thoughts and feelingsabout the experience of living
vegan.
In the show notes, you can alsofind links to purchase my books
and to find out more abouttoday's guest, including links
to their work.
Thank you again for listening.

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Unpacking the truth about ultra-processed plant-based alternatives, food politics, RFK Jr., and more | In Conversation with Marlana Malerich

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Unpacking the truth about ultra-processed plant-based alternatives, food politics, RFK Jr., and more | In Conversation with Marlana Malerich