Candy Jail

Single serving foods help to promote our culture's work obsessed tendencies. Prepared foods like freezer meals and single serving "meal replacement bars" take us away from one another, and reinforce the idea that work is more important than meal sharing. This model for food production also happens to be very profitable. Tune in to hear how the conditions for this culturally-deprived food environment arose, and how it may be playing a role in the mental health crisis.    Guest Marin Toscano breaks down the spread of this model of single serving food overseas.

I'm joined by investigate reporter Sharon Lerner to discuss the ways that the plastics industry pulls the wool over our eyes in order to keep plastic production growing. We discuss the soft power of so-called recycling in forming a public acceptance of plastic use. Sharon breaks down the ways that the plastic lobby works to subvert democratic process in order to keep their profits high.   Sharon Lerner covers health and the environment. She joined ProPublica in 2022 after seven years as an investigative reporter at The Intercept, where she focused on failures of the environmental regulatory process as well as biosafety and pandemic profiteering. 

Plastic surrounds us, but how has it come to dominate our food in the manner that it has? This week, we speak to Jan Dell, the founder of The Last Beach Clean Up, about the ways that the oil and gas industry are tied to the food industry. When decisions involving corporations this big are made, there are no accidents: the plastic we see polluting our world is because of the profitability they’ve aligned to seek as a joint effort — at the expense of all that breathes.   

In episode 3, we delved into the way that overproduced food is made to circumvent the public in a systematic fashion. On today's show, we see how that overproduction manifests on a local level. The question of how to distribute waste and excess is a logistical challenge that is foisted on small food charities. Our guest, Kathy Stanley, helps illustrate to us what that operation looks like on a micro level, and explains how her organization seeks to de-stigmatize receiving rescued food.  Kathy Stanley is the founder and director of Joy's Kitchen, a food rescue based out of metro Denver.

Today’s episode focuses on the systematic "paywall" that the food industry has created in order to keep their excess food hidden. Overproduction is a feature of our food system, but keeping that food inaccessible is how price points remain high and continuing growing. How do corporations manage all this excess without letting it impact their profit margins? Guest Josh Lohnes guides us through the operations of Fe*d*ng America, the organization that partners with all major food producers and distributors to help make this possible.  Joshua Lohnes is a broadly trained human geographer well versed in theories of development, political ecology,  and food studies. He serves as a research assistant professor in the department of geology and geography at WVU advancing questions related to agri-food systems governance with an emphasis on the political economy of nutrition assistance programs.

Professor Jesse LeCavalier joins the show to discuss the relentless pursuit of efficiency that has become of a feature of supermarkets since Walmart introduced radical changes to the industry. We learn about the ways that Walmart's architecture is informed by its commitment to efficiency at all costs. Jesse LeCavalier is a professor of architecture at Cornell University and the author of The Rule of Logistics: Walmart and the Architecture of Fulfillment.

Today’s show will cover the origins of the supermarket, and will trace how its invention opened the door for consumerism. Guest Raj Patel explains how Clarence Saunders and his supermarket, Piggly Wiggly, set the stage for food to radically transform. We discuss Raj's book Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System. Raj Patel is an award-winning author, film-maker and academic. He is a Research Professor in the Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin.