The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Raw Deal Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed, and the Fight for the Future of Meat By Chloe Sorvino

Episode Date: December 16, 2022

Raw Deal Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed, and the Fight for the Future of Meat By Chloe Sorvino A shocking and unputdownable exposé of the United States meat industry, the devastating failures of the country’s food system, and the growing disappointment of alternative meat producers claiming to revolutionize the future of food. Perfect for fans of Kochland, The Meat Racket, and The Secret Life of Groceries. Well before COVID-19 swept across the United States and the chairman of Tyson Foods infamously declared that the food supply chain was dangerously vulnerable, America’s meat industry was reaching a breaking point. Years of consolidation, price-fixing, and power grabs by elite industry insiders have harmed consumers and caused environmental destruction. Americans have no idea where their meat comes from. And while that’s hurting us, it’s also making others rich. Now, financial journalist Chloe Sorvino presents an expansive view of the meat industry and its future as its fundamental weaknesses are laid bare for all to see. With unprecedented access and in-depth research, Raw Deal investigates corporate greed, how climate change will upend our food production, and the limitations of local movements challenging the status quo. A journalistic tour de force that dives deep into one of America’s biggest and most vital industries, Raw Deal is a crucial and groundbreaking read that is sure to be a modern investigative journalism classic.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, a man who didn't write the joke for what a man is doing, so there's not one, so there you go. That's the joke of the show. I didn't write it. There you go. So fun is fun, guys. Welcome to the show. We certainly appreciate you guys tuning in.

Be sure to tune in next time, and I'll have a better joke for you written. Raw Deal. We're going to be talking today about the hidden corruption, corporate greed, and the fight for the future of meat. Chloe Servine is on the show with us today. We're talking to her about her amazing hot new book that just came off the presses and everything else. In the meantime, as always, the family that loves you but doesn't judge you, and we're not a cult, take a look for the show to your family, friends, or relatives. It's a wonderful gift to give at the holidays because, number one, it's free.

So there you go. Tell people you paid a lot for it. Just line them. But to refer people to the show, go to iTunes.com, YouTube.com, ForrestSKrissFoss, Goodreads.com, ForrestSKrissFoss, all those crazy places you can subscribe to us on the Internet. Once again, all those places are free. For an unlimited time, you can grab this deal.

So get it while it's still on the holiday sales. She is the author of the latest new book that's come out December 6, 2022. Raw Deal, Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed, and the Fight for the Future of Meat. Chloe Servino is on the show with us today, and she'll be talking about an amazing book. She leads coverage of food, drink, and architecture. I'm sorry, agriculture. Agriculture. I went to public school.

I think we had somebody recently from architecture, but she can do that as well if she wants. She can do whatever she wants, really. But she does mostly those things, food, drink, and agriculture at Forbes. She's been featured on NPR, Women's Daily, and the Financial Times, and all that good stuff. Welcome to the show, Chloe. How are you? Thank you so much for having me. I think food and farming probably rolls off the tongue a little bit easier. But yes, it's all agriculture, food, and meat, and all that's in between. Yeah. We have this plexiglass thing that sits in front of the screen, and the agriculture word got jammed up in the seam there.

That's what – I promise I can spell stuff. Like, I can spell the T-H-E. Anyway, give us your.com so people can find you on the interwebs, please. Yeah, www.ChloeSorvino.com. There you go. And raw deals availablevino.com. There you go. And raw deals available wherever books are sold. There you go. So congratulations on the new book.

What motivated you to want to write this book? There were some really dark days in the pandemic, and there came a point where I started worrying that I was maybe one of the only people who could really tell this story. I was in my apartment talking to some billionaires who I've talked to for years and hearing them gloating about how when it's raining gold outside, they're walking around with buckets. But then at the same time, I was also speaking with the scientists and reading the studies about climate change getting worse and worse. And then also talking to the workers who were being pushed on the line and being worried about going to work,

but at the same time didn't have chicken in their own freezers. Yeah. I mean, it was pretty crazy. And COVID spread through a lot of those, the chicken places and stuff and the farming stuff. A lot of them were kind of forced to work or whatever. That was a crazy time. Yeah. And this book isn't a pandemic book. It only really goes into the pandemic as this introductory catalyzing moment. But I really do think it was such an emotional moment. And so many people were looking at the meat industry for the first time with new eyes that I really wanted to start off with that. There you go. So what were some of the things that triggered that and got you to write the book? You know, aside from just seeing the profits amounting and just the billions and billions of dollars were

lining up when at the same time, then these meat packers were often exporting more than they ever had before. And those meat exports that were going around the world were at the risk of the workers, but then also putting the environment in harm's way, actually polluting, causing soil erosion, causing water damage. And these hidden costs were just not being felt by everyday Americans. And Americans have no idea where their meat comes from. And that's hurting us. And that's why I wanted to share the story. Yeah. I mean, we used to live in this world, you know, decades ago or a long time ago, wherever that was, where, you know, you had farmers and stuff and did stuff. But now we have this industrial farming and do you expose and talk a lot about things that go on with that? Absolutely. The book goes into how in the past six decades, there's been this mass

consolidation of wealth and power and how these billionaires in the meatpacking industry often have been using that to then create, get more profits from the producers, dictating how they farm, making them cut corners they might not want to otherwise take. And so what's your background on this? I mean, how long have you been writing for it? Are you vegan? Do you want to promote veganism with the book? Or is this really about exposing, you know, you talk about the polluting the environment, mistreating workers, fixing prices,

bribing, manipulating politics. What's some of your motivation behind that? Or maybe what you're thinking is? Absolutely. And ask me the vegan question again in a second, but I'll give you a little bit of background on where I am and why I came to this. You know. I've been at Forbes for nearly a decade and I head up our food and agriculture coverage, but I started out at Forbes doing the net worth valuations off the record, talking to billionaires for all these big lists that you see, the Forbes 400, the world billionaires list. And it wasn't just food and agriculture. It was hedge funds. It was real estate. It was bankers. It was the whole gamut. But then I started specializing on food and farming because I was seeing that

there was so much wealth centered, particularly in meat. And yet we didn't even have a person really covering this as a daily beat every day. And so I started writing about all these different hidden monopolists in our food system and came to this book through that, through this billionaire world, market-driven solutions needing to come across and for people to really start talking to the investors, the financiers, the loan folks that are at the end of the day underpinning the meat industry and keeping the control there. And so yes, even if I'm vegan or not, and I'm not, I don't think that's the point of this book. This book, I want to be very clear. The meat industry needs to fundamentally change.

The global growth of meat needs to stop. We need to completely rethink how we consume meat and meat consumption needs to go down on the whole. Pollution, factory farming needs to end. But there is a place for meat in the future. And I do think some of these conversations around going vegan being the only solution become too didactic and have problems within that as well. Yeah. You know, we saw the chicken prices. I remember I used to buy chicken when I was working out and the chicken prices soared during COVID.

I mean, everything pretty much soared. But you talk in the book about, you know, fixing prices, monopolies. And we have all these things that, you know, somebody's things that somebody's obviously making billions of dollars doing. It's not Joe Farmer anymore in Iowa. They're in the backfields. No, and that's why I wanted to share this story, too, because consumers have no idea how there's been almost a decade of hundreds of different class action and different consumer-based lawsuits alleging price fixing and chicken and pork and beef and how that has hurt consumers. And it's these allegations, these lawsuits, and there have been many settlements already of more than $200 million

settled in some of these settlements. But it's coming from the biggest names in the food industry, from McDonald's to Kraft Heinz, ConAgra, Nestle, Wawa, Chick-fil-A. Across the board, folks are saying they've been hurt and that customers have been hurt and that there needs to be a rectifying of that. Is there a – there's the Food and Drug Administration. Does there need to be better government scrutiny? Do you find? What's going on? That is the million-dollar, or maybe I should say billion-dollar question. The FDA does some of this, and the book goes into where that regulation works out. There's obviously the USDA as well, and the USDA as well as the DOJ have been hiring a lot of antitrust regulators and enforcers

to try to look at this and other issues. But at the end of the day, there are some really big holes gaping in the system and a lot of vulnerability that exists because there are so few players dominating such a huge amount of our food production. Hi, folks. Chris Voss here with a little station break. Hope you're enjoying the show so far. We'll resume here in a second.

I'd like to invite you to come to my coaching, speaking, and training courses website. You can also see our new podcast over there at chrisvossleadershipinstitute.com. Over there, you can find all the different stuff that we do for speaking engagements, if you'd like to hire me, training courses that we offer, and coaching for leadership, management, entrepreneurism, podcasting, corporate stuff. With over 35 years of experience in business and running companies as a CEO, I think I can offer a wonderful breadth of information and knowledge to you or anyone that you want to invite me to for your company. Thanks for tuning in.

We certainly appreciate you listening to the show. And be sure to check out ChrisVossLeadershipInstitute.com. Now back to the show. So give us some teasers of the salient points of the book. We don't want to give people the whole book because they've got to go buy it, darn it. Yes, please. Give us some of the salient points that really stuck out for you that you think people will be enticed by. So it starts off with this, how the consolidation and wealth and power really got here.

This David Goliath and breaking down the financial system behind that, how even just the Reagan administration in the 1980s have continued to have ripple effects to this day in terms of judicial appointments and the lobbying that has squeezed out smaller farmers and given bigger meatpackers more control. But maybe one of the more things that really has stuck with me as I've continued to do this reporting and continue to talk to folks about what surprised me most through this book writing is that the threat of antibiotic resistance from the meat industry can't be understated. It's going to be one of the most, if not the most serious public health threat that we face, especially as climate change gets worse. And there's really this hidden problem because meatpacking industry really targets some of the most vulnerable workers in our country. But then there are all these hidden

health risks that these workers have, not only just from the plants and machinery breaking down where it's not supposed to be, or even just from how, you know, something like the pandemic could create, you know, serious problems in the plant. But think about this, you know, the most chicken workers, for example, are migrant or refugees, immigrants, maybe they're coming to this country, and it's some of their first weeks in this country. And even if they work a chicken plant job for one summer or one month, they could contract a super bug. And that super bug may never ignite itself, may never do anything, but it will be there forever. And it could get ignited later on. And so decades later, there could be an inflammation

or a virus. Maybe you have pneumonia and you're in the hospital and all of a sudden that superbug is injected. And then that illness becomes all of a sudden an antibiotic resistant disease that spirals very, very quickly. And these workers have no idea that's what they're signing up for. And these deaths are not being recorded. And I don't know if it's still going on. I know that there was a famous raid arrest of like 800 people at a, I think it was in Alabama or Georgia during the Trump administration where they, you know, and this has been going on for like, imagine a long time where they were using illegal workers to do stuff. That, that raid though, they were referencing as cook foods and it was the biggest raid on record in all of like immigration history in the US. And so they're exploiting these, these workers, these immigrant workers,

you know, and I'm sure that, you know, from some of the different things I've seen with how they're treated on farms and different things, they're not treated very well. And so there's that. What about the quality of our food? There's a lot of, you know, ever since the more industrial things have happened, you know, you've seen outbreaks like what was the one with the burrito place? Salmonella.

Salmonella. Yes. The meat industry passes the cost down the line all in the name of getting more profits and holding more profits but that that hits on every level and so they're they're making these plants more efficient they're cutting corners often in ways that have led to some really really problematic and scary recalls on top of that then you also have how you know what actually these animals eat has changed so drastically just in the past half century that the actual nutrition and the actual levels of omega-3s and different fatty acids and different key nutrients we need for this most bioavailable protein that just aren't

there. And when an animal doesn't eat on the open range, it really shows in the quality of the meat. Even if it's, you know, USDA prime, it's still worse than if it is something like a bison that is eating whatever it wants and what it can choose to pick and eat. And then, I don't know if you talk about in the book, do you talk about, what was the thing they had in the Europe with the brain thing they would get? Mad cow. Mad cow disease, yeah. Mad cow is a crazy one.

And there were even some more recent outbreaks, even I believe in 2020, of mad cow. And that is one of those zoonotic diseases that can quickly move through a factory farm and completely, aside from even just the horrible animal aspect, this is a huge amount of waste. Those were animals that were being fed millions and millions and tons of industrially, chemically farmed corn and soy that then, at the end of the day, they're not even being eaten by anyone. Those calories are completely wasted. Yeah. Do you talk, get any of the, I think, wasn't it called pink slime back in the day? It was a weird sort of.

All the additives that can be used in these products are crazy. And yeah, there's like a hundred different animals that could even be in one fast food burger, for example. But the book goes into not just the pink slime, not just some of those stories you've heard about over the years. There are new types of additives that are being used in these products, like plasticizers, for example, that continue to have massive, massive health implications that we're only just beginning to understand. Wow. And so, you know, what do consumers need to know

more about with their meat? Not only the additives, but what about the monopoly pricing and stuff like that that goes on? I mean, it seems like, you know, wasn't it supposed to be there? You know, things are supposed to be competitive or, you know. Yes. And these markets have become so uncompetitive over time, especially in some specific regions. And so consumers have really an uphill battle and labels are more greenwashed, more confusing than ever before. I mean, it takes so much time and effort just to do the research you need to do to figure out if your pasture raised or grass fed producers actually doing it in a sustainable and healthy and ethical way. And so there's been just this co-opting that's been happening over time, which has at the end of the day, only shielded consumers from the

truth and helped meat packers keep their power. But there are ways to take a more active role in your food system and make sure you are supporting producers that are doing a better job. And at the end of the day, I can talk more about this, but the voting with your dollars has been beaten over the heads of consumers for so long. But it really is this false messiah because what $1 for an average consumer is able to purchase means nothing when it's compared to the billionaire behind Tyson, who's decided what meat is really getting sold in these grocery stores. And so in short, not shopping at a grocery store, which almost all grocery stores are sourcing this feedlot industrialized meat,

that's a super easy step, but it gets so much more complicated because you have the antibiotic resistance to consider, you have what those cattle are eating, what those animals are eating, and then also how it's getting to you. With the antibiotic resistance, my understanding of it, so correct me if I'm wrong, is that they feed that to the animals and then it passes through uh the the meat towards us i think they found like even like fish they catch in lakes will have like antidepressants in them from the water they're drinking and you know all the crap that we throw away yeah and so the book does uh some of the more news-breaking work in its antibiotic resistance chapter, actually, because almost every antibiotic-free label that you see, even in most grocery stores, has never been validated by the government. And so now you're having a few class actions even emerging for a grocery store like a Whole Foods, which is like the kind of so-called pioneering natural food seller. But there are now customers saying, I bought antibiotic

free meat at your store. And it actually has now tested positive for an animal that had those antibiotics. And so there's a massive validation and verification problem that could be easily solved by government, you know, just even government taking the step. And there are regulators in every single meatpacking plant because it has, there have to be, you know, some of these tests, I talk about some tests that could be easily put into plants, take a few seconds, and it would seriously clear up this, this Pandora's box that's emerged. But antibiotic resistance pretty much happens in these plants and in these feedlots because animals are super close together. They're packed together and that spreads disease really quick, but they also have to grow really quick.

And a lot of these antibiotics help them put on weight quicker. It helps them put on weight more efficiently as they're not getting sick from all their neighbors. And so it really isn't needed in systems that have more open air, more actual grazing on grasses. But it's this bandaid that industrial meat has slapped on production and it's created massive issues. And in my understanding, there's not enough regulators. This kind of comes up whenever they have a huge meat recall. Like I'll see something like 22 million pounds of meat have been recalled. And you're just like, that's a lot of meat.

And it speaks to how badly it can infect an entire whole, I guess, farm or whole production of a meat process. The FDA is seriously going through a major reckoning right now. I mean, meat, baby formula, the whole thing. But in meat, I get reports near daily about huge, huge salmonella outbreaks or listeria outbreaks and things that, again, these diseases that are hurting people, seriously hurting people that don't have to be there. I spoke with several different lawyers for some of these big recalls, and average Americans who maybe eat one bad burger are making millions of dollars often on these life-threatening cases.

Wow. Wow. So one of the things that I remember reading about, I think I watched the movie, I think it was Food Incorporated, I think. Food Inc., yeah. Yeah, Food Inc., and I've seen a few other ones. And, of course, I'm familiar with the McDonald's thing when they argued about Chick-McDougats, and it never left my head where the judge called it Franken-meat.

Franken-meat, yes, yes. I appreciate that, and I have put the Franken-adjective in too many of my Forbes stories there you go and one of the things I've seen I think I even saw a farmer talk about on TikTok one time but they talked about some of the fakeness that goes into the certification of organic or non-organic

and how it's kind of almost like a trust system where you have to trust them that they're truly organic. And, or sometimes they can just produce the food and they're like, yeah, throw it over in the organic bin. We can sell it for, you know, 30% more or something. Yeah. That's that emerging validation problem. It's not just in the antibiotic free labels. It's in the grass fed labels. It is in pretty much everything because at the end of the day, organic non-GMO, they're all based on these affidavits. So essentially what happens is if you are a meat provider that's doing, you know, antibiotic free, for example, and you have to send

in a paper, an affidavit to the USDA once a year, it gets approved and you pretty much never get asked again. And there's random testing on a tiny, tiny fraction of 1% of the total meat. So it's just, it's not happening and we're paying the price. Wow. Yeah. I mean, because what you eat, you know, I learned this when I lost weight that I really need to start looking at my food and what was in it. And, you know, I've heard so much about organic and non-organic. I really don't trust it much when things claim to be organic. I try and look for, you know, non-GMO labels, stuff like that and stuff. But, you know, when it comes to like vegetables and stuff, I'm like, I really don't.

I really don't know one way or another. I don't know if I trust it. It's tough because there is a lot of organic fraud out there. But then there also is just a lot of producers who once were organic or who farm probably as close to organic as possible. But also the organic standard itself has been so hard and kind of gotten corporatized too. And there was a lot of greenwashing even there and even some substances that some organic farmers say should never even be used in organic but has have been able to get let in and that's why we all need to take a more active role in our food system definitely did did uh i think one of the things that was really gross about pink slime is they talked about how they would run it through uh oh what's the solvent chemical that uh you like use the cleaning ammon. Too many to count.

Ammonium. Do they do that with all meats? Was that being done before and still being done today? Yeah, there are some interesting, I'll say, washes that meat gets used on. So in the industrial setting, there are a lot of different chemicals used on meat to make sure it's not having salmonella or, you know, and that's another bandaid again, that, you know, the slaughterhouse is used to work out some of the problems of having so many problematic animals in confinement, getting diseases, getting, getting too big, too quickly, et cetera. Um, and yeah, there is some surfactants, different things used on me to clean them. Uh, there are more than, I think a thousand different, um, additives or different ingredients that are able to be used in America that aren't approved in Europe, for example. And there's

just, again, talking about FDA, no regulation, no oversight. It's an abomination comparatively just there. Do you talk in your book about what people can do? Do we need to have a movement? We all need to go on the streets and say, we're sick of it. We're not going to take it anymore, that sort of thing. Absolutely. And it's very much a call to action from that perspective. But also, I hope it's a call to action for the millions of workers in the industrial meat industry or in the financial system that are underpinning these deals and further consolidation. There was an acquisition that happened just this week with JBS. And I hope that the workers there are trying to be the squeaky wheel. I mean,

we have pretty much eight years to make significant, significant change needed, and it's going to take everyone. We don't have enough time to start from scratch. So it's going to take the workers that had been in the traditional meat industry as well. Yeah. Maybe we need maybe more whistleblowers coming out then. Is that what you mean? Whistleblowers. There are a lot of these consumer class actions right now and that have been gaining interest then from the regulators. Sometimes these lawsuits have to happen first. And then, you know, like even with the price fixing allegations and lawsuits we talked about, there were a lot more of these lawsuits first, then the DOJ started investigating. And so the more work there, the better. But then also at the end of the day,

you can take an active role in your food system. You, it's as simple as, you know, trying to buy actually validated meat that's not rated antibiotics. There are a few of these new certifications out there that are doing testing in plants that are proving it isn't really antibiotic raised. And so that's just one example, not going to big buy grocery stores, if that's possible for you to not support these industrial meat systems, trying to support financially some of these alternative systems. That's at the end of the day where the rubber meets the road. Definitely. Definitely. It's crazy what's out there. And like I said, I watched all these

shows. I watched the, I don't know what the correct term is, but the plumping up of chickens where they really force feed them quickly. I think they do the same thing with ducks on that one thing that, uh, they do in France. Um, and, and, uh,

I imagine they're doing the same thing with the cows and stuff, right? I mean, the reason that corn even just has been introduced to these diets in the past few decades is because of a, how available it is in America, but also how quickly it puts on fat on these animals i i spoke with one slaughterhouse billionaire a bunch of years ago which was a really big cattle

a big moment for me in realizing all this and they had to make their plant double in size just because the animals between 1970 and 1990 grew so bigly that they couldn't fit through the actual production line yeah so it's physical. But then also, you talk about chicken. One of the other big wow moments for me in this book was that 99% of all chicken in America comes from the same genetics. And those genetics are what's responsible

for sickly birds, woody breasts, these white striping, bad taste, unflavorful, bad nutrition too, less omega-3s. Wow. It all comes back to actually the breed. Jesus. Wow. Well, I'm kind of vegan-ish.

That's how I lost a lot of weight. But you forced me over the edge. You know, I know that there's a lot of this going on. People need to do more. Does the news need to cover it more? It seems like, you know, I mean, Forbes, you're writing with Forbes and covering it. Do we need to have more people on the beat, more exposes of the stuff? I mean, more transparency, more accountability, always helpful. I write about this stuff once a week on Forbes. I've got a weekly newsletter that has

41,000 subscribers join fresh take, um, all about food and sustainability, but it can't be understated because at the end of the day, there's been so much focus and maybe too much hyper-focus in the media on some of these alternative challengers that really have barely made a dent in the actual volume, while not focusing on the Tysons and the JBSs of the world. And that's why I tried to set up this book, starting out with that big industrial problem and then talking about how some of these challengers have maybe taken up too much of the media frenzy. So without giving away anything in the book, because I don't want people to go buy the book, but I guess there are ways that you maybe outline or suggest that, do we have to abandon industrialization or do we just need to improve the quality of it?

Well, we don't have enough time to start from scratch. And so while I think in a perfect world, we would completely re-regionalize the food system and we'd be growing mushrooms in different states and distributing them to local locally. At the end of the day, we have to use what we've got. And there's a lot of workers. There's a lot of assets, there's a lot of infrastructure that big industrial meat has, and they've accumulated over the past five decades. And we're just not going to be able to, as I said, from an antitrust perspective, you're not going to be able to unscramble the eggs that have already been scrambled. So it's going to take fundamentally changing those operations, potentially redistributing or making more plants spread across the industry a bit more. But yeah, beyond the time to waste.

Crazy stuff. Well, reading your book and educating yourself and getting familiar with, you know, what's going on in our food. I'm going to subscribe to your newsletter because i try to eat really good someone taught me a long time ago uh that they're like do you know why the the the real food is on the outside of the store the produce and you know the the the live the living food you can call it and you know why the dead food the frozen food is in the middle of the store and i'm like no, no, why? And they go, because it's alive and it, you know, it dies quickly and it has to be replaced. And so it's easier to turn it out when it's at the front of the store, the stuff in the middle, you know, you don't have to turn

that over and just leave that till, you know, the next century and it'll be fine as long as it's frozen. And so, and so my friend taught me, he goes, when you go in the store, you want to, you want to walk the outside of the store, you know, the part where, you know, do the drug part too. That's a joke, people. But also, you know, do the produce section and buy living food and food that's alive. And he really changed my mindset on that. And he goes, don't go down aisles you don't want to go down that have dead food on them. So I skipped the pop aisles, the chip aisles, the frozen food section, and try and stay away from all that stuff.

But it's hard sometimes. Absolutely, it's hard. But that's a great strategy. And then when I talk about re-regionalizing the food system, I talk about it really from that perspective because our supermarkets have had so much food dead that they're selling. And those ultra processed foods are what is making people sick and not giving them the nutrients they really need. But if we had a regionalized food system, there used to be thousands of canneries and different small kitchens and different plants in this country. And that would help small producers, local producers, independents in different communities make their food a little

bit easier or convenient without having to have all the processing, all the additives that big food has demanded because groceries, stores like in Walmart require so much self stability alone just to get in the door there. Is it just going to get worse if we just don't stop breeding? We hit like 7 billion people now on the planet, which I was surprised it grew some more, but I don't know. I guess no one's getting the memos. No one's getting the memos at all. People are just like, we're having more kids. Like somebody yelled at me one day for like, use plastic forks and knives, Chris. And I'm like,

yeah, but I have, I'm not married. I don't have any kids. You had some kids that will breed several landfills. So, you know, I've said a little bit. But is buying, is maybe, you know, I live in Utah, so we do have farms here and fairly good meat farms here. I actually buy raw milk from a local dairy, and I love it. It's a pain in the ass to get because everyone, it sells out so quickly. It's like $12 a gallon. But it's certified raw milk. They test it and everything.

And it comes from a big meatpacking plant. Well, I don't know how big it is, but it must be fairly large. I know there's other people, like I could find on Craigslist, that are smaller farms where I could buy meat if I wanted to and things of that nature. What do you think about that concept of maybe how we all need to maybe start, you know, finding those local farmers? Absolutely. And, you know, that's why I write in the book about, you know, the past decade of the local food movement also has been a disappointment.

It's only really taken up a billion dollars in annual sales. And that's a tiny, tiny, tiny, less than 1% fraction of the total food industry. And so while supporting local producers is great, it's also about supporting the local producers that are working with the systems of production and scale that are helping them to actually have the scale they need to make a dent. And so I get all of the pasture-raised meat that I do buy from the local food hub that works with my community-supported agriculture share. Really, that's just the website. There's a network of farmers across New York and Vermont that all sell food through this marketplace online. And then they are able to save money because they don't have to worry about the shipping

or logistics of getting it there because it's all distributed directly through the farm share. And that's just a simple way. It's like those economic systems, which are also just as important to support as the actual producers themselves. There you go. I mean, I love farmer's markets, but they don't normally sell meat at most farmer's markets. But I can see you reaching out. But there are some people who live in areas where they can't do that. If you live in New York Central, it's a little hard to go find the farmer market on the corner.

Well, you know, potentially a little more controversial, but I'll tell you too a little bit about the book. You know, I'm a little brutal on farmer's markets because I think farmer's markets have been this kind of cornerstone of this past decade of local food. And it's been a way for people to feel really good about what they're buying and what they're supporting. But at the end of the day, it still really is supporting an unsustainable financial situation often for those farmers. Also, the workers at these farmers markets are rarely ever getting overtime or even healthcare. And so I think it's a way that people think they're actively engaging in this food system, but they really can be making way more meaningful commitments. What about better labeling? I mean, I know there's a lot of labeling on some stuff I bought.

I think we have a CEO for an ice cream thing and they've got all the labels, non-GMO and all that sort of stuff. Do we need more labels about some of the issues you've written about in the book? I mean, labels have gotten so greenwashed just in the past few years and there are are these validation issues that I've been talking about, you know, that have emerged as there have been alternatives. They're trying to make a differentiation on these products. But at the end of the day, there's just there's too much out there. There's too much greenwashing. And so that's at the end of the job of the regulators. The government can really only do that for us. At this point, there are other additional

certifications, different watchdogs. And while those are all good, it does also create this accessibility problem because it takes a lot of privilege and time just to figure out what certifications are actually worth the time. Wow. Crazy, man. And worth cutting into Mr. Billionaire's money for his yacht. So we don't want to put him out. Right. Of course. His fourth yacht, I should say. So there you go. Well, educating them, uh, educating oneself on, uh, reading your book and getting it, uh, from wherever fine books are sold, uh, is really important so that people can know what's going on. I've had a lot of, a lot of my friends turn

me on to food incorporated and, uh, you know, people sharing this, people sharing the book, sharing the message, uh, you know, get familiar with what's going on. I know so many young mothers worry about what goes into their, their, their children's bellies. A lot of these, um, I think, uh, people, kids that were poisoned by meat were just young kids. And, you know, as adults, we were kind of able to deal with it in our systems that were established, but, you know, it killed these young boys and stuff. And so, you know, I think parents are concerned about, you know, what's going on in their food and they need to know more. Well, it's been wonderful to have you on, Chloe. Anything more you want to touch

or tease on the book before we go? I so appreciate it. Yeah. You know, I think also young moms are, and moms in general are the purchasers often for their household. And I think it's also because children are so vulnerable and these band-aids that have been put on meat and have created issues like you talk about with recalls do impact children even more than adults. And so it's really, really serious, but all these other nutritional problems also impact childhood development so much more than I think folks really realize. But no, in the end of the day, we just don't have enough time to start from scratch. And we also don't have enough time or money to waste on the wrong solutions and on the

wrong problems to solve. So I'm optimistic. I'm muted, but I'm optimistic. And I'm excited for a lot of more folks to take an active role in how they get their food. Well, it's great. You're educating people on it because the more, you know, it's like that PSA, the more, you know, so there you go. Uh, give us your.coms wherever you want people to find you on the interwebs, et cetera, et cetera. Thanks so much. Yeah. Deli, deli, deli. Chloe Sorvino.com Instagram at C Sorvino, Twitter, Chloe Sorvino. My newsletter at Forbes is Fresh Take. I have a personal one called Mind Feeder, and the book is Raw Deal.

There you go. Order of the books, folks, wherever fine books are sold, as we always say on the show. Stay away of those alleyway bookstores because, you know, you might slip and fall and get a neat tetanus shot. Go to see Raw Deal, Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed, and the Fight for the Future of Meat out on December 6, 2022. Thanks for tuning in, folks. Be good to each other. Stay safe, and we'll see you guys next time. And that should have a sound.