Doomed to Fail - Ep 169: Who did you say owned Oreos? - The US Food System

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

Today, Farz takes us on a journey through the history of the US Food System. We'll talk about who owns what, what they want you to eat, and why they want you to eat it!Don't forget to start prepping for your Victory Garden, America!  Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

It's a matter of the people of the state of California versus Orenthal James Simpson, case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. And we are recording in progress. Taylor, hi. How were you? Good. How are you? I'm trying to fake energy right now. So if it seems forced, just tell me, and I'll go back to just like my normal.

I like it. How are you? Happy Sunday. I mean, it is late for you. And it's cold. I thought, wait, did it snow by you this week? Was it this week that it snowed? It was last week that it snowed, but it is kind of cold. Also, like, it's a weird time because it's like almost getting a little bit too late to, like, eat dinner without feeling like shit going to sleep. But it's like dinner time. I don't know. It's just a weird time. But it's fine. Yeah. That's fine. So we had your story this week Wait, let me intro us

Oh yeah, I'm sorry Hello, welcome to doomed to fail This is our second story of the week We are the podcast that brings you history Most notorious disasters, failures Interesting stories And I'm Taylor joined by Fars I'm in California, he's in Texas

So that's why we're talking about Time Differences and weather Because we're not next to each other Yes We're just over the internet Just like everything else in the world um so my story today is it sounds boring initially but then the more you like dig into it the more you scratch at the surface the more you realize like how deep it goes which is

kind of fun so i want to talk about the u.s food supply oh and i'm going to break it down into several sections one is why is the way that it is um the other section being spoiled Spoiler alert, why it's bad, what it could be instead. And just see where we can kind of get to with this. Oh, I'm excited. That's cool. There's some stuff in here, Taylor, that are going, if it doesn't blow your mind, then you already know, like, everything about people's why.

I don't. So please tell me more. I could not believe the stuff I found out. This is just absolutely disgusting. And the other thing, okay. So I'm going to start this by saying on the why it's bad part or why it is the way that it is. I know that at 40 years old, I'm approaching the age of like my fist race saying it was better once, you know, like that crazy old man and like. Yeah, yeah.

Old man yells at Cloud. Yeah. And like in the, and I'm raising that because like, I don't know, you and tell her you and I talk about this every down then where it's like, I don't know, maybe this is the way that it should be because we're humans and we change and adapt and human. like things change and like how much of it is like us shaking our fists in the air versus like whatever maybe we're meant to eat you know hydrogenated fats maybe that we'll just adapt as a human species and we'll just like become a different version of ourselves maybe this is just the way that it is you know yeah that's what i think anyways i mean i feel like we're i don't know the thing about time travel is that you couldn't eat the food

so here's one thing I did here recently that is fascinating apparently part of the reason why our brains are just like so big inefficient and like work the way they do has to do with the invention of fire because once we invented fire we didn't need to dedicate as much energy and resources and blood flow and all that stuff to the digestive track because we cook food which resulted in us having a contract so that's what I'm saying I'm saying like I don't know maybe it's a good thing we're all fat as shit like I don't know maybe that's the way it's both to work. And then in like 200 years, that generation of humans, they're going to adapt and eating Oreos for breakfast, lunch, and dinner is going to be good for them. It's like in, um, did you see Wally? No, I didn't. I heard it sad, though. It is sad. But the human, the earth is essentially just a pile of garbage and even more than it is so now. And the humans had to leave and they left and they're all on this ship and they're all just like, all they do is sit on these like floating chairs and drink soda and like bump into each other. Yeah, I mean, it's horrible, but that's kind of what I'm getting at.

Yeah. Exactly. So I'm going to start by throwing out some stats about like health in general in the U.S. So across like every metric that is measurable, body weight and like fat concentration on a human body tends to be the most dependable and widely used figure to gauge physical health. Like, that's not an American thing or European thing. That's just like the whole world all around. According to the CDC, the average weight of men from the 1960s to early 2000s went from 166 to 199. And for women, it went from 140 to 171. Interestingly enough, we also increase in

height, but the height increase that we saw would lead to like somewhere around three to four pounds of natural weight gain, not this percentage that we're seeing right now. so part of this conversation gets a little bit convoluted and the reason for that is that we're all different and because we're all different we don't have a very clean affordable concise accessible way to measure body fat so BMI the body mass index is the most is the thing that we use to call someone overweight obese or normal whatever but it's like really bad like it's do you know all the issues with this thing well i do know like it's not taking to an account like your muscles or your things like that right because it's just like it's just like dividing your height by your weight and telling you how big you should be yeah lebron james i did the math on this he's overweight yeah yeah exactly the most athletic man the world has ever produced i saw something funny that it was like a guy on

Instagram who was like they sent a social worker to his house because he was drastically underweight for his his height and he only had one leg yeah yeah exactly and he was like yeah of course I'm missing an entire leg you know yeah yeah so like so I'm gonna I'm gonna be throwing out a lot of like stuff around obesity and overweight and it's all based on BMI which again is not a amazing indicator but I would probably wager that it's within like a 70% margin of correct, give or take, is my guess right now. Correct, like, in what, correct in how? As in, like, most people on the bell curve fall in the middle of the bell.

Got it. And therefore, they are not on the extremes of missing limbs or being abnormally physically fit, like a LeBron James. That's what I mean. Yeah, yeah. So, but, but again, like, it doesn't account for, like, an actual bodybuilder, would be considered like morbidly, morbidly obese because those guys weigh like 300 pounds. They have 2% body fat.

Right. So with all that being said, some quick stats. So the obesity rate in the U.S. is about 42%. 75% or so, between 72% and 75% of Americans are the very, very least overweight. Obesity is the other 42% there. And obviously this is due to several factors. One is food intake. The other is exercise.

So part of, this is such an interesting topic because I remember this is like a huge deal during in the middle of COVID where all these like health people were like people need to lose weight and then their comorbidities drop and then the impact of COVID is lessened because the biggest comorbidity we have is our our weights and like that was like I know that that wasn't a popular opinion. People don't want to say that. But like the things that are linked to. to being overweight, cardiovascular diseases like hypertension or heart failure, type 2 diabetes,

high blood pressure, cholesterol, risk of stroke. There's like a million, every horrible thing that can happen to you gets dramatically worse based on being overweight. This part's incredible. So oddly enough, despite a brief dip in lifespan contraction in the U.S. because of COVID, our lifespan is going up. It's an inverse relationship, or, well, I guess it's a direct relationship between becoming more overweight and our lifespan increasing. But that also explains why our health care is way it is.

So all this stuff we architected around our insanely convoluted complex and overpriced healthcare system, all the incentive structures around research and development for drug manufacturers, all of this is being. done because our lifestyles are becoming more sedentary. We're gaining more weight and our medical costs are increasing. So they're just coming up with more and more creative ways to keep us alive longer. So imagine how much better we would be doing, how much longer we could potentially be living if none of this was an issue. Right. And I think, but also, like, I know some companies do interesting things.

Like, I know, like, my friend worked at Disney. And if you, like, rode your bike to work, you got, like, an extra certain amount of money a week or something like just to like keep you healthy because it's less expensive for them to like try to keep you alive that way than it is like via health care yeah yeah 100% and the numbers kind of bear that out so these numbers aren't going to sound that dramatic but it's a pretty good indicator of like where things are headed so the average cost of health care per person in 1970 was $2,100 that's adjusted for inflation real number was like $300. um today it's 14,570

so it's a 7x increase in the cost of maintaining someone's health so there's there's also some caveats here like I said before so like there's some people where being like being very few people can actually get into like movie star shape like six packs

like stuff like that's not to like be your job yeah you have to like have the money for a chef you have to like exactly has to be your job and and but like the vast vast majority people can just get to a place where like they're like mostly fit like I mean I know for myself when I look at myself every now and then it's like wow my love handles really starting to sag like it's like okay let's do something here like this is getting it's getting out of hand but it is also true that some people have lower resting metabolic rates some people are predisposed to retain fat more easily Some people lack the hormones that drive satiation of feeling full.

There's a whole host of reasons why people could not be in a position to lose weight. I will say that through this research, the vast, vast majority of people aren't in that category. Again, it's like the LeBron James situation. You're looking at the bell curve. It's on the opposite side of that bell curve. So about 10% of the population falls into that category. That does not account for the 75% of us who are overwork. weight or obese. So there's that. So why are we gaining weight and becoming sicker than the rest of

the world? What do you think, Taylor? Their food. Yes. Well, so it's food and it's lifestyle. But it's like 97% food. The whole like the fact that we don't have like, I mean, you lived in New York. Like, what was it like, how did your body feel in New York? Because weren't you walking like everywhere? Oh yeah. Oh my God. Totally. I walked miles a day. Yeah, I definitely was like super, not like, I don't know, whatever. I was way more fit in New York than I am anywhere else because you're just, you're moving constantly. Yeah, when I was in, in Lisbon, in Portugal, like three years ago,

um, I, Lisbon's super hilly. Like, everything is up and down hills. And I actually injured my knee because, like, I was overweight and out of shape and not used to walk in a lot. And it would just, it's stunning because you'd look over and you'd see like a low cool who was like an 87 year old woman and she was like lugging like a side of beef of course she was good for her up yeah it's like it's like our lifestyle's not good either but we're not going to dress that here that's hilarious and I love her and there's so many

old women in those and like yeah when I was in Italy there were women like that too like just lug in their stuff you know wearing their little low-hilled shoes and you're like oh my god you're like 200 years old I love you so much yeah you know what's funny also like as I was researching this I like pulled out all the data on blue zones you know the place where people live dramatically longer and it was I don't know there's like some conspiracies around that that like maybe those aren't really a thing and really it's just an indication of like pension fraud because like people are just like claiming that their dead grandmother's still alive sure that's funny but I was thinking about that when you said that because like I heard and

I don't know of how I think maybe said this before but like I heard one indicator is like cultures where you have to sit on the floor and get up a lot like that really helps dude yeah the combined effort of it is like really really useful so like so yeah that's like again I'm like I'm not in good shape like I'm definitely overweight I definitely lose like 30 pounds and like not be hurt by that but I will say that I started doing yoga consistently about three years ago my knee pain's gone my knee and back pain is totally gone and like I don't even notice it anymore and I can do stuff now that I'm like surprised by my body that it can do like the like the elasticity of joints and stuff like it kind of surprised me

every now. And then just like a little bit of this stuff has a huge cumulative effect, it seems like. There were a couple of years in New York when I was doing yoga regularly. And I do it every once in a while now, but very rarely, but where I could like touch my toes. That was like the only time in my life I could do it. Like I can't do it now. I couldn't do it for a long time. I took like a year of yoga to get to the point where I could touch my toes. Taylor, like even now, like what I weigh now, given how much I've done yoga, I could literally put my entire palm on the ground while I'm standing. Oh my God. It's so cool. I'm proud of you. But do like four years ago, I couldn't move.

Like I would wake up and I lay in bed because my back heard so much. I wasn't doing anything. I saw another thing one time on the internet that was like, I hate to tell everybody that this, but I actually feel better after doing yoga in the morning. And you're like, ugh. Like you know,

you know that it would make you feel better, but you just don't want to. I mean, I can't do it in the morning because like I'm not motivated to do anything in the morning. Yeah. So anyways, I went back to this. So I wrote down about like how generally speaking,

and you know this about me. I don't like to describe blame. I think things happen for a reason. Like there's a history behind everything, whatever, yada, yada, yada. But I will say that I'm starting to think that our food system is almost entirely driven by like malice towards children. Like a desire to hook them on things that they shouldn't want, shouldn't have,

and keep them on it. Yeah. So one thing I looked at here because it just became, it just came up as news because it just got banned but red dye number three yeah so this is food coloring red obviously like a candy red that's used in gum in pez candy corn jelly bellies sour gummies fruit by the foot any cookies with red icing has this and like pretty much anything like vivid red coloring has red dye number three in the 1980s is when researchers found that this kind of dye causes cancer and lab rats and as a result, it was banned by the FDA for use in cosmetics, but they said that ingesting

the dye had like an acceptable level of risk. So they kept allowing manufacturers to use it in food and medicine supply. We learned in the thalidomide episode that like it was the federal like it was drug, FDA drug administration and cosmetics like food drug and cosmetics. It's crazy. Because it was like also like of course that makes sense. And part of it is like something you would put on your body. Put on your body. But why would you ban the thing that you, why would you ban the thing you put on your body and not the thing you put in your body?

Yeah. No good point. I don't think, yeah. I'm going to say money. Lobby. Yeah. We're going to get to it. But yeah, obviously.

Right. Intentional malice towards children. Like legitimately there's somebody twirling a mustache, clubbing a baby seal and like putting lobby dollars into like red dynamor three. Yes. So it was only in January of this year, 2025, that the FDA mandates that it be removed from the food supply by 2027 and removed from medicine by 2028. Comparison here. Europe removed it and banned it in 1994.

Like, we've been eating this. Like, like, how is that anything but absolute balance? I know. How am I supposed to know that? How can you, I don't know how you can sleep at night, but, you know, like, your job is to do. that. Wow. I don't know. So let me ask this, Taylor. This is a part where I asked you a question.

Okay. Can you think of any other products from like an earlier era that were aimed at kids that weren't good for them? Um, like, besides like the just sugary things? Besides sugary things. Um, cigarettes.

I wrote that's right. Cigarettes. Really? Yes. Yes. So what would the, what, could the overlap here possibly be can you take any guesses what the overlap here is um is it like addiction no what is it we'll go so a lot was going on in corporate america in the 1980s and the 1990s is it ron no uh so no actually in this case but Reagan did have something to do here

which I'll talk about here in a moment. So in the late 1980s, that was when the first round of successful lawsuits against tobacco companies alleging misleading advertisement, advertising focused on children specifically. And then knowing, Joe Camel, and them knowing that cigarettes are addictive and them knowing that it causes cancer

and not stating that to their customers. So all these lawsuits are huge and take forever. which means if you're litigant in one of these things you can see the writing on the wall for like a very long time right the lawsuit gets filed in 83 concludes in 92 so you know something's coming down down the pipe um it literally legitimately that was the actual date so like there's a case called um sip alone versus legette group which is somebody who sued this massive tobacco company not the biggest one but one of the big ones um and they had to pay damages for the cancer that product gave to the to the customer in that case literally started in 83 and ended in 92, so. That's the only person to sue for that? No, no, what ends up happening in these situations is one case breaks the barrier because it's so obvious and egregious, then the flood, the dam is broke, and then all these class actions coming behind it.

So that was 83 to 92. In 1985, the 49th largest company in the U.S. and the largest tobacco company in the world was a company called Altrier Group and that is the parent company of Philip Morris which makes every cigarette you know of Marlboro like cool whatever all of them are made by these guys

and they saw the writing on the wall this is absolutely blows my mind so they go out in 1985 and acquire general foods for $5.6 billion then

And then in 1988, they bought by craft food for 13.1 billion. Then in 2000, they buy Nabisco Holdings, all of which are merved into craft general foods. Wow. Yeah. They maintain. Big book. Yeah, big book. So they maintain their holdings here until about 2007 and before they start selling bits of it off.

But those 22 years they held on to this were pretty important. So during those years, the world's biggest tobacco company controlled the ingredients. supply, distribution, marketing, and advertising for every brand name staple at the American, like an American grocery store. Isn't that insane? That's insane. Does you know this? No.

I couldn't believe this. What was the, what was that because they were looking, they needed something else to like make money on while cigarettes were getting less and less popular? Yeah, because they knew, they saw there. All these losses were coming and we, we're not, I'm not going to, I'm not going to sell my beach house. So, yeah, go find some other stuff we can do. Wow.

The marketing piece here is absolutely critical. They're exceptionally good at targeting children. And you called out one of the characters here, which is like, it's incredible. Like, this thing hasn't been in use for like 30 years, and you still call that out immediately. So in 1991, the American Medical Association found that one third of three-year-olds and half of six-year-olds recognize Joe Camel over Biggie Mouse. Yeah, I remember Joe Camel Of course we all remember Joe Camel That's so funny

Like who was I What a good idea But this is how This is how Tony the Tiger The Tricks Bunny The Cap and Crunch Captain That's how all these characters Came into being

And that's what drove the market For children wanting Probably the single Worst thing to put in their bodies Which is like sugar cereal with like a bunch of food dye number one, two, three, and four in it. Yeah. So Philip Morris's expertise besides marketing was also how to create high margin products,

which led to the processing of food beyond what is natural and what should be on shelves today. The use of things like artificial flavor, color preservatives to enhance shelf life also came around this time emulsifiers which i didn't even know what emulsifier is do you even know what this is no that's a good question i don't know what it really what it means by processed food basically some things just don't go together like if you like if you were to take um if you were to try and make like natural mayonnaise without emulsifiers they would separate right the oil would separate from the cream and all that stuff i don't know i don't actually know how you made it the reason why i think it's like egg whites and oil but yes yeah so whatever it is but like oil

generally doesn't stick to anything. Anything that you put in oil separates from oil, essentially. And an emulsifier combats the natural tendencies of that product to separate so that it appears nicer to you. But it's just another chemical you're putting in your body. Is that why there's like some peanut butter you have to stir? Yeah. Yeah, natural peanut butter you have to stir. I hate that. I'll spill it. It's worst. But it's better for you. You should be eating that instead of fake peanut butter. No, I know.

I mean, I understand. But the whole aspect of how food stop resembling food, like, it's this 1980s to 90s takeover of all this by tobacco company. It's crazy. So these techniques were also perfected around this time by fast food restaurants, the explosion of fast food. like really like i mean the 1960s when like McDonald's for example started becoming a thing but back then it was still like a hamburger patty like you know what it was still food as opposed like things that were just like so processed they barely resemble the cow by the time you're done with it there are a lot of culprits and why things are the way they are i think

i'll mostly blame the food and drug administration for prioritizing cheap and easy access to food over good food and for prioritizing industry growth over general health but there's good news so the good news is that people are speaking so i think most people are starting to realize that the stuff that they are putting in their bodies has like an impact on how they feel and what they do and that's why you see this rise of natural grocery stores like whole foods trader shows central market here in texas sprouts et cetera as an indicator that the market in general is craving natural and less processed foods the bad news is it's not that accessible like i honestly i don't i i will shop at a whole foods or central market when i need something specific right like i need like a cut of meat that i know

is like super good and like you know what i mean like it's i'm not going to go there and get like milk, eggs, bread. It's just too expensive. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I definitely have gone on there before and I looked at an artichoke and it was like $9. And I was like, are you freaking kidding me? Like, I don't have I can't have an hour of choke.

But I also will like go to Whole Foods if I'm like, well, the last time I went to Whole Foods was when I was on like a work trip spending work money to buy dinner, you know? And then I was like, cool. I'll do like the hot bar or whatever. You've never been to a central market, have you? I don't think so. Okay. So Central Market must be like a uniquely tech. this thing because we have HEB here

and HV has like that's like the normal grocery store then they have Central Market and next time you're here I'm going to take you to one because it will it is like it will shame a whole foods like it is I've definitely been in a very beautiful

whole foods in Austin probably the first one was in Austin the first one was in downtown yeah yeah no they're great don't be wrong I like whole foods but like central markets here are unbelievably 20 species of grapes just all kinds

50 kinds of mushrooms it's unbelievable but again it's not really accessible right it's like that's where the concept now arises where A you got to be super wealthy

to have the luxury being cognizant of your food to be able to shop at these places but then there's some people that even if they had access the money they don't have access to the stores because there's

food deserts all around America so these are like impoverished places where grocery stores don't feel like there's any revenue opportunity so why would they set up a grocery store, which, like, also makes sense. Why would you if you're, no, totally.

There's places here where, like, so we have, like, we have a couple of grocery stores. I have a Walmart, Avons and Aldi, like, oh, whatever, we have plenty. But there are places that are like 20 to 30 minutes in either direction of where I live, where the only thing they have is a dollar general, you know? Of course. Yeah, yeah. But they're not getting, there's no, like, fresh food. And then, like, the food is also, like, weirdly proportioned.

It's like, dollar general is always, like, weird deals. it's a whole racket of like weird things. And that's exactly the next point. Like those people, the only place where they could get their food is from a dollar general, a fast food joint, the corner market where like the hot dog was on the floor 20 minutes ago. And it's just not good stuff for you.

Yeah. Like even like in New York City, like you, which I think was really cool, but like you would get produce at like a corner thing. You know, like there were corner places, especially when I lived,

in Queens where like it was like a store I don't mean who knows if they're there anymore but like run by like a family forever and that's where you'd get your fresh produce it's not the grocery store you know yeah yeah so it was like an interesting like older way of shopping where you would have to go to like different places for different things um as opposed to like the one stop job or something which I'm sure it's also part of it too if you're like I'm going to Walmart for you know a PS5 and yogurt I can't do that I can't I think I've aged out of that like there's a really good Target next to me that has like a grocery section and I've bought fruit from there before and I'm like it just makes me feel different. I don't know why but like it's just not the same

as like a grocery store. I'm mostly by food at the Walmart because it's cheaper and it is and it's convenient but it's definitely cheaper and it's definitely convenient. I am very um all for a trader Joe's in my neighborhood too. You know that the produce isn't that great but the rest of the stuff I think it's really good. Yeah. So people have tried fixing this in the past. So It all seems like how we got to where we are right now has to do with how bad things were in the U.S. back in the day with access to food. So we did not have an abundance, we did not have an overabundance issue. We had underabundance issue, whatever we want to call that. LBJ is the one who launches war on poverty and hunger during his administration, which established kind of the food welfare program.

and that's other presidents did other things as well but that was kind of like the starting point of how we ended up in a situation where we have more food than we really need and the kind of food we have is horrible anyways the pattern was probably uh or the the most impactful president on this was probably richard nixon so nixon's administration was super focused on increasing the food supply and reducing costs, which led to basically factory farming. That was the inception of factory farming was Richard Nixon, as well as the subsidization of corn and soy. Corn flooded the market because the U.S. government was paying farmers to produce it,

even if there wasn't a buyer for it. So that flooded the market, which drove the price down dramatically and led to the use of it as high fructose corn syrup to replace sugar, which isn't good, but at least it's a real food. It comes out of a plant. It's a great case study in the law of unintended consequences because I think that Nixon's heart was actually in the right place here,

but the downstream impact created the scaffolding on which someone like Philip Morris, McDonald's, or whoever else could start building these empires of these super processed shitty foods and drowning kids in it, basically. I just got, I went to the library in Yucca Valley, the town next to Rhode Wars, had a book sale yesterday. And a bunch of kids' books were free. It was wonderful.

We got a ton of stuff. But I got a book on Pat Nixon. And it has, like, photos in it. And the photos are like Richard Nixon on the beach with his family. And it's always so, I always just like, whenever I remember he's from California, I'm like, how are you from California? How are you ever on a beach? You know, even the pictures of the beach. He looks very happy, but his face is up the face of a person who's been to the beach.

I agree. But he's been to the beach. Whenever I found out that his presidential library was in Loma Linda, I was like, why? Like, shouldn't it be, like, in a farm in, like, the middle of Pennsylvania or something? I know. I think Miles and I are going to go in a couple weeks because I have to take him to the doctor over there. And I was like, let's go to the Nixon Library. But it's always weird to me that he's from California.

Yes. And I think he had a lot of good intentions. You know? So Loma Linda was apparently a, before all this, like, saying that it's not real. It was apparently a Blue Zone city in the U.S. So I think the way that this gets addressed is by looking at incentive structures and finding ways to subsidize and incentivize producing clean whole food and getting rid of factory farming systems. The factory farm stuff is so disgusting, Taylor, because in wide expanses of space here in Texas as you drive, you will smell the factory farms. Like, how is it legal to keep animals like this?

I know. Giant animals stuffed in cage. Like, it's unbelievably terrible. it's unbelievably cruel and a lot of our own diseases are sourced like mad cow they take disease cows process them there and then feed them like they're not carnivores they're like it's unbelievable how horrible that system is and that needs to change as well and that's like a piece of this is like changing the factory farm system increasing the education and the accessibility of community gardens which like Michelle Obama really tried hard to do and she was called like a psycho for doing it which is like I know like I'm sorry why is that vegetables you witch you know like i like re i went back my memory of bacon was like well republican is really that mad and michelle but i was like oh yeah they were they really really really were pissed that you wanted to i mean what yeah some cities this is something that i found interesting which kind of touched on what you brought up before um when we were talking about this but like i don't

like this concept but they have this um tax on sugary drinks but i looked this up in my own area where a bottle of Coke, like a little one-use bottle, is cheaper than, like, the equivalently marketed nice bottle of water, right? Like, like, if you look for apples to apples, like, yes, you can also go get, like, these super flimsy bottles of water for way cheap. And, like, the sticker rips off the second you hold it. You know, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's not a like for like product. If you're, if you're going to compare it to Coke, you want to compared like a Fiji water or something and those are actually more expensive than the coke is um so i mean they did that with cigarettes like i remember like in new york city

20 years ago i took the cigarettes there the tax was insane you know and it's way more i don't know how much cigarettes cost but like you know they made it more and more well that's that seems fair to me because the alternative is to breathe air and air is free but i don't think it's fair to like charge a poor person a tax when they could couldn't get the like for like product for less than that product. Right. Right. That totally makes sense.

Then you have the rise of semi-glutides and GLP-1s. And that's like the Wagovis, the ozempics of the world, which showed that they can help regulate hunger and overeating. And the results are typically someone in the 20% loss of body weight of 20%. But then it creates the exact same problem we discussed before because they're like stupid expensive. Like they're super expensive. Most insurances will not cover them unless you like have a severe, severe, severe problem.

And it's catered to the same people that also can afford to shop at Whole Foods every day. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I feel like I know people who have been prescribed as a pick for different reasons. And a lot of them can't take it because you can't afford it. But if you're prescribed, it won't your insurance cover it? No. Really, if you're prescribed it? No.

They will, they'll still be like super expensive on your insurance. Wow. Okay. Yeah. I assumed my assumption was you would only get it. You know what? there's two categories here one is everybody has to get it prescribed but i think that if you have like a bariatric situation i think in that situation you're probably have to cover it but in that

situation you're probably also like 600 pounds so like you have yeah all this other problems i mean i don't really get it because i remember i was saying how my diabetes medication i mean like my pre-diabetes pill was 54 cents a month no i don't but that sounds great well it was and then this month it was four dollars and they were like oh it's a new year you know know like whatever things are about to change for prescription drugs and like the rise from 54 cents to four dollars isn't going to break my bank but a rise from 54 dollars to 400 would you know well i think i think taylor what that is tied to and someone can correct me if i'm wrong again this is also convoluted our health care system if you were to try and untangle

it would take someone 50 billion years a i can probably do it eventually but i think because the Biden administration was negotiating reduced rates on pharmaceuticals. Remember this? There was like 10 drugs on the schedule and then there's going to be 10 more and 10 more. Like it was like some weird thing like that. But part of the arguments I was hearing on the other side of it was like we have to charge this much because if we do not charge this much, we cannot afford the research and development

on net new drugs because it takes 20 years to get FDA approval. So we got to sink billions of dollars on these drugs and we need the old drugs to pay for the new drugs. I don't know how much I believe that, but, like, I don't know the details because I know that, like, like, Biden made insulin $35 a month. Now it's going to be back to $1,000 a month, but it costs $2 to make. So my assumption, my assumption is there's probably somewhere in the gray. I'm not going to say I'm going to trust the health care professionals when they tell me stories about why they just need to charge or whatever they need to charge. But there's probably some, well, there's also the idea.

I mean, the part of it that makes sense to me is like, yeah, like getting a drug approved for. public consumption probably takes billions of dollars in tons of years before you realize a single dollar sale out of that and like somewhere somehow the cost needs to be born somewhere in the equation it's just i don't know what the right way to do that is but that's what that's what we see like the CEOs are getting like a billion dollars you know you're like i don't know well some of them are getting shot in the back they could submit they could you know chip in Yes. I'm not, I'm not, listen, Luigi don't come from me. I'm not standing up for the health care insurance companies. I'm just saying like there's, there's arguments be made on all sides here, I think. There were things, do you know James Franco's brother? What's his name? Something Franco? He looks like Luigi. Yes. And he like, it's not something on today on the news where he was like, I have never been gotten more text messages in my whole entire life than I did. And they caught that guy and people were like, oh my God.

He does look just like him. He's probably... Dave, Franko, right? Dave, Franco, yeah. It's really Dave. Isn't it? I guess. It's not like Dave.

But it's got to be, yeah, you're right. I think it's Dave. But my last point here is, again, like the trade-offs. Like, you eat a bunch of sugary stuff. You eat a bunch of super processed stuff. You feel like shit and your body doesn't perform well. And then you fall into a healthcare system that is a nightmare to navigate and all that. it is all kind of like a tradeoff one way or the other and i actually think the exact same

thing about drugs like ozempic and wagovi like i think like i don't know like i think that nothing's for free i think that if you put something in your body that you get some sort of a benefit out of that you pay for it eventually and i think that i don't know i hope hopefully not but like in 30 years if we find out that ozepic turned your guts into jello then like okay well shook like there it is like we we you know I think that in the end is probably better to whatever extent your socioeconomic status allows you to to engage in activity and to try to eat as whole foods as possible as consistently as possible so you don't ever end up in a situation where you are in the healthcare system and and then you're stuck but like yeah no like the answer is to like

avoid it because because then tell like I mean I don't know okay so So now, now I take this pill for my hypertension, and that causes my, like, you're, no, I know. How you're made is, like, the way it should work. When you start fiddling with one thing or the other, then, like, it throws the rest of it off tilt, I think. And I think, I mean, I think, I don't know, I think it's a balance. People died from those things before, but we had the pills for them. You know what I mean? Like, there's people who are predisposed, like, high cholesterol or, like, let heart attacks before all of this.

so it's not like it's like some of it's like you said some of it's genetic some of it is whatever so if we need medicine for some things it's not necessarily bad well I'm going with the an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure

fair yeah I think that if you can do anything you can do to not get into that cycle it is it would behoove you not to and you cannot count on product marketing from tobacco companies Like just make your own decisions

Like feel how your body feels And decide how to do things on your own Don't listen to advertisements That's my theory Unless it's an advertisement Do you listen to this podcast Please subscribe, like Tell your friends

And that's our story Dume to Fail brought to you by Camel Cools I don't know what they're called anymore Camel Cool is over there No cools are different right Camels are... Yeah, we've talked about it before, but I love smoking cigarettes. I'm not going to, but I dream about it.

I think I didn't draw it last night. I think that, like, man, if you could cut our lungs open, I bet we did permanent damage, Taylor. I absolutely, I'm sure that I did, but I remember when I stopped smoking, like, for real, for real, I coughed up tar, you know? Seriously? Absolutely. And then I had to, like,

get over it and i'm sure there's still something in there but it's been a long time but i couldn't like breathe all the way in you know how did you smoke for like eight years like a pack a day you think no much less than that okay like maybe a pack a week but like still that's not that bad i mean it's all i think yeah i've done a pack in a weekend when i'm like drinking with friends yeah it's best but I think I've done a pack in one weekend with you no I wasn't smoking by the time I got to L.A fine I'll be the bad one only

I know I wish that I was I mean again if we're gonna find out to make oh I'd make that not kill you I'd be down for that one but yeah no I feel like I feel better when I eat better I feel like your body knows these things so like you know in moderation but also like it's a good warning that like it's hard to come back from

a lifetime of bad eating yeah which my kids do my kids eat terrible but I cannot get them to eat good food and it's just like not the battle that I want to fight every day but and that's honestly tell you like my opinion is like that's fine

it's not like if you house like a pizza every now and then or what like it's not that's not what matters what matters is like the habit and the lack of indoctrination as long as your kids didn't weren't raised the way we were like we like you're great like we would say that shit we would dress up as Tony the tire for for Halloween like

we were indoctrinated it was like embedded in us so like these are the things that you're supposed to like it was everywhere like your kids I don't think they do that anymore because I don't think it's like acceptable to do that yeah I mean they don't really watch commercials for food or commercials at all also but they do see like things that are like well we got one time with saw Tony the Tiger at Walmart. He was there. Like someone dressed like Tony the Tiger. Lawrence was not amused and was afraid of him. But like, yeah, I mean, they know about like, I don't know, I guess there's like a lot of candy and stuff.

But I'm not the kind of person who's like, only have one candy in Halloween. I'm like, each until they get sick. It's Halloween. You know? And like, they're young and their kids. And like, the thing, the only thing that matters is like not develop like a dependency on like, I have to have sugar. I have to. It's like once that.

because you can a lot of people go through those phases and then they go into like they join fitness uh they're in like sports in high school and then they join fitness groups in college like and then their lifestyle becomes their lifestyle and like that's totally fine it's not irredeemable it's just like don't start the habit that results in bad things I was going to say the biggest risk I think like now is things like vaping like that's that's got to be so bad that's got to be so bad nothing I feel that sweet in your life. lungs like you shouldn't have sugar in there no beeping is really bad for you also you don't know nobody looks cool literally like smoking everybody looks cool smoking vaping nobody looks cool agree to agree are we old taylor are we shaking our fists in the air a little bit but i do think but i do agree that like i've seen really bad things about um people who are vaping like you know, a million times a day, and then they, like, you know, have very terrible, um, their lungs or have to get, like, new lungs where they die, and they're like 25, you know.

But, like, I think it's the same with, like, everything else where it's like, I don't know, sometimes I see, like, people who are, um, what you might call it, like, drink, like 15 monster energy drinks a day, you know? Like, it's bad. Yeah. Yeah. I guess everything in moderation. Yeah, if you can.

Except smoking. Just don't smoke, babe. Yeah, I know. Or at least wait until you're 80, then start smoking. That's a good point. I feel like, if like Apocalypse Day, I'm going to smoke again. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, me too. Yeah, yeah.

Although, that was never my thing. My thing was dipping. I like dipping. Oh, yeah, I remember you used to dip. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Anyways. That is my story.

This has been, um, it was, it was very, very educational when I learned about the tobacco company I was like my jaw was on the floor like is this real like this how is this real I know I don't those guys like those barons of evil you know like who are they what are they doing why they doing that you know what I mean like those people

who are like yes my life's work is to get children to eat food that will hurt them like that's your life's work yeah where do you I want on my website I want an Altru's website and like what is if you Google Altria I forgot what the tagline was now

oh the tagline if you Google Altria is Altria Group moving beyond smoking to like other things that could hurt you right Altru is moving beyond smoking leading the way and moving adult smokers away from cigarettes to taking action to transition

it's just nonsense it's just like nonsense gobbly goop language like mm-hmm yeah what does it mean do you ever watch better off ted no

it was like it's like two seasons it's pretty great and it is um they're going to a place called verity in dynamics and they're always building things like a plate that can be a bomb you know like like stuff like that like a chair that's so itchy you have to work harder because you can't wait for the day to be over like things like that but they always have

they have interludes with commercials and it's like, Prudian Dynamics. We, here, we're like family. That's why we work on holidays,

you know, stuff like that. And they're like, because you want to see your family on the holidays. It's just like really funny. And like, I think that,

um, yeah, I think of that too, because they're like, obviously hiding something evil, you know, like working together. Da-da-da-da.

And you're like, huh, doesn't feel great. Yeah, this place is just like so gray. But anyways, that's my story, Taylor.

hope you liked it um please tell us what you think if you have any opinions on the topic write to us at duneafel pod at gmail.com follow us on the socials at doom to feld pod any else taylor yeah i have a couple messages from people that we're funny nadine um my friend nadine who lives in canada um agrees with me about how the government is so much involved in everyday life like paving the roads and the garbage and those things that like we appreciate the government for based on our conversation about the government because you were like I don't want it in my life and I'm like I'm already everywhere I'm I should have probably painted that in a little bit I'm aware

that like municipal government is in my life everywhere my point was that there's like yeah it's just a difference of opinion like I don't think we need a crazy massive federal government it's funny because I was doing research initially on Aaron Schwartzman do you remember him so Aaron Schwartzman was one of the founders of credit and he became a progressive activist and he went on J-Store

in some other proprietary database and released all of these all this research material or some sort of material that like was I don't know it was it was it was like one of it was like a progressive movement thing that he did I forgot what he got what it was but he got super overcharged by the federal government for doing this and they were trying to set an example it was just an example of like of the federal government wants you in their crosshairs they will do whatever they can to absolutely cripple and destroy you and they have the power to do that and that kid killed himself and he was like a legit genius who like creative did you remember when i talk is like weird i don't know this is reminding me this like thing where like google one of their plans was for like

google books and they wanted to scan every book that was ever made sounds like it sounds like this it would be horribly horribly illegal make them free exactly and the government was like You can't do that. But that's my point. My point is that, like, in these situations, like, there's a million examples. I'm not going to go into the details, but it's like, it's like, you just don't want the government knock on your door and, like, asking shit. Like, don't make them mad. But, like, yeah, like, the municipal government in Texas and Austin, yeah, they paved the road down the street from me, and that's great.

It's just, like, I don't see a need for the other side of it. Yeah. Anyways. I'm for it. like whatever i know i actually thought about that i thought out the earlier too it was like it was like oh there's like a constituency that's like i'm pro big government and i'm like i'm not bad constituency yeah yeah i think i am and like so i mean but with the caveats like don't do bad things but also like i appreciate that they're not i'm not getting nuked yet today

today again it's finally it's a difference of opinion i don't know where the flogs becomes because i've never had any moment where like i read something and like I just always, like, I don't know where it comes from, but, like, it's just ingrained in me. Maybe it's because of the whole immigrant thing of, like, Iran, where, like, the federal government became this entity that, like, ran your life and, like, owned you. And I think, like, that's, maybe, like, it's, like, a generational trauma that's embedded in me or something. I think that, I think that that totally makes sense because I actually also, that makes sense. Because I know people from, like, communist black countries who are very much, like, absolutely not, you know? And I'm like, I get it.

You're from, you know, someplace that. the government was like really terrible so i get it i get it that totally makes sense um one more listener male listener juan carlos agrees with you to eat korean barbecue until death i made my day today thank you won that was funny he was like oh my god that was so funny so that was appreciated and and for one um i actually had korean barbecue um yesterday so nice there you go nice um yeah anything else cool no that's it thanks friends thanks fars sweet uh we'll go ahead and cut it off thank you taylor