Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I don't care what side of the aisle you're on. It should be very obvious that we have a health crisis in this country and we need to do something, someone, let's do something to turn this ship around because our children are dying too soon and they're getting sick way too soon, all of us.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: So here's a crash. Like it happened, the collision happened. It just wasn't between the trains that we thought.
[00:00:24] Speaker A: Right. So we thought that Senator Marshall from Iowa.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Kansas.
[00:00:31] Speaker A: Kansas. I'm sorry, Senator Marshall from Kansas was going to collide with the President and his MAHA Commission.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: That did not happen at all. On May 22, 2025, the Maha Commission report was released as expected.
And today we're going to cover that report and how, how it's going to affect those of us in agriculture. Welcome to the Dust or Mud podcast. I'm Shelley and I'm rich.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: After 25 years in the United States Air Force, we retired and started a regenerative farm. And on our farm we grow beef, lamb, pork, chicken, eggs, raw dairy, all the proteins. Yeah. All the stuff.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: So we are affected by policies that come down in agriculture, just like the neck, the farmer next to us.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: Yeah. And on this podcast, we like to talk about food freedom and farming. And today I think it's probably going to be a farming focus. We'll touch a little bit on food because the commission does talk about that. And, you know, there's probably some discussion of freedom in the leave me alone, I want to do what I want kind of freedom discussion, but the majority of the discussion will be around farming. So.
[00:01:49] Speaker A: So to recap, Maha Make America Healthy Again. Started by grassroots organizations, moms, doctors, people who eat food, who wanted their kids to not eat, red dye number whatever, and all of the chemicals in Froot Loops and such really took a stand about a year ago and started to create a movement and got really worldwide attention and then was joined by RFK Jr and his lot of people and have really gone from grassroots to policymakers in the White House in less than a year. So fantastic for me to watch the opportunity within the American political system for a grassroots organization to make it to the White House. That is, that's America really. To me, it, no matter who it is, that we can all have a voice to take a stand and that stand really gets somewhere. And so they did. And the next thing you know, we have a MAHA commission in the White House giving us new information.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: Well, the report is Make America's Children Healthy Again. And it's really focused on the health of children.
And if you read it, it's 73 pages total. But like there's a title page and there's blank pages in between sections.
We sat and read it yesterday. It's really not a long read. You can make it through and, you.
[00:03:25] Speaker A: Know, somewhere between lots and lots of footnotes.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: Yeah. An hour and two hours. The report is basically a compilation of other people's work. It seems to me like writing my master's thesis, you don't really necessarily have an opinion. You're able to compilate facts from everywhere else and put that together and present that then to your, you know, your doctors that are going to be grading you on, you know, here's, here's my thesis and my synopsis of this other work and that. It really seemed like that to me. There's tons of footnotes. It is definitely a.
Looks and reads like an academic, academic paper.
[00:04:07] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. I, I saw someone post on social media.
Disappointing. No, no new information.
Nothing surprising and no new information.
Right.
[00:04:18] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the idea.
[00:04:19] Speaker A: It's not some new study that they've done.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: Right. They were, they were given a 180 day timeline. At day 100, they were to produce a report and by day 180 they were to start, they were to produce policy recommendations.
So this report, they had 100 days to cobble it together and they used the best data that they were able to find and put this together on. Really. We need to take a look at why America's children specifically, and Americans more generally are in the health crisis. You know, their words. In the health crisis that we find ourselves in today.
[00:05:01] Speaker A: I don't care what side of the aisle you're on. It should be very obvious that we have a health crisis and we need to do something, someone, let's do something to turn this ship around. Because our children are dying too soon and they're getting sick way too soon, all of us. So let's talk about what's really in the report.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: Well, spoiler alert, farmers make it into the report.
[00:05:29] Speaker A: Well, because guess what? That's where the food comes from.
[00:05:33] Speaker B: But the idea that food could make you healthy or sick I don't think is an idea that we grew up with.
[00:05:40] Speaker A: No, we didn't.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: So the idea that if you're going to have a commission and the report is going to be about making things healthier and why are things sick, it's not intuitively obvious, at least to our generation, that you would have farmers in that discussion.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: Yeah. You make a good Point.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a spoiler alert. Here's what they found. Some key points. They linked chronic childhood illness to ultra processed food chemical exposure and over medication.
[00:06:15] Speaker A: It emphasized shifting away from chemical dependent food production.
[00:06:21] Speaker B: Yep.
So on all of those points, we can talk a little bit about each one and we will go very, very shallow into over medication. I'm not going to touch it. I'm not a doctor. I'm not practicing any of that stuff. Right. Like I think that there are points made in the report that will be, will be discussed further and potential policy changes made about those things too.
I think the sections on ultra processed foods and the chemical use and chemical exposure is more pertinent to this, to our conversation.
[00:07:04] Speaker A: Okay. While we go there to the key points and we get into agriculture pretty quickly, the, the previous podcast that we did, we stated that there was going to be a train wreck and that a train wreck was coming, but it wasn't.
We did not witness the wreck that we thought we were going to.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: Here's the crash. Like it happened. The collision happened. It just wasn't between the trains that we thought.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: Right. So we thought that Senator Marshall from Iowa.
[00:07:39] Speaker B: Kansas.
[00:07:39] Speaker A: Kansas. I'm sorry, Senator Marshall from Kansas was going to collide with the President and his MAHA commission.
[00:07:52] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:07:52] Speaker A: That did not happen at all. In fact, he came out and he stated that he's been an OB G YN type person. He's delivered babies for the last 25 years and he and his farmers are. Everyone is on board with the MAHA Commission. We're going to make our soil healthier. We're going to. We are working in that direction and we support you.
I paraphrase.
[00:08:18] Speaker B: Yeah. That was surprising to us because in the past he's spoken out so vehemently in favor of pesticides like glyphosate roundup and we expected him to push back on this report and he didn't. He actually praised it. He was there at the White House when it was released. And so our thoughts on where this collision was going to happen were wrong there.
[00:08:43] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:43] Speaker B: The collision happened, just not with him.
[00:08:46] Speaker A: So it was with ag.
[00:08:47] Speaker B: Yeah, Big ag.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: Yeah. The big farmers were. They're colliding with the MAHA report.
And that was, that was one of the first things that we kind of eye opener was the big ag people.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: Yeah. I've got a few quotes from articles and I'll, I'll leave all of the articles that, that we used to put together this podcast. It's a whole slew of them. I think I can't remember, it was close to 10 or something. This report undermines public confidence in our food system, says the American Farm Bureau Federation.
It's a troubling and disappointing document that ignores decades of science based decisions, says Crop Life America.
There were a couple of politicians, a couple of congressmen that they were not happy claiming that the report endangers U.S. food security.
[00:09:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:49] Speaker B: Another one. This report offered no proposed solutions, only the defense of status quo and claims that farmers will suffer.
You know, we knew that, we knew that there was going to be pushback and it's, it's. I guess we should have probably seen that it. The strongest would be from the agrochemical produced. You know, big, big ag, basically.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:17] Speaker B: Would be the, the biggest pushback.
[00:10:18] Speaker A: Yeah, because. Because if they don't have, they feel that if they don't have the tools, referring to the glyphosate and atrazine, if they don't have those tools, that they won't be as productive. And that may be true.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: So the key points from the MAHA report. Just some quotes. Glyphosate and atrazine are pervasive chemicals with clear links to endocrine disruption, metabolic disease and neurodevelopmental disorders.
Just quotes from the report.
The burden of chronic disease in America's children cannot be separated from what we eat, the chemicals we're exposed to and the policies that govern them.
Our food system rewards chemical dependency over health and resilience. It's time to change that.
Industries profiting from our declining health must not dictate the future of our children.
[00:11:14] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:11:15] Speaker B: So those are some of the key points in quotes from the commission's report. So the real interests I think that are, are being shown that are rearing up the interests are the agrochemical companies and not necessarily the farmers.
I think the farmers are an easy talking point because it's a face.
Maybe not everybody, but a lot of people know a farmer. And so that when the talking point is America's farmers are being attacked, there's a face there, there's a guy or gal in overalls and a pitchfork and you know, like it brings growing our food.
[00:12:03] Speaker A: And we protect them, we're always in favor of protecting our farmers and for good reason.
The majority of the farmers in this country though are very, very large corporations.
Well, the majority of the food that is grown in this country is grown by very, very large corporations.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: That's true.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:12:24] Speaker B: The majority of farms are small farms.
[00:12:26] Speaker A: Are small farms, but they are a small portion of the food grown that's correct.
So being that the productivity is coming from the large farms.
[00:12:37] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: The large farms need the chemical tools in order to be that productive, they say is what they say.
[00:12:45] Speaker B: Now, I don't, I don't necessarily agree or disagree.
I, I question, I question it.
[00:12:51] Speaker A: Okay, fair enough. I would add though that farmers are generally people who want to be healthy. They want their dirt to be healthy, they want to grow good crops, they want to be out there doing, making good food. That's generally what farmers, especially family farmers, want to be doing.
That said, supported. When they are supported and given the time to make those changes, I think that the average family farmer, no matter what they're growing, will grow the best food possible, especially if they have the resources.
So if the day comes when they say, hey, let's knock it off with certain agrochemical chemicals that we've been using and let's swing over here and do things a little more regeneratively, please. Here, here is the support or the resources that you might need to make that switch for our national security, for our food security.
Then most farmers would be probably happy to do that.
[00:14:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yeah.
[00:14:12] Speaker A: I mean maybe not. I could be very wrong, but that it.
[00:14:15] Speaker B: Well, at the end of the day, what we have learned in the four years we've been doing this is at the end of the day a farmer is a businessman and in order to stay in business, there has to be a profit there. You can't continue to lose money, although most farms do, supported by outside income. Like I get that, but like the idea is not that you're in this to lose money and, and if the incentives shift such that, I don't know, you're incentivized to stop and you're disincentivized for using chemicals such as glyphosate and atrazine ones called out in the report.
The business side of things takes over and it becomes okay, it now makes business sense for me to do something different.
[00:15:09] Speaker A: Right?
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
[00:15:15] Speaker B: So one thing to think about I believe is, and we got a comment on our last podcast about the levels of toxicity and such and this history often repeats itself.
And we have passed with chemicals recent past that were once hailed as life saving, can't live without them, that are now banned because of their toxicity, one of which is DDT.
DDT was introduced late 1800s and by the early 1900s it was being used extensively as an insecticide. And insect borne disease diseases were coming down because of the use of DDT.
By the 80s it was outlawed in the United States. It's used some places in the world, but most places not.
But yet DDT is still found in the soil. Like it sticks around for a long time.
[00:16:23] Speaker A: Quite persistent.
[00:16:24] Speaker B: Yeah, quite persistent. So it went from a life savings, miracle type chemical to a, you know, a toxin that is.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: We need to knock it off.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: Right. A lot of us, especially in America, think of Agent Orange as a chemical that is, you know, particularly nasty.
[00:16:46] Speaker A: Well, many of us were affected by it by our parents, the young men who were sent to Vietnam. It is, it was a problem and has been, has a long lasting effect on us as kids and on our parents. What Agent Orange did to those guys over there in Vietnam.
[00:17:04] Speaker B: Agent Orange, though, like that term, was a military term.
The chemicals inside are 2,4D, which is still in use today, and 2,4,5T, which has since been banned. They would take those two, mix them together with diesel or kerosene or something and then spray it to exfoliate the jungle and, and to kill the row crops.
[00:17:32] Speaker A: So they took two perfectly legal at the time substances. They combined them, mix them with something that would stick. The diesel will stick to the plants when they spray it on it and.
Well, it did. It was very effective.
[00:17:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
But the point being, at the time, Those chemicals, the 2,4D and 2,4,5T were both commonly used chemicals.
We think of Agent Orange, it's like so negative because there's so much negative that came from it.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: That's toxic. Of course you would never use that.
[00:18:11] Speaker B: Right.
And we think of it as a, how could you do that? You know, like looking back on it.
[00:18:19] Speaker A: Well, we're looking through a completely different lens than they were living at that time.
[00:18:24] Speaker B: Those were, those were just approved chemicals.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: Right. So in the comment that you were referring to on our last podcast, the person very genuinely asked, but when you say that it's detected in the water and it's detected in 87% of, of children and urine and all of the things, who's to say that that's not an acceptable level? What, what level is acceptable to be in the water or to be within our, our systems, in our bodies at the time they were spraying Agent Orange, they didn't.
[00:19:02] Speaker B: Well, and there are acceptable levels with glyphosate and the, the levels are typically lower than what the EPA says is the maximum acceptable.
But do we have it right?
[00:19:17] Speaker A: We don't know.
Well, what year was glyphosate brought into the market?
[00:19:24] Speaker B: I think. Do you remember 1974?
[00:19:27] Speaker A: Okay, so now we've had time, time has happened. 50 years have gone by since glyphosate has been in the system.
And if you. Now we get to look at 50 years ahead and say, is it persisting in our systems and in our waterways and in our soil and in our food? Is that now we can see this might be a problem where when it came on board, they did the testing and it seemed okay.
[00:20:04] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's one of the things that the chemical exposure and the one of the things that the report highlights is nothing looks at the persistent exposure. Like if there's an EPA exposure limit, what happens if you are under that limit every day for a year or 10 years or 20 years, but you're just barely below the limit. Right. Like you've had a safe level of exposure yesterday and today and tomorrow.
[00:20:35] Speaker A: What's the accumulative effect?
[00:20:37] Speaker B: What's the accumulative effect of what would be considered a safe level of exposure? And then the other thing that they're, they have not looked at is what is the effect of all of the chemicals together?
[00:20:51] Speaker A: Yeah, that one, that One has. Well, 2, 4D was a chemical.
[00:20:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:57] Speaker A: And what was the other one?
[00:20:59] Speaker B: 2, 4, 5T.
[00:21:00] Speaker A: Okay. That one. They were both by themselves a thing.
[00:21:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:05] Speaker A: And then they combined them.
They didn't know what the long term effect of the human exposure was going to be. And that's just one little, one example of we're eating all of these chemicals. Our kids are eating all of these chemicals every day. And no one has done a lab study on if we combine all these things and give it to them every day for a really long period of time, what's the outcome going to be?
[00:21:30] Speaker B: Right.
[00:21:31] Speaker A: We don't know.
[00:21:32] Speaker B: And that's, that's where the commission's report is, is throwing up a flag, if you will, on the, the chemicals being used to produce our food is while, while we're not. And they even say this, the American food system is safe.
[00:21:48] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:21:50] Speaker B: They say that right after the, you know, they say all of these things in the American food is potentially causing a lot of health issues. But I think the point they're trying to make is there's something going on.
And in and of itself, the food is below whatever levels are set as safe.
Right. Like, we're not saying that this food that is being produced has toxic levels of something, but all combined, something's going on and it could be that combined all of these things are creating issues.
[00:22:37] Speaker A: It's quite a concoction of problems.
[00:22:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:46] Speaker A: Go ahead.
[00:22:48] Speaker B: We haven't talked about Ultra processed foods yet.
[00:22:50] Speaker A: Okay, well, before we go there.
[00:22:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:53] Speaker A: Back to the ag and the farmers, they made a lot of, a lot of statements, but the thing that they didn't do was offer any solutions.
[00:23:02] Speaker B: The farmers, the Big Ag.
[00:23:06] Speaker A: Big Ag, referencing the Maha report, they, you know, they did stamp their feet and pound their fist in their statements about it. They're very upset about the report.
However, they only. They didn't give an alternative answer.
[00:23:27] Speaker B: Or an alternative explanation.
[00:23:28] Speaker A: Or an alternative explanation.
[00:23:30] Speaker B: Right. They did not say glyphosate is safe. Here's what's actually making America's children sick.
Right. They did not offer that second portion.
[00:23:45] Speaker A: That would have been really helpful.
[00:23:46] Speaker B: There was no.
Here's actually what it is.
There's no answers. And that's what Shelley's trying to say. It's like they didn't offer.
It's not us. It's actually this thing. This.
It was just a. It's not us. This is going against science. And one of the things that the Maha report does is, goes through all of the different studies and who has funded the. The studies. And the outcomes of those studies are significantly skewed based on who funded them. Whether it be Big Ag or Big Food.
None of those studies are showing negative outcomes.
[00:24:28] Speaker A: That's coincidence.
[00:24:29] Speaker B: No, no. Then that's one of the things that the report is saying, is that.
Yes, got it. You're claiming science, but the science that you're claiming you paid for.
Yeah.
And we don't trust it because the results are so skewed based on whether you paid for it or not.
[00:24:59] Speaker A: They weren't going to spend all of that money and get a bad outcome.
[00:25:04] Speaker B: No, but it did give them the outcome that allows them to claim science.
You know, and then, and it's like, I don't know.
[00:25:14] Speaker A: Okay, ultra processed food.
[00:25:16] Speaker B: Yeah. They, they highlight ultra processed food as another one issue with children and making children sick. Like 70% of calories coming from ultra processed foods. They go into the snap, the food programs and the amount of, of ultra processed food, sugary drinks that are purchased with and through snap.
Like, they, they do a good job of highlighting the issues that are coming from ultra processed food as well. And. No, it's not. You know, what's the definition of ultra processed food? You know, like, there's a, there's always an argument that comes up there, but I think the, the way that they settled around it is if it's made from ingredients that you don't find in a common kitchen, then it's ultra processed.
[00:26:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
And That's a good, that's a really good definition to me.
[00:26:12] Speaker B: And there were reasons for it.
You know, World War II and agriculture in Europe was decimated and America needs to now feed the world and it needs to be shelf stable and it needs to last a long time. You know, yada yada, the reasons. Got it. Now again, but if this is what's contributing to the health crisis that we have, let's stop.
[00:26:43] Speaker A: We have to change what we're doing, what we're eating and what we're producing and putting in front of our kids.
[00:26:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
And they, they call out the three main ingredients that you find in all ultra processed foods, which is a. A processed refined grain, a fat, particularly seed oils, highly processed seed oils, and sugar, which is highly processed, highly processed.
[00:27:11] Speaker A: High fructose corn syrup.
[00:27:12] Speaker B: Yeah, most of it. High fructose corn syrup. So you have highly processed grain product, a highly processed fat product and a highly processed sugar product all combined together in some form.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:25] Speaker B: To make it a cracker or a cheese.
[00:27:27] Speaker A: And these are, these are cereal, y' all. These are all like mechanized foods. These are factory created, lab created foods that you cannot even make in your kitchen. You cannot make that level of ultra processed grain.
You don't have the machines to get it to that level. You don't have, you can't make and bleach it and all that kind of stuff. Make it shelf stable like it is. You can't make high fructose corn syrup in your kitchen. And you certainly are never going to get the oil from a canola.
[00:27:59] Speaker B: I think that in your kitchen. That would be interesting.
You can't. Let's make canola oil.
[00:28:05] Speaker A: Yeah. I would like to make some canola oil. No. And you're not gonna, you're not gonna make soybean oil. I mean, I guess you could. No. Because it has to be so highly processed and so heat treated and all to. To extract it. It's a chemical process.
[00:28:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:23] Speaker A: That we then say, here is this, here are these chemical combinations wrapped up in this pretty little colorful bow for our children to eat, one place of which is the place where they start eating. And a lot of it is in our baby formula. And that's just probably one of the saddest places to me, like genuinely sad that we put that stuff in our infant formula.
[00:28:49] Speaker B: And that's something that is definitely RFK Jr talks about quite a bit. And a lot of the articles that you see about Maha, a lot of them will talk about parents opting for European formulas because they don't use all of that high fructose corn syrup and soybean oil and things that are, are in the formulas that are made here.
[00:29:21] Speaker A: Yeah, it's sad. It's really, really sad for me.
[00:29:25] Speaker B: Moving, moving it forward. Then the, they do, you know, eek into some solutions like, you know, regenerative farming instead of industrial farming and whole foods instead of ultra processed foods.
[00:29:46] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great place to start.
We were watching another podcast earlier today, and Simon Sinek was talking to Stephen Bartlett and he made a comment and I immediately thought about farming and he said he, it was something to the effect of scale.
Anytime you scale something, you break it.
Anytime you take anything that you're making or producing, manufacturing, and you want to make more at a ridiculous scale, quality is going to suffer.
[00:30:25] Speaker B: And he was really talking about the human side of things. Simon was.
And he was saying that things that are handmade hold a, hold a value. And a lot of that value is because it was handmade. It has flaws.
It's not perfect. And then when you take that thing and put it on a machine and now it's machine made, there are no flaws. It's just stamped out. Everyone is exactly the same as the other and it loses its value. And so in his terms, you break it. It made me think of the Persian rugs.
[00:31:07] Speaker A: I thought of the same thing. I thought of our Persian rugs.
[00:31:10] Speaker B: Yeah. One of the things that you, the time that I spent deployed in the Middle East, I did get to learn how to do rug shopping. And one of the things as you're looking at Persian rugs to know if they're handmade is you look for the flaws and that you don't want them to be like the things put together crooked, but you do want to be able to find flaws in the thing and the, the most expensive ones. The things that you will find aren't actually flaws, they're actually signatures. And so you, you look for something that says, this is not made by a machine.
So in our Persian rugs, there are, there are lines that don't quite meet up. You know, the pattern will meet here all the way around the rug and then there will be an offset. Like, and that doesn't make it less valuable. That actually makes it more valuable.
[00:32:09] Speaker A: Right.
[00:32:10] Speaker B: And taking Simon's comment into agriculture, you take what is, you know, a, a family farm and the care and love and, and toil that goes into whatever that product is, and you industrialize that to thousands of acres or thousands of head of cattle, and you, you, the system breaks you know that the, the, I don't know, the value, the quality of it just goes down.
[00:32:44] Speaker A: Oftentimes, though, in agriculture, people will say the way that we farm, you, you can't scale it.
We could scale bigger than we are and still make a really good food. But you can't go to where the world needs it. You can't. It's not scalable. But as Will Harris has said in the past, while it isn't scalable, it's replicable.
[00:33:09] Speaker B: Right.
[00:33:09] Speaker A: So you take these medium sized farms that are regenerative, that are growing things in a way that makes that hand grown, healthy animal or crop or crop, and you grow that in more farms.
[00:33:28] Speaker B: Right.
[00:33:30] Speaker A: Not one farm big, many farms smaller.
[00:33:34] Speaker B: Right.
[00:33:35] Speaker A: And each farmer then being able to grow in a healthier way.
[00:33:40] Speaker B: Right.
[00:33:41] Speaker A: So it is doable.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:44] Speaker A: And it's just the circumstances.
[00:33:46] Speaker B: I think it wraps back around to what you were saying with the incentives.
You know, the, the small farmer is not incentivized the same way the big row crop farmer is.
Right. That's right. Your government assistance, your, your insurances and stuff like that are for your big row crop farmers. They're not, they're not even for your specialty crops, your tomatoes and strawberries and stuff like that. Like, they don't.
[00:34:15] Speaker A: The things that you find in a salad are not.
[00:34:18] Speaker B: No, that's not where your crop insurance kicks in. Crop insurance kicks in with the industrial farming, the corn and soy and wheat.
[00:34:26] Speaker A: So back to the report.
This report was really, it's designed to get us some information together so that we can make policy changes.
So could there be major policy changes coming down the pipe?
Yeah, for some of that, some of the incentives, for some of the, the insurances. And how's, How's Brook Rollins going to handle this?
[00:34:51] Speaker B: Well, I think if there weren't the, at least the possibility, then all of the big ag wouldn't. They wouldn't waste their time or breath. Yeah, yeah, they wouldn't waste their time or breath. They would just be like, whatever.
Right. But they're not. They're really coming out hard against it.
[00:35:08] Speaker A: So the question will be, can those folks who, who often have a very large influence inside dc, inside the Beltway, through lobbying, are they going to be able to be persuasive enough through their words, actions, money or whatnot, to prevent the policies from, from coming forward and that not just in agriculture, but with the pharmaceuticals, with every, with everyone who would have something against this report?
[00:35:38] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Big Ag and Big food and Big Pharma and Big Pharma are probably all going to get together on this one.
[00:35:44] Speaker A: Right.
[00:35:45] Speaker B: And Big Pharma is the biggest lobbyist and I think the next one is probably Big Food.
[00:35:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:35:52] Speaker B: Big Ag is probably right in there too, somewhere.
[00:35:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:55] Speaker B: So, you know, this may be one of those instances where you have executive action and then the legislative action is slow, at least slow if not forthcoming.
I think the MAHA Commission will probably recommend policy changes.
And so far the President has been very willing to sign executive orders that are in line with the policy recommendations that these types of commissions and the people that he's put into place, he's been willing to sign that. Now is that followed up by the legislative branch and turned into law?
That'll be way more difficult. Yeah, I think.
[00:36:50] Speaker A: Yeah, generally.
So we don't know.
[00:36:53] Speaker B: But there's a, there's a lot of power still in agencies like the Environmental Protection agency or the U.S. department of Agriculture. Like there are, there are still a lot of powers there. And we talked about Chevron deference and the fact that the courts don't have to just defer to the agencies anymore, but the agencies still have a lot of regulatory power.
[00:37:18] Speaker A: Right?
That's true.
[00:37:20] Speaker B: So, you know, if the agencies get behind this, there are, there are certainly, it's certainly plausible that the rules could.
[00:37:30] Speaker A: Change for us here at Ergr Farms and at the Duster Mud podcast.
I, what I, what we want is transparency.
We're really coming out of the food system.
I should have a right to know.
[00:37:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
With ultra processed foods it would be so hard.
Like, where did that grain of canola come from?
You know, it would just be, it would be, it would be so difficult. But what, what Shelly's saying is, I want to know, was glyphosate sprayed on this?
[00:38:18] Speaker A: Right?
[00:38:20] Speaker B: Like that's simple. Like just like yes. Just tell me yes or no.
[00:38:23] Speaker A: Or do you just make the assumption of yes today? In today's world, you just make the assumption of yes.
[00:38:28] Speaker B: Just what she's saying is transparency.
[00:38:30] Speaker A: Transparency.
[00:38:31] Speaker B: Did you use it?
[00:38:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:33] Speaker B: And then some people will say I don't care, and then they buy it. Right. Like, but at least you have the information.
[00:38:42] Speaker A: That gets into another discussion though, because if it's, if it is really causing the health harms that they, they say that it might be, then that's lead that's leaning over into health care of which is crushing this country and eat it if you want to, but we've got a healthcare problem and that's going to come over into the healthcare world with the most of the people who are on, who are on snap.
They, they also probably are on.
Their insurance is Medicaid. And so eat what you want.
And then the insurance has to, financially, we have to cover back to the glyphosate problem or the atrazine or whatever's going into the food, because that's what people are choosing to eat. And I'm not just railing on SNAP or on Medicaid, but the fact that just eat what you want.
[00:39:45] Speaker B: No, and you're absolutely right. There are times, obviously, take ddt, where the chemical rises to the level of. Yeah, no, we're not using that anymore. And then there are public health things like you're going to put on a seatbelt.
Right. Like it's my choice.
It's my body, it's my choice. If I want to drive the car without a seatbelt, I ought to be able to do that.
[00:40:09] Speaker A: But if you get pulled over and they're going to give you a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt.
[00:40:13] Speaker B: Right. So like that choice has been taken away in many states, the choice to wear a helmet on a motorcycle is taken away.
Right. Like you, if you're riding a motorcycle, you will, you will wear a helmet. If you're driving a car, you will wear a seatbelt.
[00:40:26] Speaker A: Like if you're under the age of 21, you may not drink alcohol.
[00:40:30] Speaker B: Right. There are, there are certain rules of this society that we have.
[00:40:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:35] Speaker B: That where the, the societal rules infringe on personal rights or freedoms. And, you know, this, this could certainly be leaning that direction. The right to use whatever chemical I want.
You know, the EPA certainly steps in and says no to that.
[00:40:54] Speaker A: Right.
[00:40:55] Speaker B: And I believe that the chemical, Big ag and agrochemical producers are concerned that that could be. What's happening now is that the government is going to step in and start to say, yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna cut this out or we're gonna reduce it or we're gonna do something. You know, we're gonna stop incentivizing doing it and start incentivizing not doing it.
[00:41:27] Speaker A: So what's the next steps with the MAHA Commission and the report? So they've, they got the report out.
[00:41:33] Speaker B: Yep. 80 days. They have to have policy recommendations.
[00:41:36] Speaker A: Policy recommendations are coming across all of these different types of things that they brought up. They're.
[00:41:45] Speaker B: They'Re going to recommend policy.
[00:41:46] Speaker A: Yeah, that's going to be interesting.
[00:41:48] Speaker B: That's how we started last podcast was, you know, what started out as fringe is becoming policy.
And we're, we're less than three months from at least recommendations on what, on what policy should be.
[00:42:02] Speaker A: Well, whether we like it or not, this administration has not been slow to act.
[00:42:05] Speaker B: Truth.
[00:42:06] Speaker A: You know, so we'll see what that brings in the food and agriculture and health.
[00:42:13] Speaker B: Right. And for a lot of us, we don't have to wait. We don't have to wait for policy recommendations.
[00:42:19] Speaker A: No, we do not.
[00:42:20] Speaker B: We can say we're going to buy our food from a regenerative farm like air to ground farms.
You can buy your meat from air to ground meats.
Happy to ship it to you. Find a regenerative farmer in your area.
And you know, we don't have to wait for a policy recommendation to tell us that ultra processed foods might not be the most healthy thing for us to eat.
[00:42:45] Speaker A: And we know right now that they are spraying GMO foods with chemicals. We can choose a different food system.
[00:42:56] Speaker B: That's right. You can vote with your dollar. You can eat whole foods.
[00:43:02] Speaker A: Right, Right.
[00:43:04] Speaker B: And you know, the, I think the, at least if you follow the commission report, you know, get your stuff from a regenerative or organic farm and eat whole foods, the report is probably.
It doesn't matter to you.
[00:43:25] Speaker A: Hey, one of the answers real quick. One of the answers that they had or one of the suggestions or talking points somewhere I saw was we got to get back in the kitchen.
We got to get back in the kitchens. We have been sent out of the kitchen, if you will, and we've got to get back in our kitchens. We've got to start cooking real food again.
We've got to start putting ingredients in pots and cooking the ingredients that our grandmothers cooked with.
And when we know that the, what the ingredient was that went in the pot, we know that it's good.
[00:44:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:44:01] Speaker A: And we've got to start. Some of us don't even remember how to cook a chicken. We've got to get back in our kitchens.
[00:44:08] Speaker B: Right?
[00:44:09] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:44:09] Speaker B: Yep. Absolutely.
[00:44:11] Speaker A: Well, this was fun.
[00:44:12] Speaker B: Yeah. And we'll keep looking at it. We'll, we'll keep an eye on what's going on with it.
[00:44:16] Speaker A: And, and, and, and all of us are not going to agree on these subjects.
[00:44:20] Speaker B: Truth.
[00:44:20] Speaker A: We are not going to agree on what's the right way forward, what, what the, this administration or the next should be doing. That is okay.
[00:44:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:44:32] Speaker A: Many people don't agree with our opinions on this podcast. That is okay.
[00:44:36] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I think we can agree though, that we would like our children to be healthy.
Let's agree.
[00:44:42] Speaker A: You're right.
[00:44:42] Speaker B: Agree on that.
Let's do whatever it takes to make our children healthy.
[00:44:47] Speaker A: Absolutely. Thanks for hanging out with us again today. And until next time. Bye, y' all.
[00:44:51] Speaker B: Bye.
