Why do people fear their food?

Researcher and author Timothy Caulfield explains why there is a fear of food in today’s society. He points out how important it is to reflect on information before passing it on and think about the body of evidence rather than the attention-grabbing headlines. 

Host: Clinton Monchuk
Clinton Monchuk grew up on a mixed dairy, beef and grain family farm outside of Lanigan, Saskatchewan. He received his Bachelors of Science in Agriculture majoring in Agricultural Economics from the University of Saskatchewan and Masters of Business Administration in Agriculture from the University of Guelph. Clinton has enjoyed numerous roles across Canada, the United States and Mexico as a researcher, educator, manager, economist and director of trade policy.

In 2016 Clinton accepted the role of Executive Director with Farm & Food Care Saskatchewan to promote farming and ranching to consumers. Clinton understands the value of increasing public trust in agriculture and actively promotes engagement between the agriculture industry and consumers.

Clinton, Laura and their children Jackson and Katelyn, continue to be active partners on their family grain and layer farm in Saskatchewan and cattle ranch in Oklahoma.

Guest: Timothy Caulfield
Timothy Caulfield is a Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy, a Professor in the Faculty of Law and the School of Public Health, and Research Director of the Health Law Institute at the University of Alberta. His interdisciplinary research on topics like stem cells, genetics, research ethics, the public representations of science, and public health policy has allowed him to publish over 350 academic articles. He has won numerous academic, science communication, and writing awards, and is a Member of the Order Canada and a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.

He contributes frequently to the popular press and is the author of two national bestsellers: The Cure for Everything: Untangling the Twisted Messages about Health, Fitness and Happiness (Penguin 2012) and Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything?: When Celebrity Culture and Science Clash (Penguin 2015). His most recent book is Relax, Dammit!: A User’s Guide to the Age of Anxiety (Penguin Random House, 2020).

Caulfield is also the co-founder of the science engagement initiative #ScienceUpFirst and was the host and co-producer of the award-winning documentary TV show, A User’s Guide to Cheating Death, which has been shown in over 60 countries, including streaming on Netflix in North America.

Resources:
Timothy Caulfield Books
Article: Understanding Confusing Words on Food Packages
Article: What Does Non-GMO on a Food Label Mean?

Episode Credits: Research and writing by Dorothy Long and Penny Eaton, Produced and edited by Angela Larson, Music by Andy Ellison-Track title: Gravel Road 

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Episode Transcript

Clinton Monchuk (00:07):
From Canadian Food Focus, this is Ask a
Farmer. I'm your host ClintonMonchuk, a Saskatchewan farmer.
In this podcast, we talk tofood experts to answer your
questions about your food. Sowith us today on the podcast,

(00:29):
we have Timothy Caulfield.
Timothy is a professor at theUniversity of Alberta. Along
with many different hats, we'regoing to be talking a little
bit about why people have somefear around their food. But
before we get into that, Ithink everybody wants to know a
little bit about you. I'mpretty sure majority have
already heard your name, butjust give us a little bit of an

(00:49):
overview of who you a re and,some of the work you do as an
author, as a professor andpersonality on Netflix too.

Timothy Caulfield (00:57):
Sure. I'm a Canada Research chair i n
health l aw policy at theUniversity of Alberta. And to
be honest with you, I reallythink of myself as an
interdisciplinary researcher. Iknow I'm in the law faculty and
with the School of PublicHealth. But I really do think
of myself as aninterdisciplinary researcher,
and I look at science andhealth policy. My real passion

(01:17):
is, you know, how is sciencerepresented in the public
sphere? You know, what k ind ofevidence do we use to make
decisions, you know, makehealth policy decisions,
decisions about our food, y ouknow, decisions about what
kinds of therapies we want to use. So we bring a bunch of
different methods to bear onthose broad questions. And I've

(01:39):
also been really lucky to getreally involved with the media
and writing for the popularpress and doing books for the
general public. Which is, youknow, speaking of my passions,
, that's my r ealpassion. I absolutely love
writing, and I've also beeninvolved in a number of
documentary projects. So, youknow, I love coming a t this
topic from every direction, andI love engaging with the

(02:01):
public.

Clinton Monchuk (02:02):
And this is why you're such an excellent
person to have on the program.
We know that there's a ton ofinformation out there when it
comes to food and just, youknow, science in general. But
why is it that we're living inan era right now where we have
all these different newtechnologies that are out
there? The science is justbeing produced in masses. We're

(02:23):
knowing more about our food ourhealth , and yet people are
lacking the trust around that.
Why do you think there's ageneral lack of trust?
Obviously this program's moreabout food, but, we can see it
in a whole different array ofcategories as well. And why is
it that, you know, we're livingright now with this lack of

(02:45):
trust?

Timothy Caulfield (02:47):
It is a remarkable time, isn't it ? And
so many paradoxes, which you'vetouched on. You know, we've
never had as much informationas we have right now about
food, about health, about ourenvironment, and we've never
had such a great distributionof the good science. We always
talk about the misinformationand the bunk , but people still

(03:07):
have access now, like neverbefore. I can remember being
undergrad, right? , youknow, having to go to the
stacks to find science. Peoplehave access to that stuff now.
And despite that, we are seeingthis profound confusion. We're
seeing this profoundpolarization. We are seeing
this decrease in trust. And Ithink it's important to

(03:27):
recognize, you know, big caveatthere, that people still trust
scientists. They still trustscientific institutions. They
still trust farmers, .
But, there's no doubt thattrust has, has come down. And
in some jurisdictions like theUnited States, it's really come
down, it's really come down. I, I think a bunch of things are
going on. Obviouslyfantastically complex, you

(03:49):
know, social culturalphenomenon, but in all the
listeners could probably guessthis, right ? I used to
say different things, but now Ithink the two big things are
social media and the degree towhich this is about, about
ideology. And the third thingI'm going to put on there is
the role of prominentindividuals. It used to be

(04:10):
celebrities, but now you have awhole bunch of, you know,
influencers that are reallydirecting public discourse and
not always in a science-basedway. And all those three things
work together. Social media,ideology, the role of prominent
voices create this polarized,often ill-informed information
environment that just doesn'thelp anyone.

Clinton Monchuk (04:34):
So do you feel that sometimes the science, as
we learn more about thescience, that it, it's
confusing? I think you talkedabout it, the social media just
amplifies it, right? But isthere, you know, science that
will go one way and another waydepending on new research that
kind of makes people waiver alittle bit, and does that
create some level of lack oftrust?

Timothy Caulfield (04:56):
So the answer is yes. It's not going
to surprise you, , it'snot going to surprise you.
There's actually reallyinteresting research on this
that you m ay not be aware of.
So they've actually studiedthat when the public sees
conflicting recommendations,their trust goes down, and the
likelihood that they're goingto believe and act on it goes
down. Also, big caveat, hard tostudy that well of course, but

(05:17):
there is at least some evidencethat supports that. And I think
i t's also intuitively it makessense, right? That that h
appened. There a re a bunch oflessons to take from that.
First of a ll, I think we needt o be more transparent about
how science is uncertain, andit does evolve, and the
recommendations are going to evolve. I think we also need to
point to the reality, how wetalk about this stuff in the

(05:37):
public sphere. You know,headlines that say eggs kill
you, , you know , it'snot great. You know, it's not
great . And , you know, and wesaw it with coffee too. Like
I'm a big coffee fan, right?
You , you see that back andforth with coffee. You see it
with back and forth withalcohol and wine. It is
confusing and it causes thepublic to kind of shut down a

(05:59):
little bit, right? To say, oh,I'm just not going to listen to
that. The other element here,and I'm sure you're very
familiar with this, is we'vegot to be careful not to over
interpret the studies thatinform those conclusions,
right? Because often those areobservational studies, they're
cohort studies, you know, itsnot causation studies that are
leading to those really oftendramatic conclusion. You know,

(06:19):
there's some really interestingresearch that talks about how
the media loves thoseobservational studies. And
again, it's important torecognize observational studies
can be valuable, but they don'tgive you robust causation
results, right? But the medialoves them, right? B ecause
they are often about chocolateand coffee and sex < laugh> and
things like that, r ight? Sothey're headline grabbing

(06:42):
conclusions. So I think thatthat's the other lesson we can
take from that back and forththat comes with it. One of the
things I always say, yo u're going to get, maybe get sick of
me saying th at o n thispodcast. You also want to
remember to go back to thatbody of evidence, right?
Research is going to go backand forth on a particular
topic, but always take a stepback and say, okay, what does
the body of evidence say onthis topic? And the body of

(07:04):
evidence with food, you know,we know what a healthy diet
looks like. We've known it fora long time. The cliches are
true, right? Moderation, youknow: healthy grains, fruits
and vegetables, healthyproteins. You know, there's
really no magic.

Clinton Monchuk (07:17):
You mentioned a little bit too on, on the
causation versus correlation,right ? Granted, they're trying
to make you like look at, youknow, something totally
outrageous, right? To say thatcorrelation does not mean
causation. But how many peoplereally look into that science?
Like, I feel like we've becomea lazy society, right?

Timothy Caulfield (07:38):
Let's be kinder to society , and
say that it's a chaoticinformation environment, and
it's more difficult and peoplearen't really invited to
reflect, right? It's thisfrantic information environment
where they get headlines ontheir phone, right? So you're
right. You know, people don'tgo, okay, wait a second. What
kind of evidence is that? Isthat just an anecdote? Is that

(08:01):
j ust a testimonial? Is thatjust an observational study?
People don't do that as youknow, and I want to be careful,
some people do do that. But asyou know, people read the
headline and maybe they readthe first paragraph and they
don't go to the, y ou k now,11th paragraph that says, you
know, this was an observationalstudy. If that quote is even
there, s ometimes it isn'tthere. And the other
interesting thing with food,and this is something I've

(08:23):
actually wanted to, study,we've studied this in other
domains. With food, often it'san article that is in a
lifestyle magazine, or maybeit's in an entertainment
magazine or maybe it's a sportsstar talking about their diet.
So there really isn't thatspace to do a scientific
analysis. And we've done it inthe context of stem cells.

(08:43):
We've looked at that, I call itimplicit hype, right? It's not
really a media venue whereyou're going to get that kind
of more thoughtful scientificanalysis. But this reminds me
of one of the tools that we allwant to implement that I often
talk about is this idea ofpausing and reflecting on, on
what's really in that content.

(09:04):
And if you just invite peopleto do that, just for a moment,
you can make a real difference.

Clinton Monchuk (09:08):
Yeah. And I know reading your book, the Tom
Brady Factor, right? So everytime he went to a Super Bowl ,
I'd hear about his diet overand over again. And then for
whatever reason, I think, youknow, people think maybe if I
had adopted his diet, I'd bebuilt like him. I think we've
witnessed over time some of howpeople look to these quick

(09:28):
fixes to heal their ailments orbring about some superior
health in their own bodies. Howh as this manifested itself in
food over time? And and why aresome of the reasons that it's
taken place?

Timothy Caulfield (09:46):
You're so right. There's so much to
unpack in that question, andyou're spot on. I think, you
know, first of all, so often itis that anecdote, right? It is
that testimonial from acelebrity that can generate a
lot of the traffic, cangenerate the momentum around a
topic, right? And, we know goodempirical evidence to back this
up, that an anecdote, atestimonial can overwhelm our

(10:08):
ability to thinkscientifically. Humans are, you
know, some people ha ve suggested we're hardwired to
respond to those stories. Sowhen Tom Brady talks about his
diet, first of all, that's acelebrity, ri ght? So it's a
bigger megaphone, agood-looking c elebrity, right?
So y ou're going to rememberit, th at p l ace o r a
vailability bias and it's anarrative. It's th is s tory,
it worked for him. You know,I'll have thoughtful academic

(10:32):
colleagues that will say, youknow, well, it works for Tom
Brady. You know, how can youargue with that ? Well, you can
argue with that . It's ananecdote. It's not science ,
right? So, you have that wholeaspect going on, and then you
can see, you know, people willoften still say to me, I don't
believe celebrities have thatmuch of an impact. Look at the

(10:54):
gluten-free trend. And, youknow, I'm obsessed with this
trend. I followed it from thevery beginning, and it was
created by celebrities, right?
It was, you know, Miley Cyrus,Gwyneth Paltrow, other athletes
have adopted sports, and theytalk about it. That gluten-free
trend still exists. I know it'snot the sexy diet now, it's not

(11:15):
the the hot button diet. But itstill exists, and there's no
evidence to support the ideathat it's inherently healthier.
Yes, if you're a celiac, yes ifyou have non celiac gluten
sensitivity, and there's someother health conditions where
we're getting emergingevidence, i t might be
beneficial. But that's not howit's marketed. It's marketed as
if it's inherently healthierand you're going to lose
weight, no evidence to supporteither one of those things. And

(11:36):
it's really built on the backof it, this entire industry,
built on the back of whatreally was a pop culture
representation of this area.
Then layer on top of that, thelast thing that you said, right
around this desire for a quickfix, a desire for a simple
answer. I've been studyingdiets and following diets for

(11:57):
decades. Has there ever been ever a trendy new diet
that actually worked long term? Every diet works short term ,
right? Everyone loses weightfor a little while. Name one
that has worked, you know,sustained weight loss. None of
them, you know? Yeah, I know there a re individuals out there
that say "oh, this worked forme". But on a population level,

(12:17):
the answer is no. Right? Andstill we see every 18 months,
every two years, there's a newtrendy diet, right? And it's
just phenomenal. What does itsay about human nature, right?

Clinton Monchuk (12:30):
Yeah, exactly.
And you could go even further,and I know you like to talk
about Gwyneth Paltrow, like Ithink she's an absolutely
excellent actress, butobviously when she's talking
about some of the differenthealth trends or some of the
different things, she's got avested interest in some of
these things that she's tryingto market. I don't understand
why people don't see throughsome of that, right? Like, it's

(12:52):
a product that you're trying tomarket. You put these names
like a superfood, right? Orthis is going to cleanse you
from this or that, but there'sno backing for it, right? But
yet it takes off. And it's justinteresting t o watch some of
that and just how that createsalmost their own businesses,
right?

Timothy Caulfield (13:10):
It is fascinating, and you raise a
very interesting paradox thatis out there in the universe.
And this is the idea of, ofconflict of interest. So a lot
of people will say that they'redrawn to alternative medicine
and Gwyneth Paltrow andalternative ways of eating
because they can't trust bigfood. They can't trust big

(13:31):
pharma. There are all theseconflicts of interest at play,
but they ignore the conflictsof interest that are embedded ,
that are inherent in the otherindividuals that are, you know,
the alternate perspectives,right? They pick their conflict
of interest that they're goingto be upset about. Yes, big
food. I hate that phrase, bigpharma, I hate that. But there
are problems there, right? Onecould argue the conflicts of

(13:54):
interest are even more profoundwith these other actors
because, but for the selling ofthese products, their industry
wouldn't exist, right? Yeah .
So yeah, Gwyneth Paltrow , youknow, she recently was talking
about how she has long Covidand that she, you know, she
disses conventional medicine,and then she starts talking

(14:16):
about all these modalities thatshe's using, and then right
underneath her, her post are ,she's selling these products.
She's selling, you know,supplements, she's selling, you
know, essential oils. It's aprofound conflict of interest
that is often ignored by thosewho are attracted to those
modalities.

Clinton Monchuk (14:40):
And this brings us to our fun farm fact.
From a survey done by theCanadian Center for Food
Integrity. This survey wastaken in 2022 and surveyed just
shy of 3000 Canadians. Andwithin the survey, it actually
said that 97% of Canadians wereeither moderately or very

(15:02):
trustworthy of labels placed onfood packaging. On one hand
it's good, right? Becausethere's a lot of good
information from ingredientsto, you know, the different
calories, protein, fat, likeall that sort of stuff. But it
does bring a little bit of anissue when we start talking,
and again, you mentioned inyour book, things like GMO-free

(15:23):
water or gluten-free water,right? How does that play out
on the labeling side? Like, doyou feel that some of that just
opens up? Because it , to befair, the CFIA can't go out and
monitor every single package,right? To make sure that
they're 100% truthful or notmisleading. And it's really

(15:43):
upon us to send in thoserequests to say, okay, this is,
you know, this is bogus, right?
This isn't true. What do youthink about the trust that
actually exists for labels withCanadians?

Timothy Caulfield (15:55):
I'm surprised it's that high. First
of all, that's reallyinteresting figure. I would've
guess it would be pretty high,but that's a remarkably high
figure. I totally agree withyour analysis. A good news /
bad-- do we say bad news? Agood news- caution? H ow a bout
t hat way? Good news / cautions ide. So the good news is, you
know, that I think that peopledo want to have this
information. Now, you knowthis, you've probably seen the

(16:15):
data. Do they really read it?
Do they really act on it? isanother question. I am, I get
really upset about health haloswhich is what you're touching
on. And we're seeing more andmore health halos. We know
health halos have a realimpact. So I know your
listeners know what I mean whenI say health halos, but by that
I mean these catchphrases thatare used that are supposed to

(16:37):
be a proxy for goodness. And infact, in my forthcoming book, I
have a whole section on this.
It's the goodness illusion.
Gluten free , non GMO, healthy,right? Chemical free , all
these kinds, you know, toxinfree , locally grown , right ?
There are a lot of reallyinteresting health halos that

(16:58):
people just, they don't reallydig into them. They assume that
they're evidence-based, andthey assume that they're
virtuous when in fact, justscratching the service a little
bit, the goodness illusion sortof dissipates on all the ones
I've just talked about. So I dofind it frustrating, a nd I
think that those health halosplay to that chaotic
information environment that wewere talking about before.

(17:20):
People w ant a shortcut togoodness, right? They w ant a
shortcut to decision m aking,and we can't really blame them,
right? Because they're busy.
And it's so noisy out therethat seeing that label, even
the color green, as you know, can be a h ealth halo.
But all of those, like locallygrown is a really interesting

(17:41):
one. It's, and I talk about itin my forthcoming book because
I'm kind of attracted to thatidea. You know, we go to a
farmer's market every, by we Imean, my beautiful wife goes to
a farmer's market, every single weekend because
we're kind of attracted. Butit's actually very complicated,
right? It is reallycomplicated. Is buying locally

(18:03):
really better for theenvironment? You know, what,
you look at the evidence,that's messy. Is locally grown
even, does it even tastebetter? You know what? It's
really messy. I think we needto be careful not to be pulled
into that goodness illusionbecause it can actually short
circuit the goal that we'reactually trying to achieve.

Clinton Monchuk (18:22):
So how does it work on the fear side then?
Again, in your book, you talk alittle bit about the fear
associated with, you know,different decisions. And, and
your book does a good jobchronologically going through
some of those steps that youtake in a day and how you kind
of determine whether or notyou're going to pick up your
phone for a little whilelonger, or eat that or do this

(18:43):
or that or the other. But whatwe're finding is there's a lot
of fear around certain types offood. And I'll use the example
of GMOs, and Jimmy Kimmel hadthis great segment on one of
his shows talking Yeah,it's absolutely hilarious.
Where he says, you know, we'regoing to go to the local
farmer's market and just say, okay, do you consume GMOs? And

(19:06):
everybody's, "oh, no way, noway. A nd heck, I'm not going
to do that. That's bad, that'sbad." Well, what's a GMO? Well,
nobody knew. So there was thatinherent view that something is
bad without really realizingwhat it even is.

Timothy Caulfield (19:19):
That's so true. So true. And that , that
is a hilarious bit, but itreally highlights the power of
that label. Non GMO has becomea truism as, it's better for
you, it's healthier, right? Andyou probably know this, the
topic of GMO is actually thetopic where there i s the
biggest disconnect betweenexperts in the public, more so

(19:41):
than vaccines, more so thanclimate change. You know, the
public, depending on what studythat you look at and you've
probably a re r eally close tothis data too. Bu t s omewhere
between 40 and 50% of thepublic has a degree of
hesitancy about GMOs, which isreally remarkable in t he
context of he alth, by the way.
Or I 'm not talking aboutenvironment or corporate
ownership. We're talking abouthealth. When you think about

(20:03):
the almost complete scientificconsensus that they're safe
from a health perspective,right? But non GM O h as become
this health halo where it'ssupposed to signify better for
you, healthier. And it isinteresting because yo u h ave
this almost market cascadethat's happened now. The market
ha s j ust given up, right? Andnow you have, you know,

(20:26):
Triscuits, which I loveTriscuits. Can I say Triscuits?
I a m not sponsored byTriscuits.

Clinton Monchuk (20:30):
It's totally fine. We're not
sponsored. So it's completelywhatever you want to say.

Timothy Caulfield (20:35):
I love Triscuits. I've eaten them my
whole , and now they're non GMOyou know? And so I actually
tried to move away from eatingthem, but my love of Triscuits
went over a nd I keep eatingthem. But that is totally
marketing, you know, that thepeople that are making
Triscuits know from a healthperspective, there is no
benefit. They've just sort ofgiven in to the power of the
non GMO ma rket. And we alsoknow, th at if something is

(20:59):
scarier pla ce or a negativitybias more likely to ha ve an
imp act, w e' re mo re likelyto re member it, mor e li kely
to act on it. And so many ofthese things play to the
negativity bias, right? Are weever going to break the non GMO
myth? I don't know. It'sfascinating. There is some
evidence that the concern hasgone down in some
jurisdictions, but despitethat, I think tha t pe ople

(21:21):
just feel like there's nothingto lose. Let's, you know, keep
pushing this myth, and we'regoing to market to it. But it
is a really frustrating trend.
The chemaphobia thing is also,I'm fascinated with the de gree
of people tha t do n't wantchemicals in their life. I
don't know where they're goingto live. You kn o w, I often
joke, you may hea rd me saythis before, you know, they
want to live on the lip of ablack hole, right? Where matter

(21:43):
is being pulled asunder. Arechemicals there? I d on't k
now, maybe there's no chemicalsthere.

Clinton Monchuk (21:48):
And I think Dr. Joe Schwartz from Quebec
actually talks a little bitabout that too, with, you know,
when you go through a , I thinkhe has an apple, and all the
different chemical compoundsthat you're consuming, yet
people, people want a cleanlabel with no chemicals. Well,
it's kind of what comprises it .

Timothy Caulfield (22:06):
We have this clean beauty movement that's
based on the same thing, andit's just, it's a huge
movement. And that's anotherhealth halo now, right? Clean
beauty. People say, Tim, well,you're being too glib. You
know, people, when you saychemicals, what they really
mean is they don't want harmfulsynthetic chemicals. That's
what they mean when they saythat. But the fact of the
matter is that the wordchemical has been transformed

(22:27):
is the point, right? That's thepoint that now has taken on
this other meaning that iscompletely disconnected from
the evidence, and it's justabout fear mongering.

Clinton Monchuk (22:37):
So we talked about the GMOs a nd the new
technologies coming forwardaround gene editing. So even
more precise science aroundthat. Do you feel like it
almost sounds better, right?
Gene editing versus ge netic modification, but I'm not too
sure what's kind of yourinitial take on things like
that?

Timothy Caulfield (22:57):
Oh, great question! So here's, I've been
obviously following this reallyclosely, and you get the sense
from the biotech community andfrom the agricultural community
that some, not everyone, butI've heard some people say, oh,
it's going to be better , people are going to be more
accepting of it. I don't thinkso. Maybe I'm becoming old and
cynical , they're justgoing to see it as GMO. They're

(23:18):
not going to make this nuanceddifferentiation between gene
edited plants and you know, theold school GMO plants. I think
they're just going to see it asthe same. Maybe I'm wrong, I
hope I'm wrong. I hope this isan invitation. You know, maybe
what we should do, let's bepositive, okay? Maybe
this is an opportunity tore-engage this conversation and
say, look, this is what'sreally happening. You know,

(23:40):
maybe that's what we should do.
But this debate has been goingon for so long, and that non
GMO rhetoric in general has wonthe day and so I'm a little bit
pessimistic.

Clinton Monchuk (23:53):
Yeah. So if you would have any advice to
our listeners on how toovercome some of these, the
negativities and the fears whatwould it be?

Timothy Caulfield (24:04):
Okay. So look, even though I just said,
oh, I'm , I'm sopessimistic about non GMOs , we
do have evidence that talkingabout the science makes a
difference. You know, and Iknow it feels like, what a re
you talking about, it makes nodifference. I t does make a
difference! And I think weshould think of it almost like
a public health interventionwhere making a little change

(24:25):
really does matter, right? Solook, you're not going to
change the mind of thatindividual right in front of
you, but if you keep talkingabout the science, you really
can make a difference. Theother thing I think is really
important is teaching criticalthinking skills and teaching
them early, right? You teachthose critical thinking skills.
People are less likely tobelieve misinformation. They've
actually done this in thecontext of GMOs by the way. I
don't know if you've seen thisresearch, again, hard to study

(24:48):
it well. But if people come atit from a m ore science
informed perspective, they'reless likely to believe t hat
fear m ongering aroundsomething like GMOs. So,
absolutely. So, you know, talkabout the science, critical
thinking and debunking. It doesmake a difference. A topic like
GMOs has just become soembedded culturally that it's

(25:08):
more challenging, but new onesare emerging. When you see
those new ones emerge, get onit quickly, right? Get on it
quickly, even if it seemsabsurd, it's important to
debunk it and to talk about thescience . And there's evidence
that's shown that works. Ithink early days in GMOs, maybe
we weren't, didn't do a goodenough job debunking the myths
around it. And the other thingthat happens often is this

(25:31):
conflation between a healthconcern and environmental
concern and the corporateownership concern, right?
They're often all lumpedtogether, and the general
public sees that only as ahealth concern. So I think that
that's the other thing, youknow, sort of separate them.
And by the way, the science isuncertain throughout. I don't w
ant t o make it sound like I'msaying that they're clear about

(25:51):
i n environment and corporateownership, but separate the
concerns and debunk t hem.

Clinton Monchuk (25:57):
We do a lot of farm tours , on my own farm and
with Farm & Food Care. But oneof the questions that usually
comes out is, why do thesecompanies make you grow their
seeds? And, you know, as afarmer, I'm always t aken a
little aback when I say, nobodymakes me grow these seeds, <
laugh>, I have so manydifferent choices in my Rolodex

(26:18):
of different, whether it'sdifferent commodities. And even
within those commodities, Ihave tons of different
varieties a nd differentcompanies to buy from. But I
think you're right, there'sthat viewpoint that company X
is making us grow this, and youdon't have a choice, but it's
nothing further from the truth.

Timothy Caulfield (26:36):
Yeah, you're right about that. And there's
this belief that GMOs benefitsthese big farms, right? That
they're the ones that aregetting the greatest benefit
and small farmers don't want touse them, which again, isn't
true either. And even thatlittle differentiation, I think
would make a difference forsome people in the public who
want to support the smallerfarmers. Maybe they want to

(26:56):
support the family farm that'slocal to them, and they don't
really understand the economicsof the GMOs and the benefits to
even small farmers of GMOs. Soeven that kind of education, I
think makes a difference. Andthe other thing is, people like
hearing from farmers, you know,I always talk about this when I
present. I , you know, theimagery is fantastic. People
trust farmers and they want tosupport them.

Clinton Monchuk (27:18):
One last question that I have. Like I
said, growing up we trusted somany people from the trust for
law enforcement to doctors, toteachers, and all the way
through to where we have justthis wavering level of trust.
Why ? why just why ingeneral did we move this

(27:39):
direction? It just seems soodd.

Timothy Caulfield (27:42):
The other thing that's odd is if you look
at where trust is broken down,it often seems arbitrary. Like,
why aren't you trusting, youknow, this community anymore,
but you do trust the othercommunity. Look, it's obviously
complex, but part of what'sgoing on is there are actors
out there that benefit fromcreating distrust, right? You
know, it happens in thepolitical realm, right? So they

(28:03):
want to create distrust ofthese institutions because
they're going to benefit fromthe creation of distrust. And
social media has made it easierto do that, right? Where you
can create an echo chamber thatbenefits from distrust. The
other thing that I think isoften underplayed doesn't get
enough attention is often thosespreading misinformation about
GMOs, about this fluoride,about vaccines I could go down

(28:26):
the list. Their goal is tocreate distrust. Like you're
hearing it a lot right now.
Right now. "Well, we don'ttrust the information about
that . We don't trust theactors, we don't trust the
institutions. That's why webelieve this stuff." But we
have to remember,misinformation is being spread
to create distrust of thoseinstitutions, which allows more

(28:49):
misinformation to be spread.
And then the cycle starts toaccelerate. You know, more
misinformation means moredistrust, which means more
misinformation, and around andaround that cycle goes. So part
of the, the growth of distrustis because there has been,
there's so much misinformationout there inviting the public
to distrust. And, and let's notforget that there are often

(29:13):
reasons to distrust, right? Youknow, there have been bad
actors in the government, inpublic health, in the
agricultural community, andthose stories of bad actors are
weaponized to create this ideathat we should distrust
everyone all the time. I couldgo on . I'll stop there
. That's a dark way to end.

Clinton Monchuk (29:33):
I think w e c ould m ake t wo o r t hree
episodes out of t his, but I think w e'll h ave t o c all q
uits h ere. And I do want tothank you for taking the time
to be with us on the podcasttoday, Timothy, this has been
excellent. We have a lot ofconversations taking place in
the agriculture community andthe food community about food,
and it's always great to havean expert like yourself k ind o

(29:56):
f shed some light on some ofthe different situations. So
thank you very much for yourtime.

Timothy Caulfield (30:01):
Well thanks for having me on. And thanks to
the entire agriculturalcommunity for everything that
you guys do.

Clinton Monchuk (30:14):
I want to thank you for taking the time
to listen to our Ask a Farmerpodcast. We at Canadian Food
Focus value the input from ourlisteners and ask that you
share this podcast with yourfriends and family. Remember,
this is a two-way street, so weseek your input for future
segments that are of interestto you about food and farming.

(30:37):
To do this, please click on theAsk us icon at the top of our
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to follow our numerous socialmedia links and sign up for our
newsletter. This segment wasproduced and edited by Angela
Larson, research and Writing byDorothy Long and Penny Eaton.
Music by Andy Ellison. I'm yourhost Clinton Monchuk. And from

(31:03):
all of us here at Canadian FoodFocus, we wish you good health
and great eats.