What You're Eating
by FoodPrint.org
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.
Episodes
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Pesticides: Profits vs. People
Who is harmed by pesticides? A child eating a big, red, conventionally grown Driscoll’s strawberry. Or a bowl of Cheerios. Or does the chain of harm go back further? To a farmworker, spraying pesticides up and down a row of crops. Or a farming family, living on the land where the crops are grown....
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Our Love of Sugary Drinks
Over a hundred years ago, we started drinking soda. Today, soda is part of a larger category called sugar sweetened beverages, that includes energy drinks, Dunkin’ frozen matcha lattes, giant Boba teas and Starbucks strawberry acai refreshers. How did these companies tap into our innate cravings…
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The Lie of the Little Red Barn
When most of us imagine a farm, it’s a little red barn with happy cows, a pig and a few chickens pecking in the grass. We are taught this story when we are children, through board books, the song “Old McDonald” and our ABCs. But do you really know what happens on an industrial farm? Have you ever...
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What’s the Deal With MAHA?
On this episode we are joined by Helena Bottemiller Evich and Theodore Ross, the co-hosts of the podcast “Forked.” Every two weeks, they discuss “the politics and policy that are turning the American food system on its head.” For much of the past ten months, they have spent a huge amount of time...
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Eat More Beans
If we all ate less meat and more beans, it would be a terrific win for the environment. And that’s not the only thing to love about them! They are very good for you. And satisfying. And versatile. They are also culinary mainstays for a huge number of people from a wide variety of cultures. Beans...
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Lives on the Line
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...
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Going Nuts for Pistachios
Suddenly, it feels like pistachios are everywhere. From Dubai chocolate to pistachio lattes, croissants, nut butters and more … For two years now, pistachio has appeared on several lists of upcoming food trends. How do these food and flavor trends start? How does a product — once mostly eaten by...
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You’re Probably a Vegan in Waiting
If becoming a vegan ever sounded to you like a joy-less task — like you’d have to give up too much, that you’d miss meat too much, that you’d have to transform into an entirely different person — Matt Halteman has some advice. As he writes in his book, Hungry Beautiful Animals: The Joyful Case…
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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,...
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Black Land Loss
After the death of her grandfather, writer Brea Baker went looking to understand him and, through him, her lineage. In rebuilding and reckoning with her family tree, she pieced together a personal story that reflected the greater history of Black America. In this episode we talk to her about her...
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What We Feed Our Pets
We love our pets — a lot. And there’s a booming business — around $136.8 billion worth of pet food, treats and more reflecting that deep love and connection. Of course, as our pets become more central to our families, we become more and more interested in feeding them well. Gone are the days when...
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Refrigeration: From Farm to Table
When refrigerators became commonplace in our kitchens, they changed the way we shopped, cooked and ate. But home refrigerators are just “the tip of the iceberg,” as they say — the last step in a long, cold, technologically impressive supply chain of refrigerated warehouses, trucks, trains, boats...
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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…
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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...
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The All-American Hot Dog
For well over a century, the hot dog has been the quintessential dirt cheap, flavorful, all-American meal — a kind of meaty blank slate on which to slather your regional preferences, like slaw, chili, relish or onions. But can a person who cares about what they're eating and the impact their food...
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The Small but Mighty Oyster
Why does the oyster — amorphous, slimy, hidden in a shell that’s craggier and stranger than that of a scallop or a clam — capture so many food-lovers’ hearts? What exactly is an oyster? Why are most of the oysters we eat farmed? And why, unlike other farmed seafood, are they considered such a...
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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...
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Coffee: From Seed to Cup
For the conscious consumer, buying local products is a way to shorten that distance between us and what we eat or drink, and maybe even learn more about how it was produced by talking to the people who made it. But what about something like coffee, which doesn’t grow anywhere near those of us...
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The History and Future of Plant-based Eating
Maybe you’re concerned about climate change. Maybe you’re worried about how most livestock is raised in inhumane conditions. Or possibly you’re looking to make a change to your diet to be healthier. Whatever your reasons for eating less meat, whatever anyone’s reasons, it’s adding up to…
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PFAS: The "Forever Chemicals" In Your Food
What do you know about a class of chemicals called PFAS? You can’t see them, and you can’t smell them, but they’re there, providing water-resistance and grease-proof protection to burger wrappers and pizza boxes. But PFAS are used for lots more than transporting takeout. They’re used by...
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The Golden Arches in Black America
The good food movement, when it has talked about fast food, has focused on what’s wrong with the industrialized system that produces the burgers and buns and fries, or sometimes the food’s negative health impacts. Occasionally, criticisms have noted the deep ties between McDonald’s and the Black...
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Keeping It Local: Avoiding Big Box Stores
The proliferation of big box stores and giant supermarket chains has changed the face of grocery shopping, taking the place of many locally owned, independent stores and sending profits out to corporate headquarters. Recently, those stores have even started to offer a wide variety of natural and...
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Endless Shrimp
Americans love shrimp. And one of the exciting developments of the past 20 years or so is that shrimp has gotten really affordable. It used to be a luxury food in the form of shrimp cocktails served at a steakhouse or a fancy wedding. Something for special occasions, slightly out of reach. Today,...
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Unwrapping Food's Plastic Problem
Single-use food packaging is one of our thorniest problems. We need a safe and convenient way to get food home from the store, and we need easy ways to eat and drink on the go. How can we do that in a way that does not create so much waste? How can we do it in a way that does not put our bodies…
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The Many, Many Labels on Your Eggs
In the past decade, demand for eggs has grown, but the kind of eggs we are looking for has changed during that time, too. Consumers are eager to know if the chickens had enough space to move around. Were they cage-free? Free-range? Pasture-raised? Organic? In response to those questions about…
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The Power of Big Pork
There was a time when bacon was a “sometimes” food, occasionally paired with eggs at breakfast or in a summer sandwich with the season’s freshest tomatoes. But then, suddenly, bacon was everywhere, from fast food burgers to ice cream to scented candles. And while the peak might have passed, bacon...
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The Milks You're Putting in Your Coffee
For the longest time milk meant cow’s milk — usually whole but maybe skim or 1% depending on how old you are. But today, walk into some independent chains and if you don’t specify what kind of milk you want in your latte, you’ll get oat milk. You know, the stuff that mama oats feed their baby…
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New episodes of What You're Eating coming soon
We’re back, this fall, with all new episodes to help you understand how your food gets to your plate, and see the full impact of the food system on animals, planet and people. We’ll continue to uncover problems with the industrial food system, and offer examples of more sustainable practices, as...
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Centering Ohlone Food and Culture
For our episode, The Big Problem of Food Waste we interviewed Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino who co-founded mak-‘amham, an East Bay organization and restaurant focused on reviving and strengthening traditional Indigenous Ohlone foods and sharing them back with their communities, as well as...
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The Search for Sustainable Salmon
Depending on who you are, your connection to salmon may be spiritual, cultural or just a matter of taste. If you live in the Pacific Northwest, you might be familiar with and appreciate wild salmon, but for the rest of us, our love of salmon avocado rolls reflects a love of farmed salmon. Because...
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Regenerative Mac and Cheese
Annie’s, a subsidiary of General Mills, announced in 2020 that it was “going beyond organic” and “leading the packaged food industry toward regenerative agriculture” with pictures on the box of the farmers who had produced the ingredients with “regenerative” methods. In this episode, we bring...
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Who Decides What's Natural?
Have you ever seen the word “natural” on a pack of hot dogs and wondered what it means? You’re not the only one. The words “natural” or “all natural” on food packaging have been vexing customers and regulators for years. In this episode we look at those words, claims, seals and certifications…
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The Big Problem of Food Waste
The US wastes roughly 40% of the food it produces, much of it perfectly edible and nutritious. Food is lost or wasted for a variety of reasons, from the farm, to the store, to the restaurant, to our very own home kitchens, where each household is throwing away around 21% of the food it buys. In...
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Who Profits from Fake Meat?
Fake meat companies promise that they are on track to replace factory farmed meat. Is there any indication that this is happening? Or are they just a new revenue stream for tech investors and the biggest and most problematic meat companies — Purdue, Tyson, JBS — who are all now making alternative...
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Can Fake Meat Save the World?
Right now you can buy “plant-based” alternatives to burgers, bacon, and sausage anywhere from fast food chains to restaurants to grocery meat cases. The companies who make them say they are better for animals, the climate, and human health, too — that these products will drastically cut into meat...
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That Cheap, Delicious Rotisserie Chicken
So many home cooking food hacks start with a cheap rotisserie chicken — you know the one, $4.99 from Costco or maybe a touch more somewhere else. But why is that chicken so cheap? How was it raised and what’s even in it? What would it look like for farms to raise a chicken you could feel good…
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Trailer - What You're Eating
Get a glimpse of FoodPrint's new podcast, What You're Eating, hosted by Jerusha Klemperer. We aim to help you understand how your food gets to your plate, and to see the full impact of the food system on animals, planet and people. From practical conversations with farmers about the true cost of...
About this show
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.
Hosted by
FoodPrint.org