Ever wondered how chicken nuggets are made? There’s the question of what’s actually in them — a continual source of jokes since the dawn of their existence — but the ingredients aren’t the only mystery. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, about half a million people work in meat-processing plants, slaughtering livestock and cutting carcasses into parts. In Arkansas, a kind of unofficial chicken capital, this work might also involve making a slurry of meat and skin and bones, then breading it and frying it, and finally freezing the little pieces and strips to become chicken fingers or nuggets. Most of these workers are immigrants; many are refugees. They are doing largely invisible work, while being underpaid, overworked and mistreated. Recently, the federal government has begun to criminalize immigration, a development unfolding at the same time that the dirty and dangerous work done by immigrants has been deemed essential. After all, meat — the most American of foods — is something we are told we cannot live without.In this episode we speak about these workers with Alice Driver, author of the 2024 book “Life and Death of the American Worker: The Immigrants Taking on America’s Largest Meatpacking Company.”What You’re Eating is hosted by Jerusha Klemperer and produced by Nathan Dalton and FoodPrint.org, which is a project of the GRACE Communications Foundation. You can find us at www.FoodPrint.org where we have this podcast as well as articles, reports, a Food Label Guide and more.Follow @foodprintorg on Instagram, Facebook, Threads and BlueskyStay Informed. Get the latest food news, from FoodPrint.And if you’re enjoying the podcast, consider leaving us a positive review.
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37:24
Buzzkill Epsiode 1: Save Which Bees?
The American bumblebee was once the most common bee species in the United States. Its numbers have declined by 90 percent in the last two decades. The problem is bigger than just the loss of an iconic species. Three-fourths of the food crops humans grow depend on pollinators – bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and more. Industrial monocultures sap the soil. Rampant chemical use poisons our water and our bodies. Reckless stewardship of the land wastes our precious resources. Buzzkill asks why we raise food this way – and how we can change things for the better.Americans stepped up to do something about dying bees. But what if all those backyard colonies are making the problem worse? In Buzzkill’s premiere episode, host Teresa Cotsilos takes an in-depth look at whether raising domesticated bees, especially in cities, is harming the wild species we need to preserve biodiversity.Buzzkill is a six-part series from the Food & Environment Reporting Network, hosted by FERN staff writer and producer Teresa Cotsilos. Listen to more episodes at thefern.org.
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31:08
Cruel & Unusual: Veal, Foie Gras, Octopus
There are a lot of ways to raise animals for consumption — and while some would argue we shouldn’t be eating animals at all, others advocate rooting out the cruelest practices, the ones that cause the most suffering. But how do you measure cruelty? Do some animals deserve to suffer less than others because they’re especially cute or smart? And does your right to enjoy a fancy or delicious meal trump the right of an animal to not experience extreme cruelty? In this episode, we look at three controversial foods — veal, foie gras and octopus — and the campaigns launched by animal rights activists to stop their production and consumption. These foods and the animals they come from have a lot to teach us about the ethics of animal agriculture — and possibly about ourselves.This episode features Daisy Freund, Vice President of Farm Animal Welfare at ASPCA; Cheryl Leahy, Executive Director of Animal Outlook; and Dr. Elena Lara, Senior Research and Public Affairs Advisor at Compassion in World Farming.What You’re Eating is produced by Nathan Dalton and FoodPrint.org, which is a project of the GRACE Communications Foundation. You can find us at www.FoodPrint.org where we have this podcast as well as articles, reports, a Food Label Guide and more.Follow @foodprintorg on Instagram, Facebook, X and Threads. Stay Informed. Get the latest food news, from FoodPrint.And if you’re enjoying the podcast, consider leaving us a positive review.
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59:29
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59:29
Vanilla and Chocolate: Foundational Flavors
Vanilla and Chocolate — the two most beloved flavors in the world — have been linked since the beginning. Both products, the vanilla bean and the cacao pod, originated in Mexico, thousands of years ago, where Aztecs used vanilla to make the bitter cocoa powder in their sacred chocolate drink more palatable. Today these two flavors, in both natural and artificial form, dominate our dessert options, from ice cream scoops to the sweet snacks in grocery aisles. But both have complicated stories: long and hidden supply chains, an extraction of wealth from communities in the Global South, and all of the environmental and social problems that come from a system that leaves smallholder farmers in poverty. How can we reconcile our love of these essential flavors with their often problematic production? Can we hold large companies accountable? And is it possible to produce vanilla and chocolate in a different and better way?This episode features Jennifer Boggiss of Heilala Vanilla, Tim McCollum of Beyond Good, and Allie Brudney from Corporate Accountability Lab. What You’re Eating is produced by Nathan Dalton and FoodPrint.org, which is a project of the GRACE Communications Foundation. You can find us at www.FoodPrint.org where we have this podcast as well as articles, reports, a Food Label Guide and more.Follow @foodprintorg on Instagram, Facebook, and X. Stay Informed. Get the latest food news, from FoodPrint.And if you’re enjoying the podcast, consider leaving us a positive review.
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51:45
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51:45
Losing Biodiversity, Losing Flavors
We can see the causes and effects of biodiversity loss all around us: only one variety of banana or pineapple for sale in every grocery store. Or the miles and miles or corn and soy you pass as you drive the roads of Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois. Or the windshield effect: that there are far fewer dead insects on our windshields as we drive those country roads. Biodiversity refers to the awesome array of life on earth: everything from microbes to insects to plants to animals to entire ecosystems. We are right now in what’s being called “a biodiversity crisis”, in terms of the number of species we are losing and the increasing pace at which that loss is happening. The primary driver of species loss is our global agriculture system: in other words, the way we grow our food. And as we lose those varieties and breeds of animals and plants, we don’t just lose their genetics, we lose their unique tastes and flavors, too.This episode features Preeti Simran Sethi, author of Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love; Ricardo Salvador, Director of the Food and Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists; Rowen White, a seed keeper, farmer, and founding member of the Indigenous Seed Keepers Network, a project of the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance; Ryan Nebeker, Research and Policy Analyst with FoodPrint; and Urvashi Rangan, Chief Scientist for FoodPrint.Follow @foodprintorg on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Stay Informed. Get the latest food news, from FoodPrint.And if you’re enjoying the podcast, consider leaving us a positive review.
Whether it’s a salad, a hamburger or your morning egg sandwich, the way your meal gets made has an impact. What You’re Eating is here to help you understand how your food gets to your plate, and see the full impact of the food we eat on animals, planet and people. Host Jerusha Klemperer is the Director of FoodPrint.org, a website that uncovers the problems with the industrial food system, and offers examples of more sustainable practices, as well as practical advice for how you can help support a better system, through the food that you buy and the system changes you push for.
From practical conversations with farmers about the true cost of raising chickens to tips from chefs about how to reduce kitchen waste to discussions with policy experts on the barriers to sustainability, FoodPrint’s new podcast covers everything from the why to the how.
USA