Stuff You Should Know - Is it better to buy local or organic food?

Episode Date: May 14, 2009

These days, shopping for food can pose a dilemma. Should you buy regular, organic or local food? Check out this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com to hear Josh and Chuck discuss whether it's better to buy local or organic food. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Wanderers, welcome. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Chuck Brown is about to vomit. Put the two of us together. You get a squishy podcast called Stuff You Should Know. Stuff Rose. Yeah. Well, it's true though too. And kind of hairy too, Chuck. Hairy and squishy. It's a bad combination. We're like one of those tumors that kind of grows out of you when you ate your twin in the womb. You know the tumors where they find hair and fingernails and teeth? Yeah. We're like one of those when you put us together. Yes, we are. Yeah. Good stuff, Josh. Thanks, Chuck. So Chuck, speaking of all that, did you know that our first lady planted

her own garden outside the White House recently? I did. I bet she had a little help, but yeah. She did from some local school kids, although I bet they just screwed around the whole time. Yes. School kids are useless when it comes to gardening. And they are. But yeah, Michelle Obama planted a garden. And apparently it's the first kitchen garden since Eleanor Roosevelt was in the White House. Pretty cool. Running the show while her polio-stricken husband couldn't even get out of bed. Right. So, but yeah. And that, you know, Barak keeps getting compared to FDR. So this is appropriate enough. But the big thing, the big hubbub about all this is that she chose to go 100% organic, right? Yeah. Good move. Yeah. And this day and age, that's just a smart thing

to do, right? Well, and why not? Is my point, if you're planting your own garden. I'll tell you why not. As far as the Mid-America Crop Life Association, which is basically a pesticide and fertilizer trade association. Oh, but they have a lot of nice things to say. They sent her a letter basically saying they never said the word, and this is from a Times UK article, but they never said the word fertilizer or organic, anything like that. They just basically wanted to know that America owns it, owes its robust physique to all the technological advances in agriculture that have taken place over the years. Meaning fertilizer and pesticide. Exactly. Yeah. So apparently a lot of people didn't really like the fact that the MACA took it upon themselves

to send Michelle Obama a letter. So there's a petition online right now. And at least 100,000 people signed it basically telling the MACA to lay off their pesticide propaganda. And I just made air quotes for everybody who can't see. Interesting. Yeah. Well, hope it works. I guess it will. I don't know. But the point is, is Michelle Obama's gone organic. And a lot of people are, right? Yeah, it's sort of the thing. It is think so much so that now there's there's a term big organic. Have you heard this? Yeah, Josh, big organic is like Walmart is carrying organic food now. That's what you would call big organic. Yeah, if you're a mom and pop farmer, you can't you can't sell to Walmart. You can't do it. It takes, you know, huge agricultural concerns that have tens of thousands

of acres at their disposal. Yeah, cranking out as much as they can per acre. Yeah. And it's kind of sad to see organics go that way because it's that's pretty it's a pretty big shift from that's roots if you'll forgive the pun. Very nice, Josh. I hate puns. I do too. Yeah. For anyone who likes puns, I would strongly advise you to go listen to tech stuff. Yeah, one of our sister. Wow. Yeah. Oh, and Strickland isn't isn't completely innocent of his puns either. Really? Yeah. So I guess we should probably get back to talking about organics, right? Yeah, great idea. Alright, so Chuck, is it better to buy local or organic? And actually, we probably shouldn't take a traditional factory farm. I guess we'll just call it traditionally grown food out of the equation quite yet, right? Right,

non organic, big farm. Is that what you're talking about? Yeah. Okay. But I mean, big or yeah, yes, big farm, right? Yeah, the ones that use like pesticides and fertilizers and stuff like that. I'm trying to see if we can get the MACA after us. I want a letter of my own. That'd be pretty cool. That would be super cool. Frame it for the cube. Oh, yeah, definitely. Actually, Josh, when I read this, I thought it was interesting because I wanted to say, well, why not both organic and local? Yeah, which is the pretty obvious thing. But that's kind of not the point of the article. Well, let's talk about it first. What's wrong with with, you know, traditionally grown stuff? Well, I've got some stats for you. I love your stats that can illustrate just what might be

wrong with it. A conventionally grown apple, Josh, Joshers, may be sprayed up to 16 times with over 30 different chemicals in its lifetime. Sure. That apple that you're eating. Right before you put it in your mouth. Yeah, which is why you wash the food, you know, shining it on your shirt. Yeah. I imagine that just kind of smears the pesticides and fertilizers around. And I imagine running it under a cold tap for a second doesn't do a whole lot either. Yeah, I found there's a book on Google Books. It's called Super Nutrition for Men. They actually recommended that if you buy commercially grown veggies, what we're talking about traditionally grown stuff, you want to soak it in a 3% hydrogen peroxide solution. Oh, you're kidding. Before you

eat it. Yeah. And they said that if you really want to go to town, you can mix a half a teaspoon of bleach in a gallon of water and soak your vegetables. And that'll get rid of the pesticides and bacteria and all that stuff that can come along with traditionally grown food. So that wouldn't what happens to the bleach though? Does it wear off or something that you soak it for another 10 minutes and just clean water? But I should also say if you do make a bleach solution, you want to use purified or distilled water because normal hard tap water actually has compounds that can that can fuse to the bleach and create carcinogens. Not good. No, there's an alternative though, which we were just talking about, right? Right. It's called what organic? Yes. Yes. I have one more

stat for you though, before we move on. Oh, sorry. Just so people know what they're putting in their body. It's important. The FDA that actually did this one and they said that between 33 and 39% of our food contains detectable amount of pesticides and 54% of the fruits and 34% of our vegetables out of that lot. Well, so that's you're eating pesticide in chemicals. Definitely. And these things can have, you know, harmful effects. They've been shown to have harmful effects like headaches, fatigue. There's some pesticides that have been shown to be neural disruptors, which is awful. Yeah, nausea is not fun. You don't eat for nausea, you know? No. No. So, okay, so we're just going to go ahead and say, if you eat traditional farm food, whatever, more power to

you. Sure. It's a good idea to know what's in your food, right? You should know what you're putting in your food. And you can also make a case for using pesticides and fertilizers and stuff like that. No, you can't. Well, I think in their point is in a big farming situation, it's pretty much near impossible to sustain that without using pesticides. Well, plus also, it usually makes for much cheaper food. Yeah, it's a lot less labor intensive. You know, if you're using like natural pesticide methods, this is usually much more difficult. Right. It requires a lot more labor. And thus the price is going to go up, which is why if you're poor in America, you're not eating organic food. No, it's definitely a bit pricier. Right. So, okay, so let's talk organic, Chuck.

Yes. The USDA has a program, Josh, called the National Organic Program, fittingly, and they are the people that certify things organic. When you see certified organic, it has to run through them. Your whole operation, you know, the seeds cannot be genetically modified at all or treated with synthetic pesticides or fertilizers. It's all this is laid out. And if you follow these steps as a program, you can be certified organic. Right. And actually, the standards are pretty good. They were almost questionable there in 2004. In April of 2004, the USDA issued three directives, right? Uh-huh. And one of them was it allowed fertilizers and pesticides to be used that contain unknown ingredients. Yeah. And I just made air quotes again.

And you could also feed livestock non-organic fish meal, which who knows what's in that? Sure. And you could also use antibiotics on them. Those are two directives. And then there's a third one. I should say those first two, they didn't stick. There was such a public outcry against them, the USDA repealed them the next month. But there was a third one that stick that I think everybody should be aware of. Non-agricultural products, including seafood, skin lotion, anything like that. This label organic, the USDA said, you know what? That's out of our jurisdiction. They can say they're organic if they want. We're never going to investigate it. And you know what? This hits home. You know what my wife does. Yeah. She makes her, she makes a fine, fine line of health

and beauty products. Yes. All natural handmade. And she gets her feathers all riled up all the time because you'll see these companies tout things like organic when it's completely falls out of the jurisdiction. And beyond that, just like a lot of like huge products, they'll throw things on there like all natural and fresh. And there's really no way to back any of that up. Apparently with light beer too, you only have, it only has to be light in color. Oh, interesting. It has nothing to do with calories or anything like that, although you're led to believe it does. Yeah. So yeah, that's, it definitely hits home. And I would definitely not be angry if anyone went to loveyourmama.com and bought some of her stuff. I was going to

ask you, do you have a website to plug? Say it one more time? Well, I probably shouldn't plug loveyourmama.com because that would mean money in our family's pocket. I know. That would stink if we plugged loveyourmama.com, Chuck. Let's not ever do that, huh? It's been said that a day of traveling will bring a basket full of learning. Fill your basket to the brim in Mississippi with family friendly experiences like the new Mississippi Aquarium, the recently expanded Hattiesburg Zoo, the Tupelo Buffalo Park and Zoo and sports and literary attractions too. Expand your sense of wander today at visitmississipi.org slash family fun. Mississippi Wanderers, welcome. In 1980, cocaine was captivating and corrupting Miami. Miami had become the

murder capital of the United States. They were making millions of dollars. I would categorize it as the Wild Wild West. Unleashing a wave of violence. My God took a walk into the devil's stand. The car fells. They just killed everybody that was home. They start pulling out pictures of Clay Williams' body taken out in the Everglades. A world orbiting around a mysterious man with a controversial claim. This drug pilot by the name of Lamar Chester. He never ran anything but grass until I turned over that load of coke to him on the island. Chester would claim he did it all for this CIA. Pulling many into a sprawling federal investigation. So Clay wasn't the only person who was murdered. I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco. Join me for murder in Miami. Listen to

murder in Miami on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. So moving on, Josh is organic better for you. That's the one thing they really haven't been able to prove. No, I actually found a real dearth of, you know, information, like quantifiable information, hard stats on things like that. It's just an assumption. Like, okay, you don't have pesticides, you don't have fertilizers. Right. Logically, pesticides and fertilizers have been shown to, you know, create health problems. They can, right? Right. And since they're not there in these certified organic products, then hence these things should be healthier. Right. But the USDA makes no claims to this whatsoever. They're just saying these people follow these steps.

Here's the steps that they followed to become USDA certified. Right. We've checked it out and we said, yes, this product is USDA certified. You make you, you, you surmise yourself whether you want to eat it or pay the extra three dollars for this dozen eggs. Right. I think the deal is with this is they cannot prove any nutritional value by going organic. What they can say is, if it's organic, what it lacks is probably better for you without all the chemicals. But since they can't prove that it's richer in vitamin C or whatever, if it's grown organically, then they can't, they have to lay off in that category. Right. And one of the other reasons people choose organic obviously is because you get the impression it's much more sustainable. Right. Right. Like,

I think you have to rotate crops. You have to compost on site and these things are good and sustainable. But again, we were talking about big organic. These, these farms are, you know, following these processes, but I don't know to what degree, just enough to be USDA certified organic. Right. But it's still having a huge impact on the environment. Right. Through what's called food miles. So the average food that we eat in the US, I think travels 1300 to 2000 miles. Yeah. From where it's farmed to where it's consumed. Right. And a lot of it actually, there's, there's a huge outcry I found from researching this against air transportation. Oh, really? Yeah. Because apparently that is the worst way to fly food. It's the worst carbon

dioxide emitter. Yeah. It's the worst way to get food from, from source to, you know, destination. Right. Makes sense. So yeah. So again, though, I looked it up. I'm like, what's the average, what's the average amount of CO2 that's emitted, you know, per pound of food or whatever. There's nothing on there. So all of this stuff surrounding this is all very logical and intuitive, but there's no hard facts, which I find frustrating. I have one cool quote. Let's hear it. This is from a guy at Columbia who's been pioneering local eating for 25 years. His name is Goussaou. And his, wait, wait, does he just have one name like share? Actually, that's just his last name. Okay. Goussaou. But sure, let's just say that. Okay. And Goussaou is often quoted saying that a

strawberry shipped from California to New York requires 435 calories of fossil fuel, but provides the eater only five calories of nutrition. Nice. Well done, Goussaou. That's what Goussaou says. Nice. I don't know if it's true or not, but yeah, that's, I mean, that's the whole question. Do you buy local or do you buy organic? I know the 100 mile diet in locovore.com is a big local food movement going on to try and cut down on the greenhouse emissions. Yeah. Do you know much about the 100 mile diet? School me. Okay. I know a little bit. So in 2005, this Canadian couple, Alisa Smith and JB McKinnon, they vowed to basically only eat local food. Nothing could have come from more than 100 miles away. Right? Yeah. Cool idea. It is a cool idea.

And it makes sense. But I got the impression from, from reading about this that they had no idea how difficult this was going to be. Right. Like they didn't realize that there were like seasons and then sub seasons and apparently micro seasons. Right. So if you want cherries in the winter, you could go to the grocery store and get them. But you can if you're on this 100 mile diet. They were saying something like in this FAQ, they were saying, you know, they went without wheat for a really long time until they finally met a local wheat farmer. And then they were able to, you know, make their own stuff. But that's part of it's very, it can be much more expensive. Oh, yeah. Because you're buying all the ingredients rather than a packaged product that was part of a run of

several thousand. Right. So it's cheaper. And also it's just much more difficult and again, labor intensive. But it is a lot more sustainable that you're cut down on CO2 emissions 100 miles in that far as far as food miles goes. And also you, you get to know kind of one of the reasons they say to eat local is the produce is much fresher. So within 24 hours, it's been picked and you're eating it pretty much right off of the plant. Right. And you get to know the people that you're you're buying from because you're going to a farmers market pretty much. Right. Well, let's talk about farmers markets. Let's do it. It's the best. Yeah. You're a big, big proponent of farmers markets. Aren't you? It's the best here in Atlanta, as most people now

actually indicator. We have the DeKalb farmers market. And I bump into Jerry there sometimes. Is that right? She's a shopper there. Actually a bunch of people from work I see there. I'm sure. But it's the best man. It's huge. And the cool thing about the farmers market is not only can you choose from organic, but above every fruit and vegetable is a sign that says where it came from, which is kind of cool. So you know, you're getting your avocados from California or Mexico. And usually each fruit and vegetable has a couple of choices. And none of them are very local, though. That's surprising because most farmers markets have a pretty strict rule that it can only be from that state at least. Well, this is a little

different kind of farmers market. I think most of those are the ones that are like a local farmers market that you'll have on Saturdays only and they'll set up in a parking lot and the local farmers come and bring their wares. This is a big, huge operation that's been around for, you know, 30 plus years. Yeah. Well, it's a little different. I know there's a, I think a state subsidized farmers market down by the airport. Oh, yeah, I've heard of that. And I think you could they, you can only be a Georgia grower to participate. Those are awesome. I went to one. I used to go to one in LA when I lived there while they had the Hollywood farmers market, which is awesome. And then I went to the one closer to where I lived in Eagle Rock that same deal. I mean,

literally the farmers pull up their truck and set up their stuff in the crates. And, you know, you chat it up with them. These guys, you feel really good about supporting it. Yeah, apparently I was reading on the 100 mile diet site that there was a study that found that people at farmers markets have 10 times more conversations than people at the supermarket. Oh, I'm surprised it's not more than that. Yeah. Well, I mean, that actually struck me. I go to supermarkets. I don't normally go to farmers markets, right? But I know, you know, when I'm there, I'm not there to chat. I'm there to go buy food, right? You know, so yeah, it's pretty cool. I think I'm going to check the farmers market out. Yeah, they're definitely a little more like when I'm at the

DeKab farmers market, you'll be checking out a pepper and the lady next to you will just say, aren't these peppers amazing? Yes. You know, you never hear that at your local grocery store. Is there the heavy, heavy scent of patchouli? Yeah. And then, you know, the lady says that to me. And I say mind your own business, lady. I don't need to hear about what you think about these peppers. Yeah, I'll bet. And I stomp off. That sounds like my kind of farmers market. It's great. It's very awesome. It's a very aggressive hostile farmers market. Nice. Should we talk about co-ops and pharma community supported agriculture? Yeah. Well, that's the big thing about eating local. One of the, one of the things that proponents always say is you're, you're feeding the local

economy. You're creating local jobs. The money's going back into the local economy. You're helping local farmers. And that's, that's pretty much the opposite of a globalized attitude. Right. But still, it's okay. I mean, to each his own, of course, Chuck, we always say. So if you're into helping the local economy, eating local is a really good way to do that, right? Yeah. And one of the places where you can go and really help the local economy is a local food co-op. Yeah. Right. We have one here in Atlanta, Seven Honda. And there's actually a Brujaha going on. I heard about earlier this year. Apparently the general manager, they changed the charter and the general manager has a lot of power now. And the board doesn't like some of the choices

that he's making. Oh, really? There's a big struggle. They don't want, you know, Tropicana non-organic orange juice for sale next to Heinz ketchup. That's not organic either. They're like, what is this stuff doing here? This is a local community food co-op. It's been around Seven Honda's been around for a long time. Since the early 70s, I believe. Yeah. Very cool place. But yeah, so food co-ops. And I found this very interesting. The top 100 food co-ops in the U.S. in 2003 made $110 billion. Isn't that nuts? That's $1.1 billion apiece. That's insane to me. It is. I mean, I can't imagine Seven Honda making a billion dollars, but I think it's a pretty good food co-op, right? Yeah, it's a great one. Huh. Pretty interesting. It really is. There's another

way to go here, Josh, which is called a community supported agriculture CSA program. And that, my friend Debbie in New Jersey actually is involved in one of these. She writes for our site. And also another plug, she runs a very awesome blog called freakgirl.com. And she is a member of one of these. And what you do is a group of people in a community get together and they prepay a local farmer. They basically invest in the farm. And the cool thing is, well, some people might not think it's cool. It's a drawback. I think it's cool is you don't know what you're going to get. Oh, it's cool. Every two weeks, you'll get a crate of, you'll go pick up a crate of groceries. And you never know. Like if the lettuce is great, you might get lettuce,

you might get kale, you might get carrots. Right. And so it just, I think it's cool. It encourages people to kind of learn how to cook with new ingredients. And it's like farm to table. And Debbie thinks it's really awesome. Yeah. And I trust her. Good to know. I've got a whole world of food to go explore. Oh yeah, lots. Yeah. And should we talk about Whole Foods real quick? Knock yourself out pal. I have another thing too to follow up with. This is chock full, man. Yeah, it really is. I wouldn't have thought this one would be so chock full. Whole Foods, as everyone knows, is a big grocery store chain that costs a lot of money. Whole paycheck is what some people call it. Yeah. It's a little pricey. They, a billion dollars a year, Josh, is what, how much

produce they sold in 2006. And 16.4% of that came from local sources, which is up about 2% from 2005. And I know they're making a big effort, I would imagine in 2009, it's even higher than that. So even these big companies like Whole Foods are trying to, trying to source out local food a little more. Well yeah, people are getting a lot savvier these days. I mean, you know, the fact that the FDA's directives were reversed the next month because there's an outcry. There's a petition online saying leave Michelle Obama alone because she's farming organic. Right. People have gotten a lot, a lot savvier and they realized, hey, I'm putting this stuff in my body literally. I should probably pay a little more attention to it. Right. I got a garden. Do you? Yeah. In your little

squatting land area? No, actually, this is on our side of the property. Yeah, John Fuller and I, from Stuff in the Beeside, he was talking to me about this weekend. He has a little garden too. And we're going to try it. And then I know a couple of other people here do. We're going to get a little vegetable exchange going on. Very nice. Yeah. Very nice. It's fun. The concept of growing your own food, I think, is John was just blown away by it. He's like, man, this is just the coolest thing. Really? I could put the seeds in the ground and I can eat it later on. And like, yes, John, it's farming. We've been doing it for a long time. 8,000 years. 10,000 years. Yeah. It is cool, though. It is. I love my own tomatoes, for sure. That's about all I can grow, that and basil.

Two good things. You're halfway to spaghetti sauce. Agreed. Agreed. So check there is something I think that we should point out. No matter how you eat, whether it's local or you eat traditional farm stuff or organic or whatever. Or McDonald's at every meal. Especially McDonald's, actually. That definitely factors into this. There's this concept called ghost acres. Have you heard of this? He got me on this one. Dude, this one's awesome. So basically, when we think about, you know, the amount of acreage it takes to produce food, right? We say, okay, well, you know, one acre of food can produce, you know, 20,000 pounds of strawberries on a traditional farm, right? Okay. Ghost acres are all the other parts of land that's required for that strawberry to go through

its life cycle, right? Right. So you take into account the acreage that the fertilizer factory is built on. Right. You take into account the acreage that the dump, the landfill that's going to accept the strawberry rinds is built on. Or the acreage that's polluted by the runoff from this farm. Wow. These are ghost acres and it ups the number of acres required. It's the actual number of acres and the impact it has on the land to produce, you know, you know, 10,000, 20,000 pounds of strawberries or whatever. That's the real deal. It is the real deal. Yeah. So yeah, ghost acres definitely worth looking up, man. Oh, that's pretty cool. Yeah. I thought you're going to throw me some stat. Like, did you know that for every acre, there's 10 ghost acres?

Actually, to think that's about right. I think it's 10.1 per person. Oh, really? Yeah. Look at you. Thanks. Nice work. Thanks, buddy. Are we exhausted this? I think we have a big time. I think we did about 10 minutes ago. Yeah. Grow your own stuff. It'd be kind of cool. You can join Chuck and John Fuller's little food co-op. Can I get in on that action? Well, you have to grow something. Can I just buy some? Yeah, sure. Okay. I'll say some zucchini. I got cucumbers growing in the back of my car, remember? Oh, right. Yeah. So yeah, that's about it. If you want to know more about growing your own food, we've got all sorts of gardening stuff on the side. Don't we, Chuck? We do. We also have tons of recipes. We do. We have a whole recipe

channel. We do. So there you go. All you need to do is come to howstuffworks.com and say whatever you want to in that little search bar. You should probably type it rather than say it. I don't think we have the listening capability yet. In 1980, cocaine was captivating and corrupting Miami. Miami had become the murder capital of the United States. They were making millions of dollars. I would categorize it as the Wild Wild West. Unleashing a wave of violence. My God, Chuck, I'm walking into the devil's den. The car fells. They just killed everybody that was home. They started pulling out pictures of Clay Williams' body taken out in the Everglades. A world orbiting around a mysterious man with a controversial claim. This drug pilot by the name

of Lamora Chester. He never ran anything but grass until I turned over that load of coke to him on the island. Chester would claim he did it all for this CIA. Pulling many into a sprawling federal investigation. So, Clay wasn't the only person who was murdered? Oh, no, not by a long shot. I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco. Join me for Murder in Miami. Listen to Murder in Miami on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1968, five black girls dressed in oversized military fatigues were picked up by the police in Montgomery, Alabama. I was tired and just didn't want to take it anymore. The girls had run away from a reform school called the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children, and they were determined to tell

someone about the abuse they'd suffered there. Picture the worst environment for children that you possibly can. I believe Mount Megs was patterned after slavery. I didn't understand why I had to go through what I was going through and for what. I'm writer and reporter Josie Duffy-Rice, and in a new podcast, I investigate how this reform school went from being a safe haven for black kids to a nightmare, and how those five black girls changed everything. All that on Unreformed. Listen to Unreformed on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Josh, this, as you know, we have some fans over in Iraq. Yes. At Camp Liberty. Yes. Some army dudes and ladies who we're very appreciative of. And this came from specialist

Norman. I can't say your last name, Norman, which stinks, but he is a specialist. SBC Norman. He wrote us a while ago. He's a soldier in the army currently fettered down in an office job in the greater Baghdad area. And your podcast is not only Array of Sunshine in this sterile environment. It is a rampant light storm pilfered out of Tesla's personal forbidden R&D department. Oh, it's that guy. Yeah. I love this guy. That's because he's an awesome writer. Yeah. He blows things up. Yeah. It's like what we want to be. He's hyperbolic. So he says we love you and flattery complete. And then he has a couple of requests, which hopefully we'll get to one day. He would like to hear something on Dr. Seuss. Okay. And the reason why is because he has a new daughter

that he has not met yet. Oh, God, it's gotta be rough right now. Holy cow that is this stuff. And Josh, he has only met her through Skype, which is that video conferencing technology. Yeah. So that's very sad. And Dr. Seuss was awesome. And I would love to do a podcast on him. I would too. Let's do it. Do you know he died the same day as Miles Davis? I did not. Bad day. I remember getting both of those pieces of news when I was in college and it really bummed me out to my heroes. And then he wants to hear one on sexual reproduction and evolution. This is a theoretical marriage that I've never been able to tie the knot on. How in the vast realms of evolutionary possibilities, the two separate organisms each decide to belch forth half of their genetic

material and stir them together. What environmental factors stabilize such a mutation? I love that guy. Dude, he's super smart and cool. And we sent them Camp Liberty. We sent them 12 t-shirts. And we just got a photo of them wearing the house stuff works t-shirts with machine guns and tanks. Bitchin'. It is awesome. And I hope we can frame it super large and put it off. We have to. We should pop it up on the blogs. Yeah, it's a good idea. Okay, let's do it. Let's actually do it this time. Well, I'll get his permission and then I'll do it. Okay. But will you actually do that? Yes. Okay. So I want to thank Norman for your service and you guys are awesome. And thanks for listening and supporting us and come home soon and safe. Heads off to all of you. And if you're

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agency would turn out to be a front for a drug pilot who would claim he did it all for this CIA. I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco. Join me for Murder in Miami. Talk about walking into the devil's den. Listen to Murder in Miami on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1968, five black girls were picked up by police after running away from a reform school in Mt. Megs, Alabama. I'm writer and reporter Josie Deffie Rice. And in a new podcast, I investigate the abuse that thousands of black children suffered at the Alabama Industrial School for Negro children and how those five girls changed everything. Listen to Unreformed on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.